Song Networks

It’s that time of year again. The time when Cornwall’s Eden Project plays host to a gaggle of gigs from the nations favourite hitmakers (and Razorlight). Some of you regular ChartBloggerers may remember last year’s interviews – KT Tunstall, Kaiser Chiefs and Guillemots, every one a doozy, and set in a beautiful location.

As a certified local, it is of course my civic duty to tut, roll my eyes and complain bitterly that these pop stars come down here, play their music, entertain their fans and leave nothing to the good people of Cornwall beyond a heightened sense of their place in the world and a ringing in the ears.

It is also my civic duty to point out that this year’s Eden crop – Kasabian, Razorlight, Paul Weller, ChartBlog’s Beloved Maccabees, the Kooks, Ladyhawke – represent a cultural highpoint for the county, unmatched until someone amazing comes to play in Falmouth or Truro or Penzance, or elsewhere in the vicinity.

Heck, we’ve even had Oasis! This very week! Look!

All of which is a long-winded preamble to unveiling the interview I did with Florence from out of Florence & the Machine when she came to play last week. It’s all about making your own garden of Eden here on Earth (yes, yes that IS clever), and takes place in her bedroom/dressing room. Enjoy!

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ChartBlog: Is it weird that people come into your bedroom to ask you all these questions?
Florence: Yeah I know! But it’s only been my bedroom for about seven hours, so it’s OK.

ChartBlog: You haven’t really made it yours yet…
Florence: Well, it looks like I have, actually. All my stuff is laying out everywhere. But that’s how I feel at home. When you’re travelling around so much, any kind of pottering or sorting things out I always find really calming. I’m a real potterer. I like the idea that you’re gradually re-organising your situaton. James Ford said that it’s because I have a chaotic mind.

ChartBlog: If you do it while travelling, it must feel like you’re re-organising the whole world.
Florence: Not really, it’s just my suitcase.

ChartBlog: Hm. So, welcome to Eden!
Florence: I know! I’ve been feeling really funny about it all day. Yesterday I was shooting my video for ‘Drumming Song’ in a church, and then driving to Eden. So everything feels really religion-themed at the moment.

ChartBlog: It’s in the songs too, isn’t it? King Midas…all these myths and legends…
Florence: Yeah, ‘Drumming Song’ has got heaven and hell and church towers. I’ve always been really attracted to religious iconography. I went to see the baroque exhibition at the V&A, and there was this amazing…I think it’s Spanish…it’s like the Virgin Mary with a knife pushed into her breast…and the intensity of it, the bleeding heart and stuff. The life and death things, I find it completely beautiful and fascinating. I’m sometimes trying to create that intensity, maybe like a visual landscape in songs. Like a kind of theme around them.

ChartBlog: Well that’s the interesting thing about you playing here, because there IS a landscape here, a big one…
Florence: Yes! A beautiful one! I think I would try to create an atmosphere around a place, but this place has already got one. It’s a very peaceful, calm atmosphere here. It’s so lovely. I wonder if I’ll be able to raise any spirits here? They’d be very relaxed. All the demons will be calmed, just hanging out somewhere.

ChartBlog: Or it’ll be the ghosts of grumpy Cornish clay miners who didn’t want this put here in the first place.
Florence: [laughing] Yes!

ChartBlog: If you were making a garden of Eden somewhere, where would it be?
Florence: I don’t know…maybe in the rain forest. I wanna create a place where you could live in the treetops, and you could have pathways that go from tree to tree. I always had this thing when I was a kid, we had these trees in our back yard and your house was one tree and then someone’s house was another tree. My games were always really lame, it would be like “you get the food from this tree and then…”

ChartBlog: So there would be a supermarket tree?
Florence: Yeah! I’d always do really homely stuff like making a prairie, and making a lake out of a towel, and then you’d go fishing in the towel lake, and that kind of stuff. But I always liked the idea of living somewhere where you go everything from the land around you. But mine was more of a strange fairytale kind of land…OR MAYBE UNDERWATER! OH MY GOD! THAT WOULD BE SO GOOD! ATLANTIS!

ChartBlog: Yes! No-one has ever done an underwater garden of Eden.
Florence: Yep. I want an underwater garden of Eden that looks just like The Little Mermaid when they go to the big palace. And I want to be Ariel.

ChartBlog: You’ve already got the hair. Would you forfeit the legs though? It’s the ultimate question of the film…is any man worth giving up your legs for?
Florence: [laughs] That IS the big thing about that. I think I’d want to stay underwater. I could never understand the leg thing. She’s got this big cool green tail? Keep it! You can breathe underwater! AND above water!

ChartBlog: Love the fish-skin you’re in.
Florence: Yes! LOVE THE FISH-SKIN YOU’RE IN! Do you know what this reminds me of? Ferngully! Does anyone remember Ferngully? That was an amazing film, it was SO good.

ChartBlog: When you were talking about the trees, I was thinking of the Ewok village in Return Of The Jedi…
Florence: No, I’m thinking Ferngully and they’re like these rainforest fairies, and it’s all ecological, and they’re trying to stop this evil oil guy from destroying all the trees. And there’s a guy that gets shrunk. And there’s a song that he plays on his walkman, and I remember thinking that was the best song ever when I was a kid. If anyone can remember what that song is, please tell me….

ChartBlog: And you’ll do it for a Live Lounge?
Florence: No, because it’s like this funk track.

ChartBlog: I’m sure you can manage the funk.
Florence: You think I can?

ChartBlog: Yeah. It’s just a drum and a voice, that’s what you’re good at.
Florence: OK!

ChartBlog: Florence, thank you very much.
Florence: Thank you.

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See pics of Florence’s Eden performance at BBC Cornwall.

For Original Source Click Here

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