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When I'm singing I'm always trying to get to the highest point possible. I'd fly to the top of Buckingham Palace to sing to the queen.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I've always been able to just concoct a melody quite easily - it's just kind of instinct, really. You've got to channel your subconscious.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine
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I think music should be scary. Music is an exorcism.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal, magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways, it was everything I ever wanted, but when it happened all I felt was total, paralysing fear.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I always seem to feel that everything is about to cave in on me. I think that maybe music is my protection from that and in some senses it's an outlet to turn it into something euphoric: embracing the eventual decline.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I try to write lyrics so that they won't age, which sort of leaves you with the big subjects like death and love and sex and violence.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I look really odd in jeans and a hoodie - it doesn't feel or seem right.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
When something really hits me, it makes me want to either jump off something really high or lie down and be buried. I want people to get hit and caught by my music.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine
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I used to dress like an eight-year-old boy. Traveling has inspired me to be more experimental.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I think I've always looked older than I am. I hope that's going to work in my favor when I get older.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
You live and you learn.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
When making the first album, I think I wrote a song about every six months. The first album was so much about the vocals carrying it.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
My mum wanted me to go to university.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I didn't want to become a personality, I wanted to be a musician, but because I didn't have an album to stand by yet it was hard for people to see that. But now, two albums in, I'm happy with things.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine
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If you asked me to go back to being 14 or 15, I couldn't - it was a terrifying time. I was so awkward in my own skin. I used to hide behind my hair because I was so ridiculously self-conscious.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
Bono told me how to dance in high heels and he also told me about U2's Glastonbury performance and how everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong, including him ripping his trousers on stage. I think he was lunging and his trousers ripped! He was telling me how he had to find a new way of performing that didn't involve moving.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
It would be too frightening for me to consider myself a role model. But I like the idea of not being afraid of letting your imagination rule you, to feel the freedom of expression, to let creativity be your overwhelming drive rather than other things.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I'm really careful with what the music gets put with, and we say no to so much stuff, loads of it, for things that might quadruple the sales of my album. But if it doesn't fit then it doesn't fit, you know?
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
Growing up, I always wanted to be in punk bands, so I'm really enjoying the harder, heavier element. It's always been my dream to have people moshing at my gig, kind of that really feral element of the music coming out more. I love crowd-surfing.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
'Spectrum' is in part a disco song. But we play it hard, and it's a real euphoric, wailing tune. It's kind of like a total house anthem, in a way, but it seems to be going down really well. We've got all the grunge kids going mad for disco house raves.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine
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In a conversation, the words can get stuck, I don't know what to say, I get very anxious.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
Look, if Givenchy is going to lend you a dress, I'm not going to turn it down. I would wear that dress to just go out and buy a pint of milk if they would lend it to me.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
I’m attracted to the idea of drowning. Or rather the idea of jumping off and being enveloped by something, not bad or good, just enveloping. When I was a kid, I had a moment when I got under the water, lying on the pool floor, and felt I could breathe. I’ve been trying to recreate that feeling ever since.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine -
My siblings and I were friends with the boys who would become our stepbrothers - we grew up on the same street. I feel very special to have these amazing people in my life and if we hadn't all moved into this big house together I think I would have missed out on that, because we would have drifted apart.
Florence Welch Florence and the Machine