Bad Religion: Florence + The Machine Celebrates Self-Destiny in “Dance Fever”
From medieval dancing plagues to daffodils, Florence + The Machine’s 2022 album Dance Fever takes listeners on a reflective, self-realizing journey through Christian imagery.
Bad Religion explores the relationship between music and spirituality, from Christianity and Islam to the paranormal and the occult.
Written by Janie Bickerton
Images Courtesy of Polydor Records
In 1518, the city of Strasbourg, a section of the Holy Roman Empire, was under attack. It started with one woman who rhythmically convulsed in the streets for an entire week until other women joined her, continuing even as some dancers died of exhaustion. Medieval Europeans believed the dancing plague, also called “choreomania,” to be a curse sent by St. Vitus, whose power over the superstitious, plague-filled population induced the stress-fueled extravaganza. In an interview promoting the release of alternative-pop album Dance Fever, Florence + The Machine’s lead singer Florence Welch shared her fascination with the medieval dancing plague that inspired the album. “I went down such a rabbit hole with it,” Welch admits. ” “It was like a psychological phenomenon, and I just really related to [it].” By revisiting a plague known by its victims to be a saintly curse, Florence + The Machine enshrines the mystical not as a marker of sin, but as a means to free the mind and soul. The revisiting of Christian imagery as symbols of ambivalence, seduction, and self-realization blurs lines between good and evil, and marks Dance Fever as a celebration of the self.
The English band reimagines the plague as a way to work through current emotions by celebrating the power of dance in “Free.” Over persisting, ominous synths, Welch battles with relentless anxiety, a feeling that she tries to fight, but “it keeps on coming.” “It picks me up, puts me down / It chews me up, spits me out,” Welch sings, a signifier of the battle with herself that she appears to be losing. Finally, the track breaks into a lush orchestral arrangement when she allows the music into her heart. She declares, “And for a moment / When I'm dancing, I am free,” as intermittent plucks of the piano accompany the steady synths to represent the dichotomy present within her that she must learn to accept. Her captivating, siren-like shrills after the chorus prove that as long as she can dance, she can harbor her bliss to handle whatever else she feels.
This theme continues in “Choreomania,” where Welch dances into the role of the woman who started the plague. She begins the song with a spoken-word poetic cadence, as if each word she utters transforms into a hymn: “And I am freaking out in the middle of the street.” She transitions from spoken word to song as upbeat clapping is joined by a chorus of crescendoing keys: “Suddenly, I'm dancing / To imaginary music / Something's coming, so out of breath / I just kept spinning and I danced myself to death.” Reflected by the clapping and synth combo, Welch accepts the rhythm that has taken a hold of her and therefore finds fulfillment in something out of her control.
But by the second verse, Welch regains a position of power as she puts Christianity, a religion with a history of both persecution and superiority, into her own terms. She labels herself as “your demon daddy” while reckoning with “the pressure and panic” she puts herself through. This alliterative, seductive title puts Welch in control of her emotions by embodying a masculine evil, thus granting herself a feeling of domination and letting that power guide her. Religious imagery prevails as Welch accuses an anonymous subject of the kind of over-ambitious zeal she herself embodies as a “demon daddy”: “You said that rock and roll is dead / But is that just because it has not been resurrected in your image? / Like if Jesus came back, but in a beautiful dress / And all the evangelicals were like, oh, yes.” This surprising simile proves Florence + The Machine’s remarkable ability to connote its inner qualms by reinventing the world’s most-followed religion — all within the constraints of a single song.
Florence + The Machine incessantly questions the authority of religion in Dance Fever, and this stance is strongest in “Girls Against God.” The song transforms female anger into a war against God. Welch recalls being “treated… like little pets” and dreams to exact her revenge by being the “picture of passivity,” arrogantly playing the long game with an eternal being. Surprisingly, in a blasphemous song with lyrics about “wag[ing] Holy War'' with God, who, as Welch cries, “will be sorry that [he] messed with us,” quiet percussion and strings are the main accompaniment. Welch shows no fear of a higher power and puts herself in charge of getting revenge on a system — a religion — that has let her down. “Girls Against God” closes with a descension of the synths that move from blissful to ominous, almost resembling a fall into hell. As the chaos of the synths wanes, Welch leaves listeners with these powerful lyrics: “I met the Devil / You know, he gave me a choice / A golden heart or a golden voice.” Judging by her thirst for war and her entrancing vocals throughout Dance Fever, it’s not hard to guess what she chose.
“Dream Girl Evil” continues this reckoning with religion by exploring the sensuality of and further blurring the difference between good and evil. Welch channels her inner Stevie Nicks through teasing vocals and a guitar-heavy, clap-inducing track. The English singer opens the song with an allusion to Jesus Christ as she asks a lover if they “walk[ed] on water just to kiss” her. Biblical allusions of hedonistic longing continue in the first verse with, “Deliver me that bad news, baby,” culminating in the ultimate obscurement of good and evil in the album — “Make me evil, then I'm an angel instead / At least you'll sanctify me when I'm dead.” While she calls herself a dream girl, she also proclaims that she’s “nobody’s moral center,” owning up to the choices she’s made by not making herself a model. She toys with the idea of love and lust being equally sacred and unholy to put religion into her own terms.
Entranced by the idea of being no one’s role model, Welch revels in choosing her own destiny in “Daffodil.” She finds inescapable beauty and unrelenting purpose in birds and springtime, an invocation of freedom while the “world bent double from weeping.” After a riff resembling birdsong that signals relief in turning to nature as an escape from the real world, the ethereal choir in the background shifts tone to darker, more rebellious beat. “I’m not bad, I’m not good,” Welch sings ambivalently, further driving the motif of confused morals. In several attempts to find herself, she sees “The future in the face of a / Daffodil.” Daffodils, and nature, by extension, become a symbol of self-destiny over intense synth bangs in the bridge, doubling as a musical ascension and a divine revelation of the power one has over their own life. “Daffodil” takes on a more occult sense of religion in comparison to the overt Christian imagery rife in the rest of the album to show how reimagining religion can open the spirit to life’s ambiguities and endless opportunities.
Mostly written during lockdown in 2020, Welch channeled her chaotic emotions into Dance Fever, an album heavily influenced by religion and its effects on humankind and nature alike. In a time of worldwide uncertainty and fear, Welch used religious symbolism as a therapeutic way of reinventing ancient ideologies and as encouragement for reclaiming religion and reshaping it in your own image. From spoken word and strings to sublime vocals and sinister synths, Florence + The Machine experiments with polarizing sounds in Dance Fever as a reminder that we humans have the power to control our own destinies — both a beautiful and a daunting challenge.