Florence + the Machine have released ‘One of the Greats’, a ragged, caustically sprawling new single from their upcoming album Everybody Scream. Check out a video for it below.
Speaking about the track, Florence Welch said:
I don’t really know how to explain myself with this one, it was sort of a long poem about the cost of greatness. Who gets to decide what that is? Why do I even want it? Why am I never satisfied?
I feel like I die a little bit every time I make a record, and kind of literally nearly died on the last tour. Yet I always dig myself up to try again, always trying to please that one person who doesn’t like it, or finally feel like I made something perfect and I can rest.
Early in my career, I was consistently ridiculed and derided for the bigness of my expression. I was thrust into the spotlight but also told again and again I didn’t deserve it, or that because it wasn’t to their taste it wasn’t good. So maybe this is a 15-year outpouring of frustration. But also, a lot of the lines I just left in because I thought they were funny.
Me and Bowen from IDLES wrote it in one take. He played the guitar and I just sang it straight from the page. We meant to re-record it but the first take just had this amazing energy.
Then Aaron Dessner helped us take it to a truly transcendent place. I wanted it to feel like you were disintegrating into nothing at the end. Which is sometimes what the creative process feels to me. Death and resurrection over and over.
Everybody Scream arrives October 31 on Polydor/Republic. It was led by the title track.
