Reception Radio: Cassandra, by Florence + the Machine

An oracular priestess for isolating times

It’s surprising that I haven’t covered anything by Florence + the Machine for Reception Radio before now. I’ve been a fan of this lush, literary band for many years, and frontwoman Florence Welch is one of my heroes. I admire her skills as a lyricist and her fondness for classic literary and folkloric references, from Virginia Woolf to werewolf mythology. The songs in her latest album, 2022’s Dance Fever, are packed with allusions to history and myth. Perhaps the most overt is the haunting track Cassandra.

Welch uses the mythological character of Cassandra as a catalyst for female mental unwellness (madness if you must, hysteria if you’re stuck in the Victorian era). Her lyrics speak of isolation from the spiritual parts of the cosmos, as well as her voice not being taken seriously, or going altogether unheard. Perhaps most poignantly from a feminist point of view, the singer of Cassandra works through all this while stuck in a rut of domestic labour. When she sings “I used to tell the future, but they cut out my tongue/and left me doing laundry to think on what I've done” it hits a specific nerve with regards to the experiences of women across history!

Dance Fever was created during the worst years of the Covid pandemic: unsurprisingly, isolation, madness, and solitude are recurring themes throughout the album. Its title is a reference to choreomania, or compulsion to dance. Welch, ever the history buff, became fixated with choreomania after reading about Medieval dancing plagues, and kept returning to them throughout the early 2020s. A lot of her lyrics reference ideas from the Middle Ages alongside antiquity and the long 19th century, giving her music a multi-temporal feel.

Cassandra is a fitting character for the zeitgeist of the frustrating, lonely lockdown years. She’s not physically separated from her family, but mentally, they could not be further apart. Her curse to always speak the truth about the future but never to be believed is, at its core, a curse of eternal isolation. It’s also worth remembering that, in mythology, Cassandra lived in a city under siege. The Covid lockdowns were not as devastating as living in an active war zone, but feelings of entrapment and nervous uncertainty can certainly arise from both situations. Full disclosure: I’m writing this while reading A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes, which explores the lives of the Trojan women under siege in sharp, touching detail. The way Haynes writes about the siege of Troy heavily informs my thoughts here. I highly recommend giving A Thousand Ships a read, and have to discuss it in full sometime on A Reception Collection!

Here are the lyrics to Cassandra:

I used to see the future and now I see nothing
They cut out my eyes and sent me home packing
To pace around the kitchen for scraps of inspiration
Crying like Cassandra
I used to tell the future, but they cut out my tongue
And left me doing laundry to think on what I've done
It wasn't me, it was the song

I used to move into the future, bring it all back
Let it bleed through my fingers, a treasure in my hands
Now I creep out when there's no one about
'Cause they put crosses on the doors to try and keep me out
The garden's overgrown
And I run in the middle of the road

Well, can you see me? I cannot see you
Everything I thought I knew has fallen out of view
In this blindness I'm condemned to
Well, can you hear me? I cannot hear you
Every song I thought I knew, I've been deafened to
And there's no one left to sing to

All the gods have been domesticated
And Heaven is now overrated
And the churches, they all closed their doors
But you can take your complaints straight to the Lord
I try to still look with wonder on the world
As the roses bloom
And the riot van still plainly in view

Well, can you see me? I cannot see you
Everything I thought I knew has fallen out of view
In this blindness I'm condemned to
Well, can you hear me? I cannot hear you
Every song I thought I knew, I've been deafened to
And there's no one left to sing to

Take me back
Oh, drunken gods of slaughter
You know I've always been your
Favorite daughter

Well, can you see me? I cannot see you
Everything I thought I knew is falling out of view
And if I run fast enough, could I break apart
As empires crumble and cathedrals flatten in my heart?