Florence and the Machine have released a new song, “KING,” with an accompanying music video.
The track arrives one day after lead singer Florence Welch posted a cryptic tweet, telling fans: “Something’s coming.”
Welch had also shared a snippet of the music video directed by Autumn de Wilde, the filmmaker behind the 2020 period drama Emma.
Today (23 February), Welch shared the official announcement of her new single along with a link to the video, which shows Welch, the only source of colour, cloaked in purple and singing soulfully as a group of women dressed in grey dance around her.
The new release has already been well-received by fans, with the tweet at approximately 12,200 likes and growing, at the time of writing.
One commenter wrote: “Un-Follow Me Now. This Is Gonna Be the Only Thing I Tweet About For The Next Week. Ive Wanted This For Years F***. What The F***.”
The song’s chorus includes the lyrics: “I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king.”
In the song’s press release, Welch shared: “As an artist, I never actually thought about my gender that much. I just got on with it. I was as good as the men and I just went out there and matched them every time.”
She continued: “But now, thinking about being a woman in my thirties and the future, I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires. 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.”
“King” is the latest music released by the band since the 2021 single “Call Me Cruella,” written for the movie Cruella, starring Emma Stone.
