Florence + The Machine, a band you probably know from popular songs like “Shake It Out” and “Dog Days Are Over,” is releasing their newest album Dance Fever, and with that, they released a new single entitled “King.” As a huge fan of Florence + The Machine, I love this song, and I’m already claiming it as a feminist anthem.
First of all, let’s set the scene: Florence Welch, the lead singer, is already a sort of ethereal, unearthly being whom many consider to be not of this world. Similar to mystical celebrities such as Hozier, Stevie Nicks, and Lorde, people “joke” (not really) that she is an immortal god and a witch. Me, being a person who already loves make-believe and buying into things that many people consider nonsensical and fake, such as astrology and crystals, obviously loves this rhetoric. It makes listening to music by these artists more fun, especially when debating about the meanings of their songs.
The song “King” opens: “We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children/About the world ending and the scale of my ambition.” So, already, the song opens as an argument between the narrator and her partner, arguing about starting a family and her desires for her career. These are arguments that every woman is probably very familiar with. Our entire lives we are told that our “biological clocks are ticking” and we need to start having children, as having children is apparently the entire purpose of our lives. Historically, women have been pushed away from having dreams and aspirations other than starting a family and having children. So “the scale” of the narrator’s “ambitions” is a cause for argument between her and her partner, because she, as a woman, should not be having ambitions to such a scale and instead should be focusing on getting married and starting a family.
She then sings a line that has not left my head since I first heard the song: “I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king.” This line gave me goosebumps when I heard it. The narrator is rejecting her traditional roles of a woman as a “mother” and a “bride,” i.e., having children and getting married. Instead she declares herself as “king.” I was confused at first by her choice of “king” rather than “queen,” but then I thought that a man would never have to consider his gender while declaring himself a sovereign, and a man does not have to denounce the other roles in his life to declare himself king. The word “queen” is inherently tied to words that describe traditional women’s roles such as “bride” and “mother,” but no one ever thinks of the word “king” being tied to “husband” and “father.” Queens are only thought of in relation to their kings, a king is thought of all by himself.
Another line that sticks out is “But a woman is a changeling, always shifting shape/Just when you think you have it figured out/Something new begins to take.” Women are constantly pressured, especially in the entertainment industry, to reinvent themselves to remain interesting to the public. There is a great quote by Taylor Swift about women needing to do just this: “Women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard at 35. Everyone is a shiny new toy for like two years. The female artists have reinvented themselves 20 times more than the male artists. They have to or else you’re out of a job. Constantly having to reinvent, constantly finding new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny.” Women can never just be as they are, they have to fulfill a purpose: either be young and beautiful so that you can entertain us and be eye candy, or be a mother and a wife, so you can contribute to our society. God forbid if you’re neither. God forbid if your existence doesn’t fulfill a predestined purpose that might not be what you want to do.
There’s nothing wrong with being a mother or a bride or following “traditional” gender norms. Getting married and having children is a noble aspiration, one that I hope to achieve. The problem comes when every woman is forced to do so when many women don’t want that life. In “King,” Florence reclaims what it means to be a king, a mother, and a bride. She is claiming for herself the sovereignty and freedom many men can claim without a second thought.
The song “King” gives me a feeling that I can’t describe other than power. It reminds me that traditional gender roles are not the only purpose of my life. I am king. I am in control of my own life, and I can do as I please. No matter what gender I am. A powerful message for Women’s History Month.
**Edited by Abigail Simanjuntak