Florence + The Machine – “Big God”

Florence + The Machine – “Big God”

Florence + The Machine have a new album, High As Hope, coming out out at the end of the month. We’ve already heard two songs from it, “Sky Full Of Song” and “Hunger,” and Florence Welch has been performing the hell out of those on late-night shows and debuting more new songs live. And now she’s shared another, the slow-burning “Big God,” which debuted today on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show.

Welch co-wrote “Big God” with Jamie xx, and the track also features tenor saxophone from Kamasi Washington, who has his own album on the way. But you probably wouldn’t know that either of them had a hand in it just by listening to it. The relatively restrained arrangement starts out with just portentous piano and Welch’s bazooka of a voice before gradually filling itself out with drums, strings, and horns, eventually building to the dramatic conclusion that every Florence + The Machine song inexorably leads to.

The song is about, “obviously, an unfillable hole in the soul,” Welch told The New York Times last week, “but mainly about someone not replying to my text.” As she sings, “You keep me up at night/ To my messages, you do not reply/ You know I still like you the most/ The best of the best and the worst of the worst.” And then in the chorus: “You need a big god/ Big enough to hold your love/ You need a big god/ Big enough to fill you up.” Listen below.

High As Hope is out 6/29 via Republic.

more from New Music