Florence Welch, Word Witch

Meet the Witch and Her Choir

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This Word Witch Series is inspired by the Women and the Occult in Art Conversations, Kristin Lisenby and I are having on Magick & Alchemy, a podcast by Tamed Wild. To accompany the episodes, I’m talking more about these artists’ work here, and creating writing prompts for Word Witches inspired by each Witch. Listen to our conversation about Stevie Nicks and Florence Welch here.

Word Witches, meet Florence Welch. Florence Welch was born on August 28th, 1986, in London, England. The co-creator and lead singer of Florence and the Machine, a band that rose to fame in 2007 and Florence, in her Witch ways has since embraced themes of Witchcraft, Folklore, Mythology, Paganism, and magic with ever-increasing fervor in her music.

In December 2006, an impromptu performance of the Etta James classic “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” in a nightclub restroom (magic) gifted Welch a new manager and a myriad of opportunities. She and art-school friend Isabella Summers formed Florence + the Machine in 2007, and the pair were soon opening for the Brooklyn-based electronic duo MGMT.

Now 39 years old, she has spent much of her young adult life in her career, encompassing 18 years, six albums, and numerous collaborations, resulting in sold-out stadium shows and seven Grammy nominations.

Florence channels witchcraft into every aspect of her performance. She called upon rituals, grief, and fury to tell stories that speak on every level.

I recently saw Florence perform at Tauron Arena in Krakow, Poland, with my dad. Florence, arriving with her Witch Choir, an ensemble of dancers who have been featured in their music videos, screams and haunts alongside their coven leader. Florence was wearing a red dress with bell sleeves, a true pagan priestess, and she performed for hours to a captivated audience. My personal favorites are Which Witch, asking, “Who’s the heretic now?” And Free an anthem for the anxious that says, “I’m always running from something/I push it back, but it keeps on coming/And being clever never got me very far/Because it’s all in my head/And “You’re too sensitive”, they said/I said, “Okay, but let’s discuss this at the hospital.”

And alongside Florence and her Witch Choir is the machine itself, the musicians who artfully work their magic

One of which that stood out to me the most was the harp. Erin Sweeney Smith writes in The Pagan Heart of Florence + The Machine, “The harp remains one of the most distinctive elements of Florence + The Machine’s sound and stage show, and the mix features prominent use of this instrument. The harp has the potential to carry resonance among even non-pagan listeners as an instrument evoking the ancient past.

She ended the concert by asking everyone to put away their phones and cast a spell of peace in dark times, singing the final song on her new album And Love, which goes like, “And love was not what I thought it was/It crept up on me despite myself/And it was not a love song, it was something else/More like surrendering to something/And more like resting than running/Peace is coming.”

It’s clear that magic lives within her songs. In her book Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry, she writes in The Prologue, “Songs can be incredibly prophetic, like subconscious warnings or messages to myself, but I often don’t know what I’m trying to say till years later. Or a prediction comes true, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it, so it seems like a kind of useless magic. As if the song is somehow speaking through me in its own language. And I am a conduit, but totally oblivious to its wisdom. That’s why poetry, or even having the lyric written down somewhere, is strange for me. The act of singing gives the most mundane words and phrases reverence and lory. You can make a shrine out of anything. The song has its own personality and is bigger and stronger than I am. With more to say, to just write something down and let it stay there, on the page, seems to me an enormously vulnerable thing. And that’s why poetry has, in many ways, turned out more exposing. I don’t know what makes a song a song and a poem a poem: they have started to bleed into each other at this stage. You can have everything.”

A Word Witch Writing Prompt Inspired by the Witch and her choir…

In her song Witch Dance, she writes, “ Ran to the ancestral plane, but they all showed up drunk and insane/When I asked what I could offer them/They said, ‘Gin and tonic or lithium?’/I asked, ‘Which way should I go?’/Through cigarette-smoke they said/’Child, how would we know?’/Show me the way.”

In a piece of writing, imagine that you run to the ancestral plane. How do you expect your ancestors to show up, and how do they actually show up? What question do you ask them, and how do they respond? End the piece with a declaration.

To deepen your practice of Word Witchery, build a creative practice through ritual, and write with the magic of the elements, cycles, and the seasons, explore my book Word Witch: How to Call Upon and Cultivate the Creative Magic Within You here.