Literary Couples as Florence+The Machine Songs
November 28, 2022 | Dara Marie | @thornfield_lane
A couple of weeks ago, I looked at literary couples as Taylor Swift songs. Today, I want to do the same but with the mystical Florence + The Machine.
Florence + The Machine has been one of my favorite artists for almost ten years. I always return to her ethereal vocals, everchanging melodies, and brilliant lyrics. I was lucky enough to see her in concert several years ago and I was convinced the entire time that she was not of this world but some form of fairy blessing us with her presence; I’m very sad I’m not able to see her on her current tour but have high hopes she’ll do an encore and maybe I can see her then.
Matching literary couples to Florence's songs were harder than matching them with Swift's songs because Florence doesn’t always sing about love and relationships, and it’s often not as obvious as Swift’s. There’s not the same sappiness. Florence is raw, passionate, and intense, and it was hard to place most of these. But even so, it was just for fun and I hope you enjoy.
Lungs / Between Two Lungs:
Song: Cosmic Love
Book: The Lord of the Rings trilogy / The Silmarillion / Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien
Couple: Arwen and Aragorn / Beren and Luthien
Inspiration lyric: “I’m always in this twilight, in the shadow of your heart.”
As an avid Tolkien fan who wishes she was an elf, I love Arwen and Aragorn’s story: an elf princess who gave up her immortality to be with the mortal man she loved. This story occurred in the Third Age of Middle Earth and saw the second rise and fall of the Dark Lord, Sauron. It parallels a similar story that happened in the First Age when the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, was in control. Beren, a man, and Luthien, an elf, fell in love and had to come face to face with the Dark Lord himself because of it. When Beren died during battle, Luthien went to the Adar (the Elven Gods) and pleaded for his soul. So moved by her story, the Adar allowed Beren a second life and for them to be together in death.
In both these stories, the men saw the Elven women first while wandering in the woods; the elves were so beautiful, the men thought they’d slipped into a dream. Both Luthien and Arwen are often compared to stars in their grace.
These couples immediately came to mind for this song because the lyrics are filled with romance, fate, stars, and death.
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Song: Kiss with a Fist
Book: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Couple: Heathcliff and Catherine
Inspiration Lyric: “A kick in the teeth is good for some, a kiss with a fist is better than none.”
This might seem a little harsh, but I do not hide that I do not support this couple. I love to hate this book and hate to love it almost entirely because of the main couple. They rile each other up in the worst ways. I just don’t get romance vibes from them. They’re about as romantic as this song is, i.e. not at all.
That is all I have to say on the matter.
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Song: Drumming Song
Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Couple: Natasha and Anatole
Inspiration Lyric: “As I move my feet towards your body, I can hear this beat, and it gets louder and louder…”
I don’t want to name this as a couple due to its toxic nature, but I can’t deny that for a brief period, they were in fact together. Luckily, she was rescued before the situation could become more serious.
This song denotes feeling overwhelmed by someone or something. Anatole is a master manipulator who saw the fragile, naive Natasha as a thing to play with. He suffocates her with attention and affection until she’s not thinking properly and falls under his control.
This song’s lyrics describe feelings of suffocation and loss of control similar to those Natasha experiences.
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Ceremonials:
Song: Only if for a Night
Book: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
Couple: Jane and Augustine
Inspiration Lyric: “It was all so strange and so surreal that a ghost should be so practical.”
This song less describes this couple and more of the book in general, I just wanted to include it anyway.
The mood and lyrics remind me of the novel’s central conflict of being haunted by ghosts of your own guilt each night. In typical Florence fashion, she meshes the macabre and folksy rock seamlessly. Emily Dickinson would be proud.
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Song: No Light, No Light
Book: The Invisible Life of Addie Larue
Couple: Addie and Luc
Inspiration Lyric: “I was disappearing in plain sight…you can’t choose what stays and what fades away.”
While it’s never fully explained who Luc is, he is some form of God of darkness. He answers prayers only at night and holds immense power with dark twists. Addie is constantly at odds to resist him throughout her immortality and eventually learns some of his tricks to use against him.
These lyrics are of someone crying out to a lover who seems to embody the darkness–like Luc–and who is everything to her and yet so destructive. It at once reminded me of Addie and Luc’s strained dynamic and brief romance.
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Song: All This and Heaven Too
Book: Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller / The Iliad by Homer / Classic Greek Mythology
Couple: Achilles and Patroclus
Inspiration Lyric: “And the heart is hard to translate…with all my education, I can’t seem to command it.”
In at least the first part of Song of Achilles, Achilles and Patroclus’ romance is so soft and sweet. This continues, of course, throughout the novel, but feels tenser due to the war and their differing opinions on the best way to go about it.
This song just feels warm, welcoming, and hopeful. A sentimental feeling of utter devotion. We can see from these’s character’s fates that they were loyal to the end.
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Song: Strangeness and Charm
Book: Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Couple: Celia and Marco
Inspiration Lyric: “...our particles, they're burning up because they yearn for each other…”
In all honesty, the main reason I chose this is because the title alone, Strangeness and Charm, made me think of magic and the charisma of both Celina and Marco throughout the novel. They’re both confident and extremely talented, caught up in a strange competition they don’t even fully understand.
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Song: Bedroom Hymns
Book: His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Couple: Mrs. Coulter and Asriel
Inspiration Lyric: “‘Cause this his body, this is love; such selfish prayers and I can’t get enough.”
Not to be explicit, but this song is perfect for them. The sexual tension between them in the last chapter of Northern Lights left me saying, “Wait, this is a kid’s book?” This only grew in Amber Spyglass when they are alone several times, reminiscing and barely hiding their lingering feelings. There’s so much history there we don’t know but from the bit we have of them together, you can tell their affair was beyond passionate. The lyrics' continual reference and allusion to catholic symbolism also keeps in line with the Magisterium’s harsh judgment of the couple’s actions.
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How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful:
Song: What Kind of Man
Book: The Odyssey by Homer
Couple: Odysseus and Penelope
Inspiration Lyric: “And with one kiss, you inspire a fire of devotion that lasts for twenty years.”
We don’t get to see this couple together for very long in the epic.
This song’s lyrics feel like Penelope thinking about Odysseus while he’s away and having a moment of anger over it. The wording of ‘twenty years’ is perfect because that is how long Odysseus was away from Ithaca after going to Troy and being unable to return due to Poseidon’s anger. We only ever see her sad over his absence, but I fully believe she had moments of rage as well that would look not unlike the majority of this song.
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Song: St. Jude
Book: Circe by Madeline Miller / The Odyssey by Homer
Couple: Odysseus and Circe
Inspiration Lyric: “St Jude, the patron saint of the lost causes…we were lost before she started…we lay in bed as she whipped around us…maybe I’ve always been more comfortable in chaos.”
I’m not a huge fan of this novel or really this couple, but I still found myself thinking of them while listening through Florence’s albums for this post.
They’re both broken and in search of peace after difficult lives; for what it’s worth, they’re able to forget their troubles with each other.
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High as Hope:
Song: 100 Years
Book: His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Couple: Lyra and Will
Inspiration Lyric: “...you can always find me here. And Lord, don’t let it break this, let me hold it lightly. Give me arms to pray with instead of ones that hold too tightly.”
This is partially just for the high-energy beat which I think encompasses this couple’s intense journey together and devotion. And once again, religious allusions fit a book loosely inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost.
What Florence + The Machine songs do you associate with books/literary characters? I'd love to hear from you! You can connect with me through thornfield.lane@gmail.com or on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter: @thornfield_lane.
