Florence + The Machine continues to present ‘Everybody Screams’, the album published on Halloween. The second single, ‘One of the Greats’, is an interesting reflection on the place of Florence + The Machine in the music industry and about its sacrificed presence in it. In his words: “In this dream made flesh, I am a woman who takes performance out of her madness.”
‘One of the Greats’ is also crossed by tragedy: in 2023, Florence was on the verge of death due to an ectopic pregnancy. The allusions to death and the resurrection in the song are constant. The chorus repeats as a mantra: “Well -stretched arms, back from the world of the dead.” Follow the themed horror line.
But the core of ‘One of the Greats’ is provided by its satirical reflection on the construction of the musical canon. Florence wonders to which artists are allowed to be “one of the greats” and does so through the figure of a woman who plants the man at the top. Both are artists, but probably also lovers, as suggests that phrase in which Florence talks about certain men who fear powerful women.
In a waterfall of phrases that reveal that ‘One of the Greats’ was originally a poem, Florence is not cut in one of the best verses he has signed: «I will be up there with the uncle, and the other ten women, and the 100 best albums in history, it must be well to be a man and make bored music simply because you can; Do not be misunderstood, I am a fan of yours, you are my second favorite frontman ». And he concludes: “And you could have me if you were not afraid, it’s fun how men do not consider sexy power.”
‘One of The Greats’, recorded in one shot, is a swampy and distorted rock issue in which Mark Bowen, Idles guitarist. Unlike ‘Everybody Screams’, it is elegant and content, although the tension of its guitars suggests the “frustration” accumulated by Florence over “the last 15 years.” “At the beginning of my career I was constantly ridiculed by my grandiloquent expression,” he explains in a press release. “They pushed me to the center of attention just to tell me that I didn’t deserve it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7xl4ehhoe0
