Music |
“Alexa… play ‘Free’, by Florence + the Machine… Alexa… again.”
By
Published: Jul 05, 2022
Category:
Rock
For a week, “Free,” a new song from Florence + the Machine, has been in heavy rotation here, sometimes at a volume that the neighbors notice.
If you’ve ever had personal difficulty — and by now, who hasn’t? or, more accurately, who isn’t enduring some personal trial right now? — Florence Welch writes songs that dramatize her solidarity with the wounded. Recently, that was me. More recently, it isn’t. The song achieves something significant: It links my difficulties to my revival.
That ability to see beauty and agony in a single frame is the through line of Florence Welch’s career. As a teenager, she had an eating disorder: “At seventeen, I started to starve myself/ I thought that love was a kind of emptiness/ And at least I understood then, the hunger I felt/ And I didn’t have to call it loneliness.” On the other side of bulimia, she retreated to reading and solitude. But there’s always something: “My hands go tingly, my lips go tingly. I sort of think that it’s very serious and I’m about to die and I have to lie on the floor and breathe…I know I’m having a panic attack, really. But I also really want someone to take me to hospital.”
The video, with Bill Nighy as an excellent foil, was recorded in Ukraine. The drumming defines “propulsive.” You may not dance. Play it at volume, you’ll definitely squirm.
I’m a writer. For me, the value of a song starts with the words. The feelings. The point of view. In this song, what bonds me to Florence is her courage. “Ultimately, the definition of bravery,” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said, “is not being afraid of yourself.” Florence isn’t afraid. And when I listen to her, I’m reminded that I’m not either.
Sometimes I wonder if I should be medicated
If I would feel better just slightly sedated
A feeling comes so fast and I cannot control it
I’m on fire, but I’m trying not to show it
As it picks me up, puts me down
It picks me up, puts me down
Picks me up, puts me down
A hundred times a day
It picks me up, puts me down
It chews me up, spits me out
Picks me up, puts me down
I’m always running from something
I push it back, but it keeps on coming
And being clever never got me very far
Because it’s all in my head
And “You’re too sensitive”, they said
I said, “Okay, but let’s discuss this at the hospital”
As it picks me up, puts me down
It picks me up, puts me down
Picks me up, puts me down
A hundred times a day
It picks me up, puts me down
It chews me up, spits me out
Picks me up, puts me down
But I hear the music
I feel the beat
And for a moment
When I’m dancing, I am free
I hear the music
I feel the beat
And for a moment
When I’m dancing, I am free, I am free
Is this how it is?
Is this how it’s always been?
To exist in the face of suffering and death
And somehow still keep singing
Oh like Christ up on a cross
Who died for us? Who died for what?
Oh, don’t you wanna call it off?
But there’s nothing else that I know how to do
But to open up my arms and give it all to you
‘Cause I hear the music, I feel the beat
And for a moment, when I’m dancing
I am free, I am free
I am free, I am free
[for KMM]
