Florence + the Machine release new song ‘One Of The Greats’

Florence + the Machine have released a second song from the new album ‘Everybody Scream’, titled ‘One Of The Greats’.

The song reflects on Florence’s experiences as an artist, framed by her near-death experience in 2023, and how her career has immortalised her being whilst still creating another sense of mortality. Recorded in one take, with Mark Bowen (Idles) playing guitar, Florence says:

I just can’t believe I’m putting it out. It’s just one of those things, you’re always asking the label if you can put out a song that’s five minutes long so with this one I was like, ‘They’ll never put this out the way we really want to put this out, seven minutes long,’ but they were like, ‘Yeah, we love it,’ and I was like, ‘Okay…’ […] It was one long poem I wrote about greatness or the cost of it or why do I want it? Who gets to decide what that even is? And then it was also kind of a joke, so it’s like really serious and also really unserious song as well. And it kind of evolves in this train of thought and that’s very much how it was recorded. But I guess I wanted it to feel like you were disintegrating into nothing at the end ‘cause it is sort of about the process of creativity being like a sense you sort of destroy yourself for something and then you kind of dig yourself up all over again to do it again and you’re like, 'Why do I keep doing this? What is this thing that I’m reaching for?’ There’s a Martha Graham quote that’s called ‘Divine dissatisfaction’ and I think that sort of sums up the process for me, it’s this sense of this like divine dissatisfaction that just keeps propelling you forward all the time.

The visualiser video, directed by Autumn De Wilde, harks back to imagery from male artists who are often described as ‘The Greats’ themselves (Bob Dylan; Nick Cave etc.)