Florence welch quotes

I like the idea of taking off like a bird.

I'm pretty obsessed with Stevie Nicks from her style to her voice. I like watching her on YouTube and her old performances, the way she moves and everything.

I've built my wardrobe color palette around red, so I'm happy with it, but I do get pangs when I see beautiful brunettes. I've already been blue, green, black, and blonde.

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.

Touring, and being in a band, it's almost like the other stuff, the other parts of life, get put on hold.

There's such an extreme feeling to be in love, especially in quite an emotionally destructive relationship, where you're both kind of really bad for each other, but you love each other so much. Those extreme emotions, I think, can only be described with extreme imagery.

You live and you learn.

I've always been a bit of a decorator. I think if I wasn't a singer I'd probably be in stage setting or interior design or something. I like clutter and I'm quite visually greedy. I can't have things to be plain; I have to have things looking interesting maybe I'm just a frustrated interior designer stuck in a singing career.

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.

I'm a choir girl gone horribly, desperately wrong.

I was always that girl growing up who you could find dancing down supermarket aisles. It's that sense of not feeling inhibited. Dancing in supermarkets is my favorite thing.

I'd experimented with so many different types of music. I had these folky songs I'd written and recorded, but something wasn't quite right.

I'm one of those people that is up for most things. When I was offered to sing at the Oscars I was like, 'Yeah, I want to know what that's like!' I'm always curious to know what things are like - as long as you're not compromising who you are.

I'm a light sleeper. I've never been one of those people who can put their head down and suddenly everything disappears. Nighttime is the time I get most scared, anxious or worried. In those darker moments before waking or sleeping is when I feel most, I don't know, I can turn on myself, and my imagination can take me dark places.

I like to keep my issues drawn, it's always darkest before the dawn.

I think I've always looked older than I am. I hope that's going to work in my favor when I get older.

I feel a responsibility to the fans who have paid to see me and I want to give as good a show as I possibly can.

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.

Having a soul, they say, is like taking sadness and turning it into something beautiful.

For someone so conflicted, who am I to give advice to anybody? It’s such a funny, grandiose idea

During the songs, you transcend yourself. The best way to be in the performance is to be without pause and be essentially in the moment, in that moment of expression.

Lay me down, Let the only sound, Be the overflow, Pockets full of stones.

I'm completely in love with the world but also terrified of it. It creates some overwhelming feelings. Wanting to battle out that joy and fear is part of my music.

'Dog Days' was recorded with pens and the wall, and half a stolen drum kit that was out of tune, in what was basically a cupboard. The only instrument I could really play was my voice, so we just layered everything a hundred times. It was enthusiasm over skill.

I want people to get hit and caught by my music.

When you're heartbroken, you're at your most creative - you have to channel all your energies into something else to not think about it. Contentment is a creativity killer, but don't worry - I'm very capable of making myself discontented.

Well, I'm completely normal and mellow.

Maybe in music you're making an auditory environment and maybe you change your environment around you to suit your own way.

Hands up if you’re ready to do something you’ll regret this weekend. Go forth! You have my blessing.

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.

I've got some incredible fans actually - so loyal and they make me card »">birthday cards and Christmas cards. I got this package of poems and artwork based around the songs. They've got this thing called 'Floetry' where they all have to put in artwork. They've set up their own competitions and stuff which is kind of amazing.

The Teenage Cancer Trust does incredible work supporting and caring for teenagers and young adults with cancer, and it's a cause that is really close to me and my family.

The stage is the place I feel comfortable - it's almost as if real life is where I feel most nervous. Conversations are a lot more nerve-wracking.

You can forget anything, and actually being a part of a crowd, of a group, can itself be freeing.

The music is so euphoric,as a way of battling the words. It’s like an exorcism, beating it out with drums, shake this demon out, it’s so visceral because the melancholy has to be drummed out. I can’t let it sit inside me.

If you do something with your whole heart and it's a mistake, you can live with that.

I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music... I love big, American pop music.

If you see a river running smoothly, it's because someone has drowned in it, and if it's raging, it means that it's still got bloodlust.

I've been having this really weird anxiety dream about arriving too late or too early, and the people in charge are like, 'You have to leave! You have to go back to the hotel and get ready!' And I use the wrong exit, and I'm running down the red carpet in ­pyjamas, like, 'No! Don't look at me!'

Excitable, easily distracted, sometimes vacant, prone to gloominess and also extreme euphoria; I can’t be generous with time, but I try to be generous with affection. I’m really lucky to be able to be in some of these situations and it feels really nice to be able to take people along with me for the ride. Oh, and I’m a pain in the ass as well.

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.

I wish to remain nameless And live without shame 'Cause what's in a name, Oh I still remain the same

I was having a conversation with my father and he was talking about this thing - strangeness and charm. It's actually the name of the two smallest particles that there are when you split the atom, so I wrote a song around it. I even managed to fit the word 'hydrogen' in there. Isn't that a nice thing for scientists to call them though?

I look really odd in jeans and a hoodie - it doesn't feel or seem right.

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.

It's always darkness before the dawn.

You should have high expectations for yourself and others should come second.

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.

Worst nightmares can also appear with your eyes open.

I think I just get excited by music, and, like, singing is a very physical thing. It releases endorphins in your body. You're using almost muscle in there, and I think that adrenaline really helps to kind of make the songs fresh every time.

The release of 'Lungs' was so hard. It was terrifying, because it was the first time doing everything. The first experiences of media exposure were almost paralysing. I spent a lot of time crying on the floor of the studio - it sent me a bit mad.

I got to live out my 11-year-old fantasies - I got to go on stage with Green Day. Billie Joe called my name from the stage. 'Dookie' was the first album I ever bought. I covered the whole of 'Nimrod' and he'd heard it. That was like the 11-year-old girl dreamed.

'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.

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.

The aesthetic came along the way, I think - just through experimenting, and going on tour, and trying stuff out on stage, having fun with it, and not taking it too seriously. If I had a ballgown at home, I'd wear it onstage. If I found something in a charity shop, I'd wear it. That's where it grew from - just wanting to play dress-up.

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.

Sometimes I wish for falling Wish for the release Wish for falling through the air To give me some relief Because falling's not the problem When I'm falling I'm in peace It's only when I hit the ground It causes all the grief

I get in fights with my sister all the time. She comes on the road with me and we fight - like sisters do.

It's hard to dance with a devil on your back, So shake him off...

I have this sensation of being in flight all the time, but being on stage is like creating a sanctuary in which you can completely lose yourself. The bits of your personality that you keep under wraps in ordinary life, you can let them run free.

I definitely have a real self-destructive streak.

Going to parties usually makes me feel depressed, just because I have such social fear after meeting people.

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.

What I really like seeing from the stage is people having their own moments, when people are doing some performance of their own.

I am obsessed with the whole Victoriana thing, the whole Jack the Ripper London era, the grayness of it, the haunted feeling of it, all ancient and bloody.

Sometimes I find that music is so much more attractive than love. I don’t know… It’s like some kind of euphoria, that love can’t bring to you.

I think "waste of your brain" is something that my mother would say to me occasionally - I think it's usually when I'm telling her something like that I can remember every outfit I've ever worn.

I like a house party and fancy dress, a big fan of fancy dress, like dress up, costume parties.

I think an encore is perfectly acceptable, but I find it so weird when people do two or three.

The only music I was listening to for ages was old soul. So I wasn't listening to a lot of new music - especially indie music.

It's very flattering when you look into the crowd and people have made an effort and dressed in your style.

I like to wear clothes that I will wear when I am an old lady.

I've been thinking about songwriting more in terms of playing it live, and how it will sound as a band.

I made music with my friend, who we called Isabella Machine to which I was Florence Robot. When I was about an hour away from my first gig, I still didn't have a name, so I thought 'Okay, I'll be Florence Robot/Isa Machine', before realising that name was so long it'd drive me mad.

I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you’re being sucked down into the ocean and you can’t breathe… It’s something overwhelming and all-encompassing that fills you up, and you’re either going to explode with it, or you’re just going to disappear.

When you're dressed up as David Bowie, with your eyebrows completely bleached, and you're doing this kind of strange dance with Paul McCartney while singing "Rebel Rebel" in the middle of the Met ball, and Madonna's looking at you . . . I was just thinking, It's become a bit weird.

I think I should get a bigger between-the-song persona, so then I'm not wandering around the stage like some mad old auntie that's saying hello to people and falling over.

I've learned not to hide behind a veil of irony - to talk about my work in a more honest way.

I can’t worry too much about the everyday things. Otherwise I’d lose touch with my own world, that helps me as an artist, but it’s frustrating for the people around me. I’m vaguely functional, but there’s always something slightly off.

On stage, you can use your emotions. It's the place where you can channel them. They have a purpose.

I can't ever seem to shake the feeling that when things are really good it essentially means that things are going to go really bad. When I feel calm and settled, there is always an underlying feeling of impending doom... I don't think that it's healthy.

You know, people always ask, 'What are you like offstage?' And I always say, 'Well, I'm completely normal and mellow.'

I saw 'The Artist.' It's really beautiful and it's all done to the letter with all the silent film techniques. The costumes were amazing and the dog is so good.

I always wanted to sound like a man, like Jeff Buckley or Tom Waits.

Music to me is so internal. It's physical and it's emotional. Whereas fashion is so much about the external that it's almost like a break. It's not inner turmoil. It's total escapism.

It was a complete dream to work with David LaChapelle. I collected his books as a teenager, and I fantasised that he would direct the video for 'Spectrum' from the moment the song was written. I still can't believe it actually happened, 
and I'm completely overjoyed that he felt such a connection with the song.

I love performing outside because it's as if the heavens are open and the elements become part of the stage show as well - you know, the wind and the rain and the thunder. It's almost as if there's a sense of invocation in performance.

All the words are already there when you're singing onstage, it's fantastic. You can lose yourself in what you've created. You're controlling this freedom.

I've got my ideal job. I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to bang drums and dress up, and someone pays me - it's incredible.

It’s good to be vulnerable in amongst the grandeur; you shouldn’t lose that sense of intimacy and vulnerability with people.

I wanted to be a witch when I was a kid. I was obsessed with witchcraft. At school, me and my two friends had these spell books; I always wanted a more magical reality. I had a little shrine at home and I did a spell to try and make the boy in the other class fall in love with me.

Love is horrible. I mean, when you're in love, it's like a sickness. Such madness.

My room is like an antique shop, full of junk, and weird stuff. There's a big sword in there. And a taxidermy bird, and a couple of birdcages. And a lot of newspaper cuttings. I used to have a weird thing about cutting out morbid headlines from newspapers, and collecting them. I was fascinated with drowning, which is kind of strange.

I'm obsessed with choirs, and always have been, because of that sense of overwhelming vocals.

I used to dress like an eight-year-old boy. Traveling has inspired me to be more experimental.

I think music should be scary. Music is an exorcism.

I don't want your future, I don't need your past. One bright moment Is all I ask.

I can't wait to get on stage, because there you don't worry about whether you'll ever get married because your life is insane, or whether you'll ever have another boyfriend again, you don't worry about the typical boundaries of how your life has to be.

For me, ‘Dog Days’ symbolizes apocalyptic euphoria, chaotic freedom and running really, really fast with your eyes closed.

Everything has such order and everyone is so focused on doing what they're doing that no one ever pays attention to you spinning and dancing around supermarkets. It's something you find in places like supermarkets and airports, where everything is really ordered. There's something about those places that makes you feel really anonymous.

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.

I started off singing in church as a child. The sound of voices coming together, that was my first moment of touching something outside of myself.

My visual landscape as a child was the inside of a lot of these old churches. And the Baroque drama of the things was what I was first engaging with artwise. I'm much more attracted to the aesthetic of religious iconography than the actual religious side. The passion and the blood and the violence and the gaudy side of it I find really fascinating.

When I am with my family, then I can just sort of switch off. It's kind of weird, because I go back and I go into this bedroom that I have had since I was a teenager. It is like this parallel universe, because one minute I am on the red carpet and then the next I am hiding out in this room I have had since I was 15.

I can't just have one painting - I need to cover the wall in paintings. It's the same with my music. I want to mix everything together to create more.

I think I just have a problem generally in life of wanting more of everything - more emotion, more drama, more glitz.

I try to maintain a healthy dose of daydreaming, to remain sane.

My style of playing is more enthusiasm and instinct than skill.

I've spent a lot of time in tiny venues in the way that I got my record deal and got my name out there just performing live. I was literally performing my songs in all kinds of different ways with different guitarists, and I didn't have an album up online or anything. It's been a lot of work; it definitely hasn't been a sudden explosion into fame.

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.

I tend to lose myself in the moment. I’m not very good at holding back. I don’t know how to do this without feeling everything. My emotions are the tool I use to perform.

I feel things in quite an intense way. I'm not actually the most intense person.

The first album, for better or for worse, was done over from the ages of 17-22, with a couple of different producers. Some of it was recorded in an old swimming pool, some of it was recorded in a synagogue - it kind of was all over the place.

When I first started, especially because I got the Critics' Choice before I'd released an album, there was a lot of scrutiny on what my character was, what my background was, what colour my hair was. I fought quite hard for the music to overtake the personality aspect.

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.

Being heartbroken is like having this really horrible freedom. You can be selfish with your thoughts, which can lead to manic creativity, but at the same time you're just really miserable.

In a conversation, the words can get stuck, I don't know what to say, I get very anxious.

Where's my heart at? Aw. Um, in my chest. I think it's in there - on the right hand side. Sometimes it's in my mouth and sometimes I can feel it in my stomach, when I get really nervous. So it's pretty physical.

A lot of the songs on the new album are about imaginary things, things that you can't touch - ghosts and rumors, my dead grandmother, things visiting you in a dream.

I spent my 16th birthday high as a kite, jumping out of a tree topless in my local park just because it felt amazing hitting the ground.

The stage is a place where I can be wholly myself. Even though you're in front of people almost to be judged, it is a place without judgement.

I've got quite a vivid imagination and I'm easily overwhelmed by sensations and things that are beautiful or scary. I don't think I've ever seen a ghost - I think I'm probably haunted by my own ghosts than real ones.

I guess in order to say something to one person, I have to sing it to a couple of thousand. It doesn't make for healthy relationships.

I love that sense of release as you throw yourself into the crowd as hundreds of arms are carrying you.

At the beginning of my career I was going through a really weird phase of dressing in boys clothes. I would only wear one American Apparel T-shirt and shorts and brogues the whole year round. Not the same T-shirt, obviously, but one style of American Apparel T-shirt. I think I was going through a tomboy stage.