What are the best Florence and the Machine songs? That’s what we’re here to find out. Considering Florence and the Machine now have four studio albums, it’s getting harder and harder to narrow down their best tracks. All their albums are wondrous pieces of art and therefore deserve to have at least a couple of tracks pulled for our top songs list.
Here are the best Florence and the Machine songs for a well-rounded listen to Florence Welch’s diverse discography:
Best Florence and the Machines Songs – The List
10. Between Two Lungs – Lungs
Florence songs are often driven by a signature dreamy mood; the only thing grounding them to Earth is the beat, often a mixture of drums, tambourine, and claps. This song is no exception. Floaty melody and staccato bursts of piano make up this track. The notes travel up the scale, hopeful, as she paints an image of breath – a tactile breath. An escaped, corporeal exhale that travels, carries the speaker like a strong wind and slips into one mouth from another. Welch described the lyrics as being about “the wait you share when you’re kissing someone. And the way it fills you up, and you don’t want the bubble to burst”. A simply stunning song.
9. Hunger – High as Hope
In reference to Welch’s experience with eating disorders in her youth, this track explores what it means to try and fill our wounds with salves that do not heal. The chorus is thunderous and orchestrally expansive; it invites the listener to sing along. Welch speaks on a shared yearning we all know and offers us the chance to combat it together. Or, as Welch stated in an explanation of the song: “together we become a choir . . . louder than loneliness.”
8. Ship To Wreck – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
This track jumps right in, upbeat and spirited despite its darker lyrics. It bops along with a bassline that echoes the riff of the chorus. Not one to shy away from depicting the fragility and flaws within, Welch said she was inspired by her own “self-destructive side”. The lyrics are self-realizing, questioning her own behavior. In that way she does best, Florence utilizes her vocal chops to bounce between gentle talk-singing and fuller, frustrated shouting. It reflects the circular narrative of self-sabotage: did I build this ship to wreck?
7. All This And Heaven Too – Ceremonials
A gentle rumination on love: what it is, how it’s described, and how to understand it. The track is meta in the sense that Florence admits she may write love into poetry and sing it in songs, but that doesn’t mean she grasps it fully in the way she wants to. The string instrumentation is sweeping and delicate, indicating she is not frustrated by her attempts but rather motivated to study love further. Though she claims love has a language of its own, this track expresses love through its love of love.
6. Spectrum – Ceremonials
Another love track! This track deals with the spectrum of a loving relationship. Every color illuminates by the very act of your love speaking your name. The song is almost ineffably bright, shining. Upbeat and twinkly, the instrumentation is the perfect complement to the joyful lyrics. The quick, vivid drum beat makes it impossible to not want to get up and dance. It’s a refreshingly positive outlook on love and life. If rainbows could talk, they’d sing this tune.
5. Cosmic Love – Lungs
So we’ve established that Florence Welch likes to write about love. But this time we’re in space. Or rather, the dark. The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. The vocal range in this track is captivating, with a whisper-like beginning that tiptoes into a big, booming chorus. Florence’s words teem with raw emotion. In opposition to “Spectrum,” this song depicts an unhappy love. As Welch described it in an interview, the song equates being in love to “giv(ing) yourself to the dark, to being blind.”
4. Big God – High as Hope
A most artful track about the colloquial 21st-century term, “ghosting.” Florence described the aftermath of this sudden loss of contact as creating a “desire within the void.” A desire to find a big god, big enough to fill you up. As human relations prove unsatisfying, we look for something bigger. Something divine. It’s a dark, creeping ballad, revolving around simple chords played low on the piano.The vocals are at times deep, primal and unfeminine. A raging beneath the surface. The track is best experienced with the music video, a haunting dance number in water. Dare I ask who was brave enough to ghost Florence
Welch?
3. Dog Days Are Over – Lungs
When I first heard this track, I thought she was saying the dark days are over. Either way, the song expresses a need to leave the past behind. With the melody’s charm and almost cartoonish imagery, it displays a strange juxtaposition between the sensation of dizziness and grim action – hiding, running, a bullet to the back, the desire to survive. It is a big widely popular hit and lends itself to numerous interpretations. This, paired with the mix of calm and urgent instrumentation, keeps us coming back to listen again.
2. St Jude – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
This song has an understated elegance. It’s unusually somber and subdued, an almost tranquil reflection on a failing relationship. Perhaps closer to poetry than music, it is a perfect example of the emotion that a simple, steadied tempo can induce. Both the restrained vocal performance and the lyrics portray a sense of hopelessness; St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. An exploration of heartbreak, and the bleak intention to learn something from it. It’s Welch’s most devastatingly beautiful, stripped-back song.
1. Shake It Off – Ceremonials
Disposal of that which does not serve you. This track, in basic terms, is about shaking off what’s haunting you. In Welch’s words, it represents “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.” I’ve placed it at number one as her most grand anthem track. With a mixture of church organ instrumentation, bells and tambourines, it has a gospel-like sound to it. The calm, calculated opening builds into a bombastically jubilant celebration of rebirth. It simply is the best song to sing along to. What is more gratifying than belting out what the hell!?, even if you don’t sound as good as Welch when you do it. But let’s be honest, no-one can sound as good as her.