Florence + The Machine’s ‘KING’ Grapples With Femininity

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Florence + The Machine have always specialised in large, widescreen songwriting.

Almost from those first singles, the project has aimed for something bigger, bolder, more dramatic than their peers.

Yet Florence Welch has counter-balanced this with lyrics that combine world-building with personal revelation, transposing her innermost feelings into a theatrical vein.

New single ‘KING’ launches her new era, and it grapples with feminine power, attempting to locate a path towards freedom.

It’s a huge, festival-pleasing anthem, but it’s also one born from her own experiences as a woman in the music industry.

If 2018’s ‘High As Hope’ saw Florence + The Machine push ever more outwards, then ‘KING’ counter-acts this.

Stylistically, it plays on familiar tropes, offering fan-service alongside those pointed lyrics.

In a press note she comments…

“As an artist, I never actually thought about my gender that much. I just got on with it. I was as good as the men and I just went out there and matched them every time. 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. 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.”

A solid if unsurprising first step, ‘KING’ is equipped with an atmospheric video, one directed by Autumn de Wilde – tune in now.

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