Reception Radio: Caught, by Florence + the Machine
Persephone will have her fill!
Before we begin, a slight clarification. You may have noticed an email from A Reception Collection in your inbox yesterday morning; that was a mistake and I’ve since deleted the post from my site. I accidentally scheduled one of my draft posts to publish and didn’t catch it on time! You’ll get to read a finished version of that post sometime soon. I’m sorry for any confusion.
It’s fall, my wonderful readers! At least, it’s fall where I live in Vancouver; there’s a crispness in the air, the leaves are starting to change colour, and I have a feeling the morning frost is going to arrive any day. Covering media that concerns Persephone has become something of a fall tradition here at A Reception Collection; I enjoy commemorating her annual descent into the realm of the dead. I’m also fond of marking her return in the spring, but more on that in a few months.
When Persephone goes down to the Underworld, she takes on an imposing role as its queen. As a ruler of the Underworld, she casts a shadow across ancient mythology. Persephone doesn’t appear directly in Homer, but characters in the Iliad and Odyssey mention her with a sense of awe and fear, arguably more awe and fear than they lend to her husband Hades. She can be a merciful ruler, helping Orpheus and Alcestis in their Underworld-bound quests; however, she has a punitive streak that puts her right up there with the likes of Hera and Aphrodite. Entertainingly, Persephone’s page on theoi.com, my go-to Greek mythology reference site, features a lengthy section about her wrath, complete with direct references to ancient texts!
Modern media tends to focus less on Persephone as the dread queen of the Underworld and more on Persephone as the innocent kidnapped maiden. I’m alright with this focus on her abduction on a few conditions; if media doesn’t villainize her mother Demeter, gives Hades and Persephone’s relationship the messy, unpleasant nuance it deserves, and remembers that this is a story about female grief and familial bonds rather than a romance, I can live with it. Media that fits this criteria is, alas, shockingly rare. However, there are some works that veer away from abduction altogether, focusing on Persephone as a ruler and the queen of the dead.
If you read my post about Florence + the Machine from last fall, you’ll know that I’m a long-time fan of their lush instrumentation and deeply referential, literary songwriting. The track Caught, today’s Reception Radio highlight, is no exception. In anticipation of their new album release in October , I’ve been revisiting Florence + the Machine’s discography. Said discography spans over a decade of music, so I’ve had plenty of listening to do! Caught is part of the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album, which released in 2015. Like most Florence + the Machine albums, it pulls references from all over the place, including Surrealism, blues and gospel, and, of course, Greek mythology.
Caught only mentions Persephone by name once, but her presence casts a shadow over the entire track. Its lyrics describe some sort of difficult relationship and the fraught, uneasy state in which it leaves the singer. If this is a romantic relationship, I compare it to Persephone’s marriage to Hades. She knows better than to stay with him, everyone around her tells her to leave, she’s been taught to avoid men like him. Yet, every fall, down she goes to the Underworld.
In this light, when Florence Welch sings “Persephone will have her fill,” perhaps she’s drawing some sort of tragic companionship from the goddess, remarking on their parallel situations. Alternatively, she could be comparing a metaphorical descent into madness with Persephone’s literal descent to the Underworld. The How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album was released after her band went on hiatus for a few years, partly because Welch was dealing with some mental health problems at the time. A lot of the songs on this album cycle took on a more personal, intimate tone than the band’s previous work. I’m interested to see how their upcoming album evolves some of these ideas.
As always with Florence + the Machine, Caught’s are lyrics up for interpretation. I’ve returned to this song at various points in my life, and gotten something different out of it many times. Part of the beauty of songs with mythological references is that they can take on new meaning at different points in the lives of listeners. I first listened to Caught as an undergrad, relating to the song’s sense of entrapment when I was feeling swamped with a blend of schoolwork and personal struggles. I listen to it now and feel like my past self was maybe being a little dramatic… Early 20s anguish aside, I keep listening, and play it every fall while thinking about Persephone.
As always, here are the lyrics to Caught:
It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do
To try and keep from calling you
Well, can my dreams keep coming true?
How can they? 'Cause when I sleep
I never dream of you
As if the dream of you, it sleeps too
But it never slips away
It just gains its strength and digs its hooks
To drag me through the day
And I'm caught
I forget all that I've been taught
I can't keep calm, I can't keep still
Pulled apart against my will
It's the hardest thing I've ever had to prove
You turn to salt as I turned around to look at you
Old friends have said, the books I've read
Say it's the thing to do
But it's hard to see it when you're in it
'Cause I went blind for you
Then you leave my head and crawl out of bed
Subconscious solipsist
And for those hours deep in the dark
Perhaps you don't exist
But I'm caught
I forget all that I've been taught
I can't keep calm, I can't keep still
Pulled apart against my will
And I was thrashing on the line
Somewhere between
Desperate and divine
I can't keep calm, I can't keep still
Persephone will have her fill
And I'm caught
I forget all that I've been taught
I can't keep calm, I can't keep still
Pulled apart against my will
And I'm caught
I forget all that I've been taught
I can't keep calm, I can't keep still
Pulled apart against my will
one of her best albums (easy to say, I think that about all of them). you know how the music videos for HBHBHB were all part of a narrative she called "the odyssey"? I think about that a lot.