Ship To Wreck

My favourite song from the new album, I love the lyrics, it's all about the spiralling self-destruction we can bring upon ourselves, especially when we become intoxicated.

“Don't touch the sleeping pills, they mess with my head”

• Sleeping pills become dangerous when mixed with other substances so there’s a clear implication of a hangover here.

“Dredging the Great White Sharks, swimming in the bed And here comes a Killer Whale, to sing me to sleep Thrashing the covers off, it has me by it's teeth”

• There’s a great juxtaposition between the typical peace of sleeping in bed and the singer’s intoxicated state, creating this whirlpool of chaos in her mind as she tries to sleep. The water is used throughout as representing the indulgence and consequences of drinking.

“I can't help but pull the earth around me, to make my bed”

• My favourite line in the song. There’s a slightly more superficial implication that when you’re drunk you can end up unconscious outside and any location on this earth could be your bed and blanket. But it’s also an emphasis on the destructive and selfish nature of becoming intoxicated, destroying everything around you and believing you’re the centre of the world, with this use of “I can’t help [it]” when the singer clearly can help it by not overindulging.

“And oh my love remind me, what was it that I did? Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch?”

• Forgetting the night before and losing touch with reality due to drinking too much.

“Did I build this ship to wreck?”

• The consequences of her self-destructive behaviour, having the stable aspects of her life battered and broken down by the water. The ship that is being destroyed is the singer’s possessions, her relationships, other people’s trust in her and her life as a whole.

“What's with the long face? Do you want more? Thousands of red-eyed mice, scratching at the door”

• The long face is the disapproval of others as the singer remains ignorant of this fact. The thousands of red-eyed mice are a possible reference to her desire to completely lose control as they are all scratching at the door in her mind to be released at once.

“Don't let the curtain catch you, cause you've been here before The chair is an island darling, you can't touch the floor”

• Being caught for previously causing trouble whilst drunk. The chair being an island again uses water as symbolic of how becoming intoxicated has isolated her from others. Being unable to touch the floor shows how deep the problem has become.

“And good God, under starry skies we are lost And into the breach we got tossed And the water's coming in fast!”

• Possibly lost simply because she can’t find her way home at night, but also lost in a sense that the singer’s lost control over the direction of her life. The vicious cycle of self-destruction is sudden and deadly, she’s tossed in and the water comes at her before she has time to realise how much damage this will cause.

I think the final repetition of the chorus ends the song on a positive note, as the repeated rhetorical question shows the first step being taken in fixing the cycle of self-destruction – that is, acknowledging the problem exists.

Alright, here's my album arch thought:

"Ship to Wreck" stars with Florence in the heat of the breakup, angry and blaming herself for the relationship becoming a failure; there's a strong emphasis on the pronoun "I" (ex: "Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch? Did I build a ship to wreck?"). After this, Florence turns her anger outward, blaming not herself, but the man in "What Kind of Man."

This is when the first revelation comes in the album in "How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful," where she begins to acknowledge that maybe there is something more at work, that maybe it was some sort of fate. And in "Queen of Peace" and "Various Storms and Saints," she begins to see the bigger picture that maybe their relationship was doomed from the beginning.

That's when "Delilah" comes on, and Florence relapses back into some sort of rage, angry that the relationship still failed. She's screaming and almost panicking in the song, when she takes a step back in "Long and Lost," acknowledging a spiral of heavy emotions at play.

In "Caught," she's contemplating her decisions; she can continue her spiral of intense anger/intense sorrow/intense self-analysis or seek some other idea. Then, in "Third Eye," she starts to realize that a new door is opening up: self-love and recognition that she can't feel pity. As she says, "she's the same, try'na change."

This is when it gets weird; the album looks like it could end here, but instead Florence does two things. First, in "St Jude," she calls upon the Patron Saint of Lost Causes because she has nothing left to do. She sings to the heaven above in a solemn hymn. But then she spins 180 degrees in "Mother," shouting to the Earth to save her. It goes from begging to commanding in one song.

That's my two cents, love the album though!

The video opens with her having an out of body experience in the rain, then cuts to her on the floor surronded by pills and a bottle lid where she begins with a warning the audience to stay away from sleeping pills. The begining and the end are the same, the middle is simply showing you how she arrived there. She is at war with herself, the more logical and mature half that tries to make meaningful connections with the people around her is warring against the side that is enttenched in emotion and self explotation.

The video is in my opinion a statement of "Wherever you go, there you are." The servant cannot please two masters, A house cannot stand divided against itself. She is saying that if you never tame your mind, body and soul and learn to love yourself for who you are then you will come to resent those that do love you over and over again. The video is showing her spiriling out of control, resulting in a suicide attempt as she desperately tries to escape her what has become her own mortal prison.

,,,she is obviously bipolar, and crying out for her audience to help her. But the current "secular industry" she finds her self in...WILL DEVOUR HER. Watched the Heaven Come concert last night...Darlene Zchech didn't show up...maybe Florence might.Everyone pray for her...she might not last very long. .Amy Winehouse didn't.