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Florence and the Machine Songs Ranked

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Florence and the Machine Songs Ranked
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Coming up with a top 10 of Florence and the Machine songs ranked was no easy task. With the new album due in the Spring of 2022 and the recent release of her new song, King, I spent some time over the weekend going back through the amazing back catalog of songs.

The best part about Florence and the Machine’s music is how diverse it is. Forget the stereotypes: yes, it’s intimate and introspective sometimes, but other times it’s anthemic and powerful. Sometimes delicate, sometimes dark; always colored by the timbre of Welch’s voice and her willingness to experiment with different sounds.

We hope you enjoy this list as much as we enjoyed creating it. We hope you appreciate the great music that Florence and the Machine has given us over the past decade.

About Florence and the Machine

Welch, Isabella Summer, Rob Ackroyd, Tom Monger, and a number of additional musicians make up the group that was created in London in 2007 as Florence and the Machine, or Florence + the Machine as it is known in the music industry. As a result of the BBC’s BBC Introducing promotion of Florence and the Machine, the band gained a lot of attention in the music industry. They won the Brit Awards “Critics’ Choice” category at the 2009 Brit Awards. Welch’s powerful voice and dramatic, quirky production make the band’s songs famous.

Released on July 6, 2009, the album debuted at #2 in the UK Albums Chart in its first five weeks of availability. After twenty-eight weeks on the chart, the album climbed to the #1 spot on January 17th, 2010. Until October 2010, the album had remained in the UK’s top forty for a total of sixty-five consecutive weeks, making it one of the best-selling albums of the year.

Ceremonials, the band’s second studio album, debuted at number one in the UK and number six in the US in October 2011.

On June 2nd, 2015, the band released their third album, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. For the first time, it topped the UK charts and debuted at the top of the US Billboard 200. In total, the album topped the charts in eight nations and was in the top ten in twenty.

In 2015, Florence Welch became the first British female headliner of this century when the band headlined Glastonbury Festival.

Florence and the Machine have a 2022 album right around the corner with the May 13, 2022 release of Dance Fever. You can pickup the pre-order vinyl or CD below.

Dance Fever [2 LP]

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as of March 18, 2024 12:13 am

About Our Florence and the Machine Songs Ranked List

We only included studio tracks that were original in our Florence and the Machine Songs Ranked list. Honestly, some of her live performances such as the 2010 Glastonbury Festival cover of Fleetwood Mac “The Chain” or the Final Fantasy game cover of Ben E King’s “Stand By Me” could easily merit a top 10 pick. We decided to keep the list simple and straight forward Florence + the Machine originals though.

Florence + the Machine Songs Ranked

Below are our top 10 Florence + the machine songs ranked . We hope you enjoy this list as much as we did creating it.

Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)

“Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” is a song about hope and loss. A dreamy song that has a calming and carefree sound, but at the same time is passionate, intense and heartfelt. “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” was featured on the Florence + The Machine’s debut album ‘Lungs’ in 2009 as the last in a trilogy of star-making singles from the album.

With layers of vocal overdubs resembling gospel-style hallelujahs, and an ‘epic’ orchestral backdrop, the song was a standout of the ‘Lungs’ album. The song is a great example of the kind of ‘spacey’ vocal take up that Florence and the Machine have always used.

A allegory for young artists who give too much in order to achieve recognition is how Florence sees King Midas and his golden touch. “How quickly the glamor fades/Was that the wrong pill to take (raise it up)/You made a deal and now it seems you have to offer up.” A radio blockbuster that occurred to incorporate harps, flutes, and even choirs established her as the soulful oddball we all know and love. Of course it does not hurt that it happens to have Rabbit in the title and you know we are always a bit partial to any Rabbit based song here at Rabbit Hole Music!

Queen Of Peace

In “Queen of Peace“, Florence is the one who attempts to keep the peace in the relationship, but the man continually manages to sabotage her efforts.

He can’t be saved, not by her, at least. His loss has complicated him to the point where she still cares about him, but she is more aware of his grief now.

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful [Deluxe Edition]

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“And my love is no good/Against the fortress that it made of you/Blood is running deep/Sorrow that you keep”

In the last two stanzas, the narrator implies that she will be driven away from him until she eventually ends things. However, despite the dismal subject matter, the orchestra-like soundtrack is majestic and awe-inspiring.

Dog Days Are Over

Dog Days Are Over“, released as the lead single from Florence and the Machine’s ‘Lungs‘ in 2009. I actually struggled with this one as I did not feel it was a top 10 song from the back catalog but at the same time the list seemed odd not including probably her most popular song and it is completely magnificent.

The song opens up with a gloomy instrumental that gives way to an upbeat and catchy guitar riff which plays on repeated variations throughout each of the verses and chorus. The lyrics are deceptively simple but are actually quite deep due to their detailed structure.

As far as I can tell, it’s about a person who is so scared of love that they constantly flee and hide from it. As though they had been hit “like a train on a track” by someone. They kiss it and run away once more since that is the closest they will go.

Lungs [Vinyl]

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as of March 18, 2024 12:13 am

When you’re terrified to enter a room or don’t know what’s within, you can open the door and then jump back out. To love someone is a sign of weakness, and so they leave it all behind, believing that this is the only way they can make it through life. This is only an idea.

Hunger

The lead single off High as Hope, Welch never meant for “Hunger” to be a song. She went on to explain: “This tune was never intended to be a song. It was a poem I wrote in an attempt to better comprehend how I sought out love in things that weren’t love. To be honest, I never expected it to be turned into a song, but who knows?

High As Hope

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as of March 18, 2024 12:13 am

We become a choir, a chorus, higher than the pain, louder than the loneliness, when we shout it out loud together.”

The song’s appeal just seems so perfect, and it leaves you wanting more. You feel yourself longing for them as they sing about their life of starvation. That familiar feeling of wanting that something more is also a great contribution to its popularity.

No Light, No Light

“No Light, No Light” is a romantic song about a person who has been lost for so long. There’s nothing you can do to save a relationship that’s come to an end because the light has gone out. There is no light in the other person’s eyes that reveals their affection for you. There is nothing you can say that will bring them back to you – You are already dead in their eyes.

What you’re revealing is the brutality of a fresh day without their love being broken. It’s as if they shot you in the brain, leaving a gaping hole in your psyche. Now all you have is the empty space next to you and the anguish of knowing that it was your words on your tongue that made them mute, it was your incapacity to express your love to them (as opposed to singing about love to crowds) that eventually killed their love for you.

Other great top lists, The Who Albums Ranked

If you haven’t experienced such anguish as Florence describes here is a sign of your good fortune.

The End Of Love

Another brilliant song from the High As Hope album. Originally set to be the title track for the album, it was later determined to be a bit too negative.

A similar idea can be found in the song Hunger, which explores the human desire to seek for things to fill the voids in our lives, such as love, and to learn to embrace that emotion instead of trying to patch it up with transient connections. “The End of Love” expands this idea, underlining Florence’s ability to love romantically and freely, and not to pursue a relationship in order to fill a void in her life.

Her poetic longings aren’t confined to fantasies thanks to the song “The End Of Love,” which boasts a massive Greek chorus and biblical allusions.

Only If For A Night

A church bell-like piano riff sets the tone for Florence and the Machine’s song. According to her interview, she explained to Spin how the sound of Paul Epworth’s instruments sparked memories of her grandma. “When Paul sent me this track that had church bells on it in the beginning, these English church bells, it instantly brought me back to being at my Grandma’s house and hearing them, and her burial, and things like that,” Florence said.

Florence wrote this majestic song while on tour with MGMT and was inspired by a dream she experienced in a camper van parked in a German wood. Florence’s long-dead Grandma reappears in a dream as a ghost to offer practical counsel to Florence in the context of Florence’s old school. If just for a night, Florence feels as if her Grandma has come back to life, and she celebrates by doing cartwheels. Beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. The lyrics haunting this ethereal song are dedicated to the memory and love of the deceased.

Ship to Wreck

The second single off the third studio album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, “Ship to Wreck” is a beautiful ballad with a message of self-control. In it, the narrator expresses her desire to avoid her own mistakes, and she wants to keep on moving forward. It’s about personal sacrifice as she is willing to give up everything that she has in order to search for happiness.

Finally, I believe that the song closes on a positive note, since the repeated rhetorical question illustrates that the first step in ending the cycle of self-destruction is realizing that the problem exists.

What Kind Of Man

Florence Welch sings about a wishy-washy boyfriend in this song. Florence Welch seems to be veering into the realm of classic rock these days. She described the song, and the album as a whole, as her first foray into a more guitar-driven style.

To keep her options open, she’s hedging her bets and hedging her bets by not making up his choice and refusing to return all of the affection she’s received. She takes it, uses it to her advantage, and then moves on to other matters without a second thought for her.

This suffering is effectively depicted in the video of this superb song. Because she is unable to have him, she turns to males who would consume her and provide her with what she craves. But they aren’t him, either. Regardless of what they do, the other guy has her under his spell. When she screams, rushes away, he entices her back with a kiss, and the cycle repeats again.
What kind of man loves like this indeed?

Shake it Out

In this song, Florence is at her most ecstatic: all flailing arms, heavy beat, and a chorus the size of a tsunami. On Billboard’s Adult Alternative chart “Shake It Out” became one of her most successful crossover pop music singles, garnering a Grammy nomination in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category and being certified gold. 

From the “Ceremonials” album, Shake It Out is the album’s lead song, and its opulent tone is carried throughout the entire record. Florence + The Machine’s most joyous hymn. Despite its Eyes Wide Shut-inspired video and demons demanding a piece of flesh, it is still one of Florence’s best songs and showcases her amazing voice, even though it skirts the edge between darkness and light.

Conclusion for Florence and the Machine Songs Ranked

In conclusion, the songs on this list Florence and the Machine Songs Ranked list are not only entertaining but emotional. They also give an insight into the artist’s real life, in which she reveals very personal details. The fact that she sings from her heart, makes the songs even more powerful. Did any of your favorite Flo songs miss our list, let us know in the comments below.

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