“So it goes ‘New Year’s Day’ verse and chorus, ‘Manuscript’ bridge into ‘Long Live’ bridge, into the down verse of ‘Long Live,’ into ‘Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you,’ into ‘Long Live’ chorus but slowed down to half time, ‘New Year’s Day’ chords underneath it, into the last verse of ‘The Manuscript,’” Swift rattles off in the trailer’s final clip as her mother watches with a stunned expression that may be one of horror or one of admiration, but is probably both.
After a beat, Andrea says, “That’s complicated,” not even bothering to remove her balled-up fist from where it’s resting on her chin as she listens to her daughter’s grand plan for the supersized surprise song mash-up that she performed for the final night of the tour in Vancouver on December 8, 2024.
An incredibly successful artist, Swift occupies a singular position in our cultural consciousness, with her work and very life drawing just as much public criticism as they do fervent fan adoration. She’s incredibly private about her personal life—remember the rumor that she left her apartment building in a gigantic suitcase so as not to be photographed outside? I sure do!—while sharing other experiences and feelings in painstaking detail, whether through her song lyrics and letters or documentaries and interviews. Consider that she spent nearly two hours chatting with then boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother, Jason Kelce, on their New Heights podcast in August—sharing not only the title, cover art, and release date for her newest album, The Life of a Showgirl, but also Travis’s dream pet, a “really specific type of otter.” (In short: a wild one he rescues, thus earning its unending devotion.)
After the recording, later in the day, Travis proposed to her. A few short weeks later, she shared that too.
All of this is to say that just when it seems like Swift has shown all her cards and there’s nothing left to reveal, the singer produces yet more compelling work. The original Eras Tour concert film had its theatrical run extended, then extended again, and you’d think, perhaps, that the appetite for a three-plus-hour filmed show would be sated, but here comes The Eras Tour | The Final Show, another full-length filmed concert, this one including the Tortured Poets Department set that Swift added to the tour after that album’s release. The new concert film will be released on December 12 on Disney+, as will the first two of episodes of the six-installment docuseries, just in time for Swift’s 36th birthday on December 13.
Cottage wh*res and coven queens, gather round. 1500s sirens with bleeding nipples and thrashing tails couldn’t out-sing Florence & The Machine when she’s in her mythic bag. And honestly? She’s been haunting (and treating us with) folklore since forever, so a Halloween album drop was never going to be a trick. Everybody Scream (produced by Florence Welch, Aaron Dessner, Mark Bowen & James Fordis) is what happens when gothic cathedral choirs get drunk on moonlight and sea salt. It’s got all the eerie elegance we crave—windchimes that tinkle not by breeze but by the ghost in the rafters on ‘Drink Deep,’ banshee wails curling through ‘You Can Have It All,’ and titles that flaunt their witchiness on lace sleeves, like ‘Witch Dance’ and ‘Sympathy Magic.’
To celebrate this deliciously deadly dawn, we conjured five crystal grids—one for each of our top tracks. Think moon-charged quartz, screaming carnelian, and obsidian that’s seen things. Because if Florence just opened a portal, you know we’re stepping through—in heels, of course.
🩸’Witch Dance’
Sounding like a possession in motion from the first breath, ‘Witch Dance’ channels the Irish grief ritual of keening—a loud, high-pitched wail for the dead—to express not just sorrow, but its collective release. The sound appears first in the intro, haunting the air, then sinks into the production like a ghost remembering its body. Yet beneath the communal mourning lies something achingly personal: a metaphorical coitus with death, referencing Florence’s near-death experience following an ectopic pregnancy two years ago. It all culminates in one of the record’s most gutting lines: “there’s nobody more monstrous than me.”
Ritual Grid for ‘Witch Dance:’ This grid hums where grief and ecstasy blur—light a single candle and let the flame waver with your breath.
Begin with Garnet at the base, the life-force ignition stone that grounds passion into the body and keeps your spirit tethered when it wants to drift.
Place Obsidian at the left point, a torch in the dark—it transforms pain into power, fear into fire.
End with Moonstone at the right point, the crystal of divine surrender, helping you release what must die so something softer can rise.
Sway with it. Let your pulse keep time with the keening. This isn’t mourning—it’s resurrection in motion.
🌊 ‘Kraken’
A ‘Cassandra’ lyric parallel? Yup, ‘Kraken’ has it. Where ‘Cassandra’—based on the Trojan princess cursed by Apollo so her prophecies would never be believed—asks, “Well, can you see me? I cannot see you,” ‘Kraken’ replies, “Well, do you see me now?” Both are metaphors for how the industry treats women as disposable, never granted the same footing as their male peers, only for her now to rise, colossal and undeniable, above what they once imagined. Its production is gorgeous: siren backing vocals, floorboards that creak like ship decks, the crackle of storm wind, and clapping chants that sound like beer-soaked sailors hailing their queen.
Ritual Grid for ‘Kraken’: This one’s for when you’re done shrinking for anyone.
Start with Aquamarine as the base—the ocean’s own crystal, a calm current through emotional turbulence.
Place Labradorite at the left point for transformation’s shimmer—it’s the flash right before you break the surface.
Finish with Chrysocolla on the right point, the stone of truth and song, to reclaim your voice and let it echo like waves against steel.
Breathe like the tide: in power, out release. You’ve always been the storm they whispered about.
🥀 ‘Buckle’
Even when thousands of adoring roses get thrown on stage, it’s the haunting, withered black one that catches your eye—the one that reminds you what it feels like when your muse takes you for granted. ‘Buckle,’ co-written by Mitski, is an ode to that lonely ache of being an option even when, in Florence’s case, the entire world treats her like a star. With its hushed, stripped-back guitar melody, it’s the moment the curtains fall away and you’re not watching the bewitching siren anymore—you’re watching the woman underneath.
Ritual Grid for ‘Buckle’: Lay your crystals under dim candlelight—no spotlight here, just soft flicker.
Rhodonite sits at the heart center: its rose-pink glow streaked with black veins, a spell for love after chaos.
Place a Smoky Quartz at the left point to ground your grief and dissolve any attachments that still hum with old pain.
End with Rose Quartz at the crown or center of your palm, its light-pink aura whispering, you are worthy of softness, even when the music stops.
Breathe deep. Let the melody hum through your bones. This is how you heal when even the applause feels lonely.
🕯️ ‘The Old Religion’
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Florence & The Machine fans, eat your heart out. When talking to Radio X, Florence said that while writing ‘The Old Religion’ with Aaron Dessner, she was trying to craft something that belonged in those worlds. A few decades may have passed since Buffy’s slay-age, and our vampires might now come with daylight rings and leather jackets (looking at you, Damon Salvatore), but this track shows us exactly what those shadowy realms would sound like, infused with Florence’s haunted brilliance.
Beyond its vampiric glamour, ‘The Old Religion’ also confronts addiction—its harrowing guitar-piano pairing layered with trembling drums and the biting line, “And it’s your troubled hero back for season six.” The lyric mirrors both Florence’s own cyclical rebirth in her sixth album and Buffy’s literal resurrections throughout the series: her leaps through portals, her returns from death, her endless struggle to find light in the dark.
Ritual Grid for ‘The Old Religion’: This grid hums best under candlelight—a flicker for every life you’ve survived.
Start with Pyrite at the base: a golden shield of unshakable confidence, your armor when the shadows flirt too close.
Anchor Black Tourmaline at the left point to keep you grounded through energy surges—the kind that make your pulse feel supernatural.
End with Carnelian on the right point for raw instinct, sacred rage, and the courage to release what no longer feeds you.
Let the music rumble through your ribs like a heartbeat you’ve heard in a hundred lifetimes. You’ve slain your monsters before—this time, you dance with them.
🌙 ‘And Love’
Our gorgeous outro—and perhaps a subconscious echo of ‘My Love’ from Dance Fever—’And Love’ feels like the wish the album itself has been building toward. Amid its messy, scream-worthy sisters, Florence describes this track with Zane Lowe on Apple Music as the quiet incantation that wants to come true. There’s this stunning duality: Florence describes love as a kind of deep hibernation in the second verse, then transforms it into a mantra by the chorus, repeating “peace is coming” like she’s manifesting serenity by living in the end. Between the glimmering chimes reclaiming their spotlight and Florence’s celestial vocals, it’s a lullaby that feels too brief for the kind of calm it casts.
Ritual Grid for ‘And Love’: Set this grid somewhere gentle—on your nightstand, altar, or near your heart as you drift toward dreams.
Begin with Selenite at the base, a beam of divine clarity that purifies and allows light to flow through the cracks you once called flaws.
Anchor Green Aventurine to the left point for steady heart healing and the courage to open again.
Close with Lepidolite, lightly infused with lavender if you can, on the right point to soothe anxiety and whisper peace through your aura.
Take a breath, slow and sure. Let the words “peace is coming” echo softly within you until they no longer sound like hope—only truth.
Which crystal grid are you stuffing into your bra? You know Florence would approve. Or maybe you’ve got your tarot deck spread across the floor, asking if you’re “gonna be in pit” for her newly announced North American tour—featuring Rachel Chinouriri, SOFIA ISELLA, CMAT, and Mannequin Pussy joining the coven for select dates.
Either way, manifest a blessing from us by tweeting your own crystal grid inspired by one of the other songs @thehoneypop. Then follow our Facebook and Instagram for more of the Halloween magic we dropped all October long.
In keeping with the theme of “Everybody Scream,” Florence + the Machine’s second single from the album of the same name is all about fame. Though, in contrast to “Everybody Scream,” which is sort of like Florence’s version of Lady Gaga’s “Applause,” “One of the Greats” is much saucier, exploring the more vexing aspects of what it means to be a “rock star” as a woman. More to the point, the double standard of it. And so, while “Everybody Scream” is about what fame gives, “One of the Greats” is more about what it takes (this phrase having two meanings in this instance).
In this regard, “Everybody Scream” is the “Angel of My Dreams” of the outfit, while “One of the Greats” is more of the “IT Girl” (yes, one needs to listen to JADE’s That’s Showbiz Baby to understand the reference). And, once again, Florence Welch is very much embodying her “Elvis reincarnated” aura in the accompanying “visualizer”—or is it a video? Either way, it’s directed by Welch’s go-to, Autumn de Wilde, even though there isn’t much to direct in that all Welch has to do is sit in the back of a car and get chauffeured somewhere like the rock star she is in the dead of night. And naturally, even though it is night, she’s still got to be wearing her black shades—her “I’m too famous to be seen” sunglasses. In addition to wearing a tailored ensemble that consists of a black blazer and white button-front shirt. Then, Welch soon raises her hand to reveal she’s also holding a cigar. It’s all very Madonna—not just from her 1992 “Deeper and Deeper” single cover art, but also from the “Drowned World/Substitute for Love” video, during which she, too, is being chauffeured around at night while wearing sunglasses and also looking very blasé about the whole thing. If not utterly horrified by it.
Welch, in contrast, is slightly more enamored of what fame has meant. Not just that she has a devoted following (like Jesus himself), but that it allows her creativity to flow into and through something that will actually be “received” by others. By the same token, being “inspired by the muse” is not without its own unique drawbacks. Which is perhaps why Welch refers to creativity almost like it’s Lazarus, rising from the dead every time an artist thinks they’ve laid their creative pursuits to rest. So it is that Florence opens the song with the evocative (and, yes, biblically allusive) verse, “I crawled up from under the earth/Broken nails and coughing dirt/Spitting out my songs so you could sing along, oh/And with each bedraggled breath, I knew I came back from the dead/To show you how it’s done, to show you what it takes/To conquer and to crucify, to become one of the greats/One of the greats.”
And what Florence has shown her acolytes over the years, in terms of “what it takes,” is a lot of physical and emotional agony. For her, it’s the former category that has been especially prominent, having broken her foot onstage twice (once in 2015, and another time in 2022) and then having a near-death experience in 2023 (mentioned by way of, “Oh, burned down at thirty-six/Why did you dig me up for this?”) after undergoing an emergency medical procedure for a still-unspecified condition that would have been fatal had she not gotten the surgery immediately. So it is that Welch was led even further down a mystical, witchy, “hippie-dippy” path with her latest work, originally conceiving “One of the Greats” as a poem.
In this regard, it shares a certain DNA with Lana Del Rey’s “Fingertips” (and not, surprisingly, “The Greatest”) from Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (which is delivered in a very stream-of-consciousness kind of style, though it wasn’t originally a poem). But Welch still outpaces the length of the verbose “Fingertips,” with “One of the Greats” clocking in at six minutes and thirty-two seconds. Indeed, Welch didn’t think the label would actually “let” her release a song like this, recounting, “…you’re always asking the label if you can put out a song that’s five minutes long so with this one I was like, ‘They’ll never put this out the way we really want to put this out, seven minutes long,’ but they were like, ‘Yeah, we love it.’” Which perhaps just goes to show that Welch really is “one of the greats,” therefore “permitted” to release whatever the fuck kind of music she wants to.
In this instance, music that’s once again co-produced by Mark Bowen and Aaron Dessner, who layer on the sparsest of instrumentation so that Welch can really dig the knife in with her vocals when she says something like, “‘Cause who really gets to be one of the greats/One of the greats?/But I’ve really done it this time/This one is all mine/I’ll be up there with the men and the ten other women/In the 100 Greatest Records of All Time.”
Welch doesn’t stop there when it comes to shading how the music industry continues to deify male musicians in a way that simply doesn’t happen for women, who are held to a standard that no man could deal with even trying to live up to. So it is that Welch ribs, “It must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can/Now don’t get me wrong/I’m a fan/You’re my second-favorite frontman [after herself, of course]/And you could have me if you weren’t so afraid of me/It’s funny how men don’t find power very sexy/So this one’s for the ladies/Do I drive you crazy?/Did I get it right?” The answer, of course, is a resounding yes—for there isn’t really an occasion when Welch doesn’t get it right. Yet another testament to the level of her artistry.
However, that doesn’t prevent her from asking the question of what really makes an artist “one of the greats” and who gets to decide such a thing—and why They get to, based on what criteria? Then there is her lately constant exploration of the “cost” of fame (going back to Madonna on “Drowned World/Substitute for Love,” it was she who said, “I traded fame for love without a second thought” after realizing what she had sacrificed for so much of her life in service of fame). So it is that she told Radio 1’s New Music Show with Jack Saunders,
“[‘One of the Greats’] was one long poem I wrote about greatness or the cost of it or why do I want it? Who gets to decide what that even is? And then it was also kind of a joke, so it’s like really serious and also [a] really unserious song… And it kind of evolves in this train of thought and that’s very much how it was recorded, but I guess I wanted it to feel like you were disintegrating into nothing at the end ‘cause it is sort of about the process of creativity being like a sense you sort of destroy yourself for something and then you kind of dig yourself up all over again to do it again and you’re like, ‘Why do I keep doing this? What is this thing that I’m reaching for?’ There’s a Martha Graham quote that’s called ‘divine dissatisfaction’ and I think that sort of sums up the process for me, it’s this sense of this like divine dissatisfaction that just keeps propelling you forward all the time.”
Hence, Welch’s repeated divine question pertaining to divine dissatisfaction: “Did I get it right?/Do I win the prize?/Do you regret bringing me back to life?” The answer, for the fans that venerate her, is a resounding no. They would dig Welch up an infinite number of times to keep watching and listening to her be “one of the greats.” Though, if you ask any man in “the industry” about it, they’re liable to write her work off with a shrugging, “So like a woman to profit from her madness” (Taylor Swift would surely approve of this sarcastic lyric based on her own song called “mad woman” from 2020’s folklore). As though “women’s music” is just that—somehow meant to be cordoned off into its own separate “outlier” category despite the fact that, now more than ever, female musicians are dominating the charts.
This no doubt in part because many of them feel like Welch, who admits, “I was only beautiful under the lights/Only powerful there.” Or, as she phrases it on “Everybody Scream,” “Here, I don’t have to quiet/Here, I don’t have to be kind/Extraordinary and normal, all at the same time.” Because, yes, it’s important to remember that, no matter how much you worship “one of the greats,” they still shit, too. Or, to put it in a more 2000s way, “Stars—They’re Just Like Us!”
It’s been three years since Florence + the Machine released arguably her best album to date, Dance Fever. In that time, she embarked on the Dance Fever Tour (from 2022 to 2023), which, well before Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, seemed to further forge the unbreakable and, that’s right, feverish bond shared between her and her fans. With the first single from her new era, “Everybody Scream,” it almost feels as though she’s responding to that intense period in much the same way Swift is also about to with The Life of a Showgirl. And yes, it’s only too appropriate that Welch and Swift recorded and released a song together (“Florida!!!”) while both were in the thick of their respective tours.
With Welch seeking to capture the feeling she gets while onstage (and lighting it up, as it were), the theme of “Everybody Scream” draws easy comparisons to “Morning Elvis,” the fourteenth and final track on the standard edition of Dance Fever. Throughout the song, Welch touts the stage as her simultaneous bane and salvation—though mostly the latter. Or, as she phrases it on “Morning Elvis,” “And if I make it to the stage/I’ll show you what it means/To be saved.” As for the “if” part, the song refers to a time in her life when she was often too drunk or hungover to do much of anything, let alone make it to Graceland, where she had planned to visit “the King’s” home circa 2012 during the Ceremonials Tour. But, considering Presley’s own substance abuse issues, Welch isn’t wrong when she says, “I never got to see Elvis/I just sweated it out in a hotel room/But I think the king woulda understood/Why I never made it to Graceland.” Undoubtedly.
However, unlike Elvis, Welch managed to get herself together long enough to become sober, understanding that it was ultimately doing more harm than good not only to her creativity, but to her ability to perform. The thing she so clearly loves most in the world. And yet, as she told The New York Times, “I thought the way to hang onto your rock n’ roll roots was to be the drunkest person in the room.” That “philosophy” clearly no longer being the dominant belief in her life. Instead, it’s as though a combination of witchcraft and performing has replaced her erstwhile drinking compulsion. Granted, Welch was always a “witchy woman,” but it’s a “shtick” that’s most definitely ramped up since the release of Dance Fever (even giving Stevie Nicks a run for her strega money). The album inspired by a tincture of the Covid lockdowns and early modern Europe—specifically, the choreomania phenomenon of that period. Within the context of confinement, it was the idea of being able to dance and sing and generally make merriment again within a communal setting that sparked the broader Dance Fever concept. For, although she had once yearned for her tours to be over so that she could take a break, the advent of the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions led to the verse in “Morning Elvis” that goes, “And after every tour, I swear I’ll quit [Madonna, too, has said the same thing before]/It’s over, boys, now this is it/But the call, it always comes/And the songs like children beggin’ to be born/But, oh, I guess I got my wish/But anything, anything, anything but this.”
The “this” was an inability to perform in public for what amounted to two years. So it was that, like many musicians during Covid, Welch spent her time crafting and plotting the next album, to be released at a time when everyone could “commingle” again. And oh, how she and her fans did just that on the Dance Fever Tour. This period being an undeniable inspiration to the opening verse of “Everybody Scream”: “Get on the stage, and I call her by her first name/Try to stay away, but I always meet her back at this place/She gives me everything, I feel no pain/I break down, get up and do it all again/Because it’s never enough, and she makes me feel loved.” The “she” in question represents not only the “muse” that keeps “forcing” her to feel inspired, but also, one might say, the “Goddess of Performing” (or maybe just the Goddess of Dance, Terpsichore). A fellow witch that keeps enchanting Welch, enticing her back to the stage. Where the spotlight burns hot with seduction. Not just because “here, I don’t have to be quiet/Here, I don’t have to be kind/Extraordinary and normal all at the same time,” but because it is a place where she most truly feels alive and among “her people.” The same goes for Florence + the Machine fans when they’re in attendance at one of her shows. Only too happy to oblige Welch when she commands, “Everybody dance!/Everybody sing!/Everybody move!/Everybody scream!”
So no, Welch isn’t being a “braggart” when she flexes, “I’ll make you sing for me, I’ll make you scream.” And from the instant that the whimsical sound of “Everybody Scream” begins, complete with Welch’s pythoness-esque vocalizing, it’s apparent that this is a song that very much still exists in the world of Dance Fever.
This includes working once again with director Autumn de Wilde, who Welch began collaborating with back in 2018 (via the video for “Big God”), as well as choreographer Ryan Heffington (who worked on the choreo for Dance Fever’s “King,” “My Love,” “Free” and “Heaven is Here”). However, this time around, Welch is branching out in terms of who she’s co-producing with. That is to say, not Jack Antonoff or Dave Bayley. At least, if the co-producers of “Everybody Scream” are anything to go by: Mark Bowen (of Idles), who also co-wrote the track (along with, incidentally, Mitski), James Ford (perhaps now most known as being part of Last Shadow Puppets) and Aaron Dessner (of The National, but perhaps now most known for co-producing Taylor Swift songs).
As for some of the “dual meanings” of the song, it can be argued that although, in the same way that Miley Cyrus’ “End of the World” isn’t really about the imminent apocalypse that keeps revealing signs of itself every day, just because Florence + the Machine’s “Everybody Scream” isn’t about the only thing left that seems like a viable (and affordable) coping mechanism doesn’t mean it can’t still be interpreted that way. Hence, the image of Welch screaming into a hole that’s been dug into the ground of some rural setting (one of the clips she teased before releasing the video) holding so much weight for non-performers and performers alike. After all, how else is one supposed to deal with living in this ever-maddening, ever-decaying world?
For Welch, it seems, the best way to do so isn’t just performing onstage for her fans or screaming into a hole, but also wandering through the (Yorkshire) countryside in a bright red dress (the kind of red that can be described as “devil red”) with some fellow “witches” screaming as they flank her. This giving plenty of Dance Fever (read: medieval) energy. As a matter of fact, the overarching sense of women instilling “fear” in others by expressing themselves freely (particularly through dance) is one of the core concepts behind the record, repeated again in “Everybody Scream.”
In a Universal Music press release for Dance Fever, it was stated, “The image and concept of dance, and choreomania, remained central as Florence wove her own experiences of dance—a discipline she turned to in the early days of sobriety—with the folkloric elements of a moral panic from the Middle Ages. In recent times of torpor and confinement, dance offered propulsion, energy and a way of looking at music more choreographically.” The same elements are at play in “Everybody Scream” (therefore, likely the eponymous album itself). Not just the sound and lyrics, but especially the accompanying visual, during which Welch essentially takes over a room, spellbinding those in her orbit as she dances on a table and watches them all become “possessed” by some unseen force (hint: it’s the power of her performance…and the generally free feeling of being in a “safe space”).
And so, once again Welch is turning to notions of choreomania as related to “moral panic” in the period just after the Middle Ages and at the dawn of the Renaissance. Except that, this time around, the continued exploration of these themes arrives at a time when the wielding of moral panic (a.k.a. satanic panic) by a certain Orange Creature (a devil in his own right) for purposes related to constantly securing “the Christian vote” is only too resonant (and the reason why people need all “the witchcraft, the medicine, the spells and the injections” they can get). As is the fact that Florence + the Machine is releasing Everybody Scream on Halloween (ergo, filming part of the video at the spooky Wythenshawe Hall in Manchester), the time of year when the divide between the realms that separate the living from the dead is meant to weaken.
However, if the dead should deign to enter the realm of the living this year, they might be hard-pressed to find the difference between that ilk and themselves. Save for the precious few “rambunctious” types, like Welch, who still remember what it is to be alive.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 punctuated the ending to arguably one of Marvel’s best trilogy films (don’t @ me) with an emotionally gratifying final needle drop that had its titular characters, the fans, and even the musician behind the song ugly-crying with happiness. Minor spoilers ahead.
The Week In Games: Return To Hyrule
On Monday, Florence Welch, the lead singer of the popular indie rock band Florence and the Machine, uploaded a TikTok video of herself reacting to her song “Dog Days Are Over”, which served as the final song in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. If you’ve already seen the film, which came out over the weekend, listening to the song likely had you grinning with glee through tear-filled eyes just like Welch, because it served as a spectacular send-off to the comic book heroes’ nine-year cinematic journey.
“So I cried all the way through this movie but whenThe Guardians of the Galaxy started dancing to ‘Dog Days’ I really lost it,” Welch wrote in her TikTok caption. “Thank you so much for all the love for this moment. The superhero-obsessed little girl in me can’t believe it happened.”
Each of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films packs an emotional gut-punch with its poignant plotlines and an undeniably feel-good bop in its Awesome Mixes. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, we saw how Star-Lord’s relationship with his late mother affected his devil-may-care outlook on the universe and his place in it. In Vol. 2, we got to see how Star-Lord’s estranged relationship with his all-powerful father Ego didn’t define the man he could become. The first two movies accentuated key emotional beats with The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” and Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” respectively.
In Guardians 3, the camera took its focus off of Star-Lord and instead sheds some much-needed light on the trash-talking Rocket Raccoon, revealing how he came to be the standoffish anti-hero he is today. We’ll spare you any spoilers, but be warned, the two-hour and 30-minute movie does depict gruesome scenes of violence against animals while revealing Rocket’s harrowing backstory. But if you can get past that, the happiness emanating from Guardians 3’s finale will hit you like a train on a track, as Welch’s song puts it.
Calling it the latest addition to the “Dance Fever universe” (and yes, it’s lovely that albums can be billed as universes now, too), “Mermaids” is a track that was originally slated to be on Florence + the Machine’s fifth album before being cut. Clearly, that decision was weighing on Florence Welch as she decided to give fans her second single of the year, following her cover of No Doubt’s “Just A Girl” for Yellowjackets. And why shouldn’t she? For the moody, atmospheric tone of “Mermaids” fits right in with the rest of the songs on Dance Fever, now out as an album with said single on it called Dance Fever (Complete Edition).
For those hoping the song was inspired by the 1990 film of the same name starring Cher, Winona Ryder and (Yellowjacket) Christina Ricci, one might be disappointed. The song instead takes blatant inspiration from Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s 2015 Polish film, The Lure (called Córki dancingu in its original language), itself based on the more brutal version of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. The mermaid sisters in The Lure also happen to be vampires. Because, in this day and age, one has to mix mythologies to keep audiences interested. Named Silver (Marta Mazurek) and Golden (Michalina Olszańska), they pop out of the ocean in the Warsaw of the 1980s to find themselves becoming stripper stars at an “adult entertainment” nightclub. Billed as “The Lure,” they conduct their act in a giant water-filled glass (à la Dita Von Teese)—as they should. Although Golden has her eyes on the prize of ultimately swimming to America, Silver has been distracted by Mietek (Jakub Gierszal), one of the band members who performs at the club. Golden, however, hasn’t got hearts in her eyes by any means, staying true to her cannibal nature by eating one of the patrons of the club from the get-go. So it is that Florence + the Machine not only opens “Mermaids” with a siren-like cry, but commences the first verse with, “I thought that I was hungry for love/Maybe I was just hungry for blood.”
Alluding to Andersen and Smoczyńska’s take on mermaid life, Florence + the Machine also mentions how “all the mermaids have sharp teeth/Razor blades all in your feet.” Silver certainly knows something about that level of pain, swapping out her tail for legs as she endures a shoddy surgical procedure to remove her true essence so that Mietek might take her more seriously as a love interest. Rather than what he actually sees her as: a novelty fuck.
Co-produced with Glass Animals’ Dave Bayley, the overarching beat of “Mermaids” drops after “in your feet” to reveal a dramatic, all-consuming sonic landscape. One in which Florence + the Machine then lays out a certain parallel between the drunken British girl (“And the world is so much wilder than you think/You haven’t seen nothing till you seen an English girl drink”) and the fresh-from-the-sea mermaid. As she describes trying to find her own “sea legs” whilst walking through the rain-soaked abyss of night, Florence sings, “I remember falling through these streets/Somewhat out of place, if not for the drunkenness.” A mermaid, too, might be mistaken for a drunk girl, looking out of place as a result of her awkward, unsteady gait. Making her all the more vulnerable to predatory male behavior seeking to take advantage of a woman in a “compromised” state.
What he couldn’t know, of course, is that he’s in for a rude awakening should he actually choose to approach. As Florence phrases it, “And with your mermaid hair and your teeth so sharp/You crawled from the sea to break that sailor’s heart.” Not just break it, but devour it (“They come to drink, they come to dance/To sacrifice a human heart”). At least in Golden’s case, who isn’t foolish enough to actually fall in love with a mortal the way Silver is. So enamored of someone as undeserving and deadbeat as Mietek that she can’t see the carnage that’s brewing. Indeed, one can imagine the lyric, “And the dance floor is filling up with blood/But, oh, Lord, you’ve never been so in love” fitting in quite seamlessly into a scene of Silver dancing with Mietek.
More than just an homage to the villainous (read: complex) mermaid of Danish and Polish lore, Florence engages in her usual knack for recalling moments of her “drunk era.” Not all of which were so bad as she rehashes, “It was not all pain and pavements slick with rain/And shining under lights from shitty clubs and doing shitty drugs/And hugging girls that smelt like Britney Spears and coconuts.” That Britney Spears nod being a moment of pure Proustian lyrical genius (comparable to when she’s also name-checked in MARINA’s “Purge the Poison”). For few apart from millennials can understand the power of Britney in the 00s being so pervasive that her manifold perfume lines were scenting every acolyte of the pop star. Seducing or repelling, depending on the “receiver” of the scent. Just as is the case with a mermaid in pursuit of her “love object.” Like Silver with Mietek, the pursuit isn’t always going to prove successful, with the worst of fates for any mermaid being unrequited love.
But until realizing the love isn’t actually returned (though the lust is), a mermaid like Silver can remain in her “cheerful oblivion.” A term that gets appropriately repeated throughout “Mermaids.” And it also applies to the vibe exuded by an English drunk girl (or any drunk girl, for that matter)—living blithely for the night until the stark sobriety of the morning comes.
Considering all of the Dance Fever “mood boards” Florence + the Machine has revealed to fans on her social media, it’s no surprise that The Lure should also enter into the visuals and conversations of this universe. After all, the original title for the movie was going to be Daughters of the Dance. Now, it might as well be Daughters of Dance Fever. Such is the power of homage.
