Songs of the year, Number 1: Florence + The Machine - King

The first of the five singles released from the Dance Fever album, 'King' was released in February and quickly established itself as both a calling card for the upcoming album, and a statement of intent. 

It opens with the lines

We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children

About the world ending and

The scale of my ambition

And how much is art really worth

In the press release to accompany the song, Welch spoke of finding herself at a kind of personal crossroads. Of having to reconcile her career as a musician with her life as a 35 year old woman who would like to have children one day. 

That to be a performer, but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts. I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not.

There is a real sense of anger when she sings:

I am no mother

I am no bride

I am King

The song also works on another - possibly unintended - level in that it provides a swaggering salute to other unmarried childless/child free women: A constituency rarely acknowledged by popular music, and one that tends only to be acknowledged in the negative sense. 

The ferocity of 'King' contrasts with the vulnerability of 'Morning Elvis', Dance Fever's closing song, but what both songs share is Welch's eye for detail and ability to laugh at herself. There's a wry honesty in both cases that is as revealing as it is liberating.

The usually indestructible and (on stage) inexhaustibly energetic Welch is emphatically off stage at the moment, having broken her foot (for the second time) on the opening night of Florence + The Machine's UK tour at London's O2 Arena. But 'King' serves as a reminder of her steely determination as a performer. That sense of rage wrapped in humour coupled with a persistent kind of stubbornness and will to succeed.

She will be back in late January for her second date at London's O2 Arena, and the rest of the UK tour.