Will You Be Screaming This Album?

“Here I don’t have to be kind, extraordinary, normal all at the same time. But look at me run myself ragged, blood on the stage. But how can I leave you when you’re screaming my name?” Referring to her presence performing for thousands of people and creating a fan base from her lyricism for all of these years. That even within her personal life, of wanting to create life and having that sadly taken away from her, she couldn’t leave behind one of the places where she feels like she can release her cathartic ‘scream.'

“I did my best, tried to impress, my childhood dream made flesh. And my dresses and my flowering sadness, so like a woman to profit from her madness.” It has been three years since her fifth studio album, “Dance Fever,” and with her loss of pregnancy during this time, she was wondering if she could be brought back to life after such a tragic moment. Even with all the circumstances she has had to endure, she expressed, through her music, the stereotype of a woman making money by exploiting her life experiences as if it is any different from that of a man.

Sweet siren symphony from the queen Florence herself. "A shimmering landscape. Widen my eyes. Can I keep all this beauty forever inside?"

"I no longer try to be good. It didn't keep me safe, like you told me that it would."

“Perfume and Milk” goes through the seasons of spring and winter. “Well healing is slow. It comes and it goes. A glimpse of the sun then a flurry of snow.” Meaning healing is much like the changing seasons. There are ebbs and flows, and just when you’ve made a breakthrough, it can be taken away so easily. “And now I am changing, becoming something else. A creature of longing, tending only to myself.”

“Buckle” is your classic "missing someone" track. “I let you walk all over me honey. You make me think my therapy is a waste of money.”

“Kraken” is a play off of the previous track of the longing for someone in “Buckle” to making them long for you. “There’s nothing you can do. Some things it seems are catching up with you. Do you see me now?” That even though you are done with someone, you selfishly still want them to think of you.

“You wonder why we’re hungry for some kind of release. So tired of being careful. So tired of being still...Freedom from the body. Freedom from the pain.” In many forms of religion, they provide a sense of safety and community for those seeking comfort with everything going on in the world. Assurance that they are on the right path. “A lightning strike. A fallen tree.” Any signs from testaments past to provide relief in this journey of life.

Whimsical storytelling throughout the song “Drink Deep.” Consumption in this sense is based on wanting to fit in amongst those who seem to offer you plenty and the realization that you have begun to take from yourself and aren’t willing to release. “And the cup that they brought up to my lips. I realized I drank of myself. Yes it came from me. It was made from me. Still I drank deep.”

“Music by Men” is a reflection of relationships and their trials of putting in the work to make it work. “I fall in love with everyone I meet for ten minutes at least. Then comes the work, the resentments, and the hurt...It’s not what I’ve seen in TV shows. It’s not like what I’ve read in books. It’s so much harder than it looks.” The reality of connection is the effort that is put into it.

“I stay in the house. Move the furniture about. Try and control what I can...You can have it all." Throughout this song, she talks of how she knew what sadness was, but it turned out to be wrong. With her loss of her baby, she has tried to hold tight to the things she can control and relieve herself of those things she can’t. "Dug a hole in the garden and buried a scream.” This can be referred to as her healing process with grief or simply how silenced she felt she had to be in order to seem like she still has it all even though a huge part of her was taken away.

“And Love” is a great poetic end to her track list. Her breath of the album is contained in this last song. Gratifying and accepting of what is to come. A manifestation: "Peace is coming. Peace is coming."