Question 2: Florence and the Machine - Free and King Flashcards
General info about female singers
- Women exploring their identity, expression, emotions, mental states within context of patriarchy, feminism, humanism 21st century
Exploring relationships and sexuality and experience in this same world. What is it to be a women, to be alive - Exploring how the media and how men treat them and their bodies
Get done by the media then write songs about them or about their relationships
Songs reflect back on all these, and find a musical expression
Describe the background of the Free music video
Before performing the uplifting track, Florence Welch commented:
This one’s about my anxiety.
British actor Bill Nighy playing the personification of her anxiety, was filmed in Ukraine in November
Dedicated to the spirit, creativity and perseverance of our brave Ukrainian friends. Filmed in Kyiv on 18 November with Ukrainian filmmakers and artists, whose radiant freedom can never be extinguished.
Detailing the relatable feeling of being overwhelmed by the outside world, the anthemic “Free” sees Welch sharing the freedom she gains from being a musician. “For a moment, when I’m dancing, I am free,” she exclaims. “I hear the music, I feel the beat.”
“I was trying to understand what it is and how essentially when I’m playing or I’m making music or I’m in the flow of creativity that it goes away,” Florence went on to say, “so it’s kind of this push and pull throughout the song of the anxiety and then taking it out the way and dancing and feeling free.”
Describe the symbolism of the clothing in the Free music video
Her coat is similar to the coat that the anxiety man wears, and her dress is brightly red. The coat is the anxiety metaphor and the dress is her personality. She doesn’t take off the coat, but she does learn how to deal with it. She keeps dancing despite everything (look at the lines “it’s how it is, it’s how it’s always be”)
Describe the lyrics and the music in the Free music video
- “Picks me up puts me down, but I hear the music, I feel the beat, And for a moment when I am dancing, I am free”
Background music picks up when she sings “I am free” and she always starts dancing with a smile on her face
Describe Bill Nighy as her anxiety in the Free music video
- Image of the man (her anxiety) behind her almost looks like he is “looking over her shoulder” all the time
- He follows her around and acts out the solutions we turn to when dealing with anxiety, like drinking more caffeine than is good for our health and doomscrolling on our phones. As hard as she tries, Welch is unable to shake her anxiety, but it melts away when she dances along to the song.
- Personal meaning of “I am free” for Welch but also meaning for the Ukrainian people
○ Final image is of a Ukrainian cemetery - symbolises all of the people who are free of this world and no longer “exist[ing] in the face of suffering and death”
Describe the idea behind the King music video
Key theme- battle of her inner masculinity vs femininity
Describe the symbolic meaning of her outfit in the King music video
- She wears a purple cloak - combination of pink (feminine) and blue (masculine)
○ It shows that to go out there she needs this protective layer with a bit of “masculinity” added so she can feel safe - Wearing a hood throughout the whole music video that can also represent hiding and feeling of safety.
- She takes off neither hood nor the cloak itself during the video yet at the end of it (picture second to last) we can see her fully showing the dress in that way indicating that femininity is how she most feels herself yet she cannot take off that perhaps protective and in some way masking layer.
Describe the use of lyrics in the King music video
- “I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king”
○ Suggests that Welch is on a biological clock being 35 without children or being married. She is suggesting that she only has a limited time left to start a family.
○ “But now, thinking about being a woman in my 30s and the future… I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires. That to be a performer, but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts.” Welch
Describe the symbolism of the movements
- Women have hands by their mouths as if they are calling out - with smiles on their faces
- Spinning around with flowy dresses on - connotations of little girls spinning enjoying a new dress
○ Florence skips through them like skipping through a meadow - Videos ends with Florence floating with her male band. The female dancers are all grounded on the floor
○ Along with her statement that she “had modelled herself almost exclusively on male performers” this suggests that her performance identity is literally suspended because of the tension she faces between embodying the normalised female role in society, and being a performer in a male-centric career. If she is active at the feminine level, the male (performer) level must freeze and vice-versa. In the end, she embraces her personal life and masculine identity (cloak covers both her and the male)
○ May also represent how her personal life feeds her artistic one, as she appears to eat her partner (as the cloak covers both his and her faces)
- “As an artist, I never actually thought about my gender that much,” Welch said. “I just got on with it. I was as good as the men and I just went out there and matched them every time. I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not.”
