You really need to listen to this

OK so I found this fucking amazing album. I am seriously in love with it. I can’t remember the last time I reacted so strongly to an album in its entirety, but this is a fantastic piece of work. Perhaps it’s a confluence of right music, right mood, right moment, but I really want to implant this whole CD into my brain somehow. Or maybe it’s already in there and I am just happy to let it out.

Anyway, it’s Florence + The Machine’s  “Lungs” album. This is an album created by one angry, talented, brokenhearted girl. It’s a perfect mix of strong—sometimes soaring—female vocals, percussion, enchanted strings and tortured lovelorn then suddenly whimsical violent lyrics and it’s just a-fucking-mazing.

I must have heard a snippet of  “Drumming Song” somewhere, because it somehow made its way onto my “listen to this when you have a minute” playlist on last.fm. I finally listened to it on Saturday, and then I just could not stop. Then I went and bought the whole album, and yesterday’s song of the day was “Hurricane Drunk”

I’m going out
I’m gonna drink myself to death
And in the crowd
I see you with someone else
I brace myself
Cause I know it’s going to hurt
But I like to think at least things can’t get any worse

and this line hurts my goddamned heart.

Then you lean and kiss her on the head
And I never felt so alive
And so dead

It captures perfectly that moment of laser focus and adrenaline rush as you’re destroyed emotionally by someone else’s casual action. Ouch.

“Kiss with a Fist” is raw and painful in its whimsical brutality

You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate
Over my head
Then I set fire to our bed

Overall the themes of this album are about all-consuming, destructive obsessive love. It’s main message seems to be “I know you’re going to hurt me and I am going to let you and I will almost be glad to do it.” And fuck me but I can relate to that shit.

“I’m Not Calling You a Liar”

I’m not calling you a liar,
Just don’t lie to me.
I’m not calling you a thief,
Just don’t steal from me,
I’m not calling you a ghost,
Just stop haunting me,
And I’ll love you so much,
I’m gonna let you,
Kill me.

Anyway, none of it would be held together if the music didn’t make your guts literally jump in response. Something to do with the drums. It’s like my own lungs thrill up to join in her pain. It’s beautiful agony and it feels huge and cathartic and I fucking love it. So go listen to it. The whole album is available to listen to on last.fm, I think all the songs can be played in their entirety on the site, I linked to a few of them in this post.

Sidenote: Sometimes it’s really hard for me to understand or incorporate other people’s heartbreak into my brain. I just have a hard time understanding that it’s real. I look at other people and I have a hard time believing that they really have heartbreak, that they are actually lonely or rejected – and then I hear this woman singing these things and I realize that she feels just the same intensity of pain that I do. So it must be real to her – but how? I mean, I look at this girl and she’s beautiful and talented and amazing and she sings about someone who doesn’t love her, and I wonder who the fuck is that stupid? Who wouldn’t love that girl back if she wanted them? What kind of douchebag rejects and causes pain to someone so talented? And I feel that way about most of you. I mean, I see you having heartbreak and being unlucky in love and I don’t get it. Who wouldn’t love YOU? You’re fucking awesome and full of amazing things and thoughts and who wouldn’t want to be with you, given a chance? It’s just me, the only truly unlovable person in the world who feels these things, but it should be so simple for the rest of you because you’re so enchanting and full of magic and intrinsic human value. And I suppose that makes me rather less empathetic than I could be, if only because I don’t see the logic in most other people not loving each other.

I wonder if everyone else feels that way or if (as usual) it’s just me?

There’s a drumming noise inside my head
It starts when you’re around
I swear that you could hear it
It makes such and almighty sound

Check out the video for The Drumming Song, because it’s the best “angry girls dance around a church in leotards” video that’s probably been made to date.

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