Fun fact about me: I absolutely love Florence
and the Machine and I particularly love the lead singer, Florence Welsh’s
soulful voice. It's an amazing song which evokes a lot of meaning and
emotions. At its core Howl is about the way in which love and desire can
bring out the animalistic instincts in you that you never knew you had.
The song is basically about WANTING and LUSTING after somebody. When it says "you are the moon for
which I have to howl" it means she is mesmerized by someone like a wolf is drawn to the moon.
“Be careful of the curse that falls on young
lovers
Starts so soft and sweet and turns them to hunters
A man who's pure of heart and says his prayers by night
May still become a wolf when the autumn moon is bright"
The start of the relationship was soft and sweet, which was why she fell for him, but it progressed into a really strong, more animalistic love. Even the most pure of heart can turn into a wolf under the right conditions. Lust may be all there is in the beginning, but afterwards, it could mess everything up because that’s all there was and nothing else. To me, this is about lusting after someone so intensely that it consumes you. You pine for your lover when you're apart, and can't control yourself when you're with them. You'd go to the ends of the earth to get to where they are, because you're driven by this primal instinct to be with them and touch them.
This song, which started of being originally
about a werewolf before developing into a song about extremely passionate
love, was clearly influenced by the gothic horror stories she read as a child.
Welch told The Scotsman January 25, 2009: "When I was a kid, I was
physically afraid of monsters and ghosts, vampires and werewolves. It was a
scary couple of years and I don't know if I am over it yet. I've toned it down
but I still have to wake up at night and turn the light on. Now I translate it
into songs and try to become the werewolf."
"I was in a
really intense emotional state for this one! I’d been so drunk and so badly
behaved that I felt like a beast, I felt feral. I turned up to the studio
wearing the same clothes from the night before and I was an emotional wreck. I
was thinking about the extremes you go to when you’re in love, the way it takes
over, and how that then turns into wanting to rip and tear.. Young love starts
off so intense, but then you make mistakes, and it becomes sordid, sometimes.
And dangerous. Then while we were in the studio, I got so over-involved with
the idea of werewolves! I took this idea and ran with it, and all the ideas
just came from Gothic horror: werewolves and wedding dresses, and licking
beating hearts.. It was cool, because it got me out of my bad place, and into a
creative place. When I was singing the refrain and doing the piano part, I
suddenly realised, ‘At least something’s come out of this.’ It’s a release, for
me."
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