Florence + The Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

A couple of years back (2022, apparently!) I wrote that I was really hoping to get my hands on a vinyl edition of Florence + The Machine’s “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful,” and my wish came true in April 2024! Time has not diminished my love of this album.

When this came out in 2015 I was already a big Florence fan. This album hit hard, for reasons I couldn’t entirely explain at the time. The music was so strong, muscular, evocative, and beautiful – and the lyrics were so stunning, desperate, and intense. (Although I couldn’t have imagined it at the time, two songs from this album, “Ship to Wreck” and “Long and Lost,” are part of my singing repertoire.) The videos for “The Odyssey” that accompanied it just reinforced my love of this album.

In general, I’m looking for a connection with my music, and it’s often hard to say what that connection is until I feel it. Is it a particular sound? There are certainly guitar and synth sounds that I don’t like, and many more that are automatically pleasing. Got a Ventures-like surf guitar sound? Okay, I’m listening. Is it the lyrics? Again, hard to say – sometimes I’ll connect to nonsense lyrics, sometimes to some plain story-telling, sometimes to a lyric that would seem to have nothing to do with me, but that somehow drives an emotional reaction. But it’s not always clear to me what that reaction is about.

But with this album, there was no mystery as to what that reaction was about. For me, this hit like “Quadrophenia” hit. It’s about someone who is lost, and desperately seeking answers. In particular with “Ship To Wreck,” it’s about self-destruction through alcohol, and the question of throwing it all away – but not knowing how else to exist. And then, “Long & Lost” – “is it too late / to come on home? Can the city forgive? I hear it’s sad song” The fever dream imagery of the videos just reinforced that deep connection to these songs. Even though that’s a long way from where I am now, it’s a feeling so deep in my bones I will never not feel it.

This quickly became my favorite Florence + The Machine album, and for a long, long time. But, as something that came out in 2015, when I wasn’t collecting new records, I only had it digitally until earlier this year, April 2024, when Forever Changes got in this lovely 2023 reissue. So happy to have this on vinyl for when I go down a deep Florence rabbit hole.

This morning, as I was sorting out records for this week’s post, I almost didn’t put this on. And then I remembered: Always play “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.”