Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry

by Florence Welch

  All placed upon the altar

  But you have to satisfy the monster

  The monster has loved you for longer

  Than anyone else.

  I LIKE PEOPLE WHO’VE SEEN SOME DARKNESS

  I like people who’ve seen some darkness

  The haunted ones.

  I like people who don’t claim to know what love is

  The honest ones.

  LOCHGILPHEAD

  My record for drunk dialling someone was forty-seven times in a row

  I then ended up on a flight to Glasgow,

  And a four-hour coach journey

  through my Scottish grandmother’s childhood holiday destinations,

  Which is a pretty strange way

  To try and keep the party going.

  My father was quite taken by the romance of the situation,

  Totally unplanned…

  He thought somewhere in my grasping desperation,

  falling through churchyard hedges and climbing out of club windows in town…

  I had set off an internal satnav

  Leading me to retrace her footsteps…

  A rest stop at Lochgilphead,

  which I remember as being incredibly beautiful,

  I may have been hallucinating,

  but I think there was a carousel

  I sent apology texts.

  In a floral nightie

  Almost passing for a dress.

  MAYBE IT WOULD BE FUN

  You appear like a mirage on a New York street, hungover and striding towards me.

  How is it that you have kidnapped me fully, fully, fully

  God help me

  I wish that you could stay

  And I could stroke the pain away

  use my body as a bandage

  I tell myself I’m not like that any more

  At least I thought I was less savage

  I try, I try, I try, I try, I try to do less damage

  And so my head is turned again

  By someone breaking before me,

  They see I’m cracked too

  So they cannot ignore me

  Of course you would adore me

  And maybe it would be fun

  Before you totally destroyed me.

  Oh you’re just like my father,

  And his father before him,

  Drunk and charming and writhing in your own skin

  LOVE HOSPITAL

  Remember the twenty-four hours that we checked in

  because we were both sick,

  And we tried to nurse each other

  in the way that drowning men drag their rescuers down with them.

  We were both kicking and screaming

  in a quiet way, with fever and hallucinations

  and we kept taking the medicine.

  That only made it worse

  WEDDING

  London is a graveyard of ex-boyfriends

  Family trauma

  And scenes that smashed themselves to pieces

  I’ve been going out among the ghosts

  Hurting, hunting

  Dancing so I don’t have to speak,

  Bringing bodies close to me

  But going home alone

  I have kissed almost everyone at this wedding

  In the doomed ship of youth

  I am lost

  I am still in love with all of you

  So I try to stay away

  I am trying to keep you safe

  HONEYMOON

  All the people I have savaged

  Held in my mouth

  Shook ’em out

  They rattle behind me

  As I enter the room

  Such jagged music

  Like tin cans

  On a honeymoon

  I GUESS I WON’T WRITE POETRY

  I guess I won’t write poetry

  I’ll just stare at my phone for fucking eternity

  The blank face of god

  Your demon door

  Your own personal sad machine

  I rode my bike over the bridge

  In a shoal of other cyclists

  Like shimmering fish

  The passing buses

  Become enormous groaning whales

  Maybe this human mess is not so bad

  I put my despair on hold

  Being ‘Famous’

  Is like being an anxious ghost

  Scared to scare people

  Wanting to slip through unseen

  But somehow keep your shape

  People scream when they see you

  You are an apparition

  A figment of your own imagination

  Are you?

  Are you?

  Am I?

  Fuck I don’t know

  SONG

  The song speaks in grand prophecies

  Older and wiser than me

  Trying to out-think death and out-swim the sea

  What would I say

  If it was just me

  Not full of choirs, singing fucking constantly

  How would I speak

  If the song left me

  That strange knowing entity

  Man nor woman

  Genderless, luminous,

  And free

  Left me as it found me

  Hollowed out.

  Self-absorbed

  Checking my phone and watching TV

  I CANNOT WRITE ABOUT THIS

  I cannot write about this,

  It is a wordless thing

  When did you become something

  I couldn’t write about,

  Did you become real to me?

  Now it is altogether

  Too grown up

  Too sad

  Too ‘the best for us both’

  To put into poetry

  THANKS

  I would like to thank Robert Montgomery for giving me the idea to write poems in the first place, and for finding the title; as always my manager, Hannah Giannoulis; Nick Cave for his inspiration and encouragement (and a few bits of editing!); Yrsa Dayley Ward for her influence, support, and for setting the bar so high; my editor, Juliet Annan, for getting me to do this and for putting up with my anxious emails; Gill Heeley for all her amazing creativity; Tom Beard for making the swamp so beautiful; Between Two Books for being such a bright spot in my life; my father for his keen eye, and for instilling me with a love of poetry; all the people I have written songs with and all the people I have written songs about.

  INDEX OF TITLES

  100 Years

  All This and Heaven Too

  American Mother

  Are You Hurting the One You Love?

  Between Two Lungs

  Big God

  Bird Song

  Blinding

  Breaking Down

  Caught

  Cosmic Love

  Delilah

  Dog Days Are Over

  Drumming Song

  Falling

  Grace

  Heartlines

  Honeymoon

  How Big How Blue How Beautiful

  Howl

  Hunger

  Hurricane Drunk

  I Cannot Write About This

  I Guess I Won’t Write Poetry

  I Like People Who’ve Seen Some Darkness

  I’m Not Calling You a Liar

  June

  Kiss With a Fist

  Leave My Body

  Lochgilphead

  Long and Lost

  Love Hospital

  Lover to Lover

  Maybe It Would Be Fun

  Monarch Butterflies

  Monster

  Mother

  My Boy Builds Coffins

  Never Let Me Go

  New York Poem (For Polly)

  No Choir

  No Ligh
t, No Light

  Oh You’re a Real Man

  Only If For a Night

  Patricia

  Queen of Peace

  Rabbit Heart

  Rage

  Seven Devils

  Shake It Out

  Ship to Wreck

  Sky Full of Song

  Song

  Song Continued

  South London Forever

  Spectrum

  St Jude

  Swimming

  The End of Love

  Third Eye

  Various Storms & Saints

  Wedding

  What Kind of Man

  What the Water Gave Me

  Which Witch

  INDEX OF FIRST LINES

  A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes

  All along

  All the people I have savaged

  And I had a dream

  And it’s hard to write about being happy because the older I get

  And it’s my whole heart

  And the air was full of various storms and saints

  And the heart is hard to translate

  And this new voice

  Another conversation with no destination

  Are you hurting the one you love?

  At seventeen I started to starve myself

  Between a crucifix and the Hollywood sign

  Between two lungs

  Crafted from Renaissance stone

  Don’t touch the sleeping pills

  Drifting through the hall with the sunrise

  Happiness hit her like a train on a track

  Holy water cannot help you now

  How deeply are you sleeping or are you still awake?

  I am afraid of things being written down

  I believe in you and in our hearts we know the truth

  I cannot write about this

  I feel nervous in a way that can’t be named

  I guess I won’t write poetry

  I like people who’ve seen some darkness

  I was on a heavy tip

  I’m gonna be released from behind these eyes

  I’m not calling you a liar

  I’m sorry I ruined your birthday

  I’m worried we are entering an age of rage

  I’ve been losin’ sleep

  I’ve fallen out of favour

  If you could only see the beast you’ve made of me

  It’s the hardest thing I ever had to do

  London is a graveyard of ex-boyfriends

  Looking up from underneath

  Lost in the fog, these hollow hills

  My boy builds coffins with hammers and nails

  My mother and father come to me in visions

  My record for drunk dialling someone was forty-seven times in a row

  No walls can keep me protected

  Oh lord, won’t you leave me

  Oh Patricia, you’ve always been my North Star

  Oh the king, gone mad within his suffering

  Oh the river, oh the river, it’s running free

  Oh you’re a real man

  Regrets collect like ol friends

  Remember the twenty-four hours that we checked in

  Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state

  So you start to take pieces of your own life

  That original lifeline

  The looking glass so shiny and new

  The show was ending and I had started to crack

  The song speaks in grand prophecies

  There’s a drumming noise inside my head

  Time it took us

  Well I didn’t tell anyone, but a bird flew by

  When I go home alone I drive past the place

  When we first came here

  You appear like a mirage on a New York street, hungover and striding towards me.

  You are the hole in my head

  You hit me once

  You need a big God

  Your songs remind me of swimming

  IMAGE CREDITS

  The publisher is grateful for permission to reproduce the following images. Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publisher will be happy to make good in future editions any errors of omission or commission brought to their attention.

  Cover artwork © Florence Welch.

  Photos and postcards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 courtesy of the author.

  Photography 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 © Tom Beard/Prettybird.

  Marbling on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 © Jemma Lewis Marbling & Design.

  1: William Morris (1834–96), Gold and red sunflower wallpaper design, 1879 (colour woodblock print on paper), Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.

  1: William Morris (1834–96), Snakeshead, 1876 (block printed cotton) © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

  1: Illustration created using William Kilburn (1745–1818), Textile Design, c. 1788–92 (w/c on paper)/The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Artist Unknown, Narcissus, c. 1500 (wool and silk), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA/Bridgeman Images.

  1: William Morris (1834–96), Design for Vine wallpaper, c. 1872 (w/c on paper), Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.

  1: William Morris (1834–96), Wallpaper with acanthus leaves and wild roses on a crimson background, Private Collection/ Bridgeman Images.

  1: Jacob Chr. Roux, Partial dissection of the chest of a man, with arteries indicated in red, 1822 © Wellcome Collection.

  1: Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833–98), Hope, (watercolour with bodycolour), Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images.

  1: (border) William Morris (1834–96), Original drawing for a full-page border, 1892–5 (ink and pencil). Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images.

  1: John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), The Lady of Shalott, 1888, Tate, London. Photo © akg-images/World History Archive.

  1: John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), Ophelia, 1894 (oil on canvas), Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Walter Crane (1845–1915), Wallpaper showing a design of pine-needles and cones (detail) © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

  1: Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro Filipepi), The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, National Galleries of Scotland. Purchased with the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund, the Scottish Executive, the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Tom Farmer, the Dunard Fund, Mr and Mrs Kenneth Woodcock (donation made through the American Friends of the National Galleries of Scotland) and private donations, 1999.

  1: William Morris (1834–96), Design for tapestry (w/c on paper), Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Nicolas Hilliard (1547–1619), Queen Elizabeth I, ‘The Ermine Portrait’, 1585 (oil on panel), Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, UK/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Manuel de Arellano (Mexico, 1662–1722), Virgin of Guadalupe (La Virgen de Guadalupe), 1691 (oil on canvas). Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2009.61). Photo © Museum Associates/ LACMA.

  1: Tamara De Lempika (1898–1980), Portrait of Madame M, 1932 (oil on canvas), (detail), Private Collection/Bridgeman Images © Tamara Art Heritage/ADAGP, Paris and DACS London, 2018.

  1: George Charles Beresford (1864–1938), Virginia Woolf, 1902 (b/w photo), National Portrait Gallery, London.

  1: (pattern) Artist Unknown, Floral design of Roses and Lilacs, c. 1850 (glazed and roller-printed cotton) © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

  1: Gustav Klimnt (1862–1918), The Kiss, 1907–1908 (oil on canvas) (detail of 601), Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), Minerva or Pallas Athena, 1898 (oil on canvas), (detail), Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Portrait of Marchesa Maria Serra Pallavici
no (c. 1575–c. 1630), 1606 (oil on canvas), (detail), Kingston Lacy, Dorset, UK. Photo © National Trust Photographic Library/Derrick E. Witty/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Gustav Klimnt (1862–1918), Detail of Water Serpents I, 1904–1907 (oil on canvas), Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Tamara De Lempika (1898–1980), Portrait of Ira P, 1930 (oil on panel), (detail), Private Collection/Photo via Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images © Tamara Art Heritage/ADAGP, Paris and DACS London, 2018.

  1: © Martyn Thompson/Trunk Archive.

  1: Artist Unknown, A Shipwreck, 1850, Universal History Archive/UIG/Bridgeman Images.

  1: © David Mushegain/Trunk Archive.

  1: Jules Charles Ernest Billaudot, aka Mage Edmond (1829–81), ‘Oracle’ Tarot Card of Love, c. 1845 (cardboard and gouache), Paris, France. PVDE/Bridgeman Images.

  1: Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix, (1798–1863), The Virgin of the Sacred Heart, 1821 (oil on canvas), Ajaccio Cathedral, Ajaccio, Corsica/Bridgeman Images.

  1: © Colin Michael Simmons/Gallery Stock.

  1: Eujarim Photography/Getty Images.

  1: Gran Cenote, Mexico © Ismael Eduardo P.M. via Flickr.

  1: (pattern) Hartmann et Fils, Flowers of India on a Trunk, c. 1800 (printed cotton), Munster, Germany © Victoria and Albert Museum, London; (painting) Niccolò de Simone, (1636–77), Saint Agatha, c. 17th (oil on canvas). Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images.

  1: © Marlene Marino/Trunk Archive.

  1: Jack Pierson, One More Lie Hollywood Told Me, c. 1990 © Jack Pierson, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.

  1: © Nancy Jo Iacoi/Gallery Stock.

  1: © Tamara Lichtenstein.

  1: Vali Myers (1930–2003), Foxy, 1967, (pen, black ink and watercolour), 34 x 23 cm. Image provided courtesy of The Vali Myers Art Gallery Trust and Outre Gallery, www.outregallery.com.

  1: William Morris (1834–96), Utecht Velvet, 1871, Private Collection/The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Images.

  1: (pattern) Artist Unknown, Dress fabric with floral pattern, late eighteenth century (cotton), France © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

  1: Cy Twombly (1929–2011), Fifty Days at Iliam: Shades of Eternal Night, 1978 (oil, oil crayon and graphite on canvas), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA. Gift (exchange) of Samuel S. White 3rd and Vera White, 1989. Photo via Bridgeman Images. © Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio.

  1: Nicolas Robert (1614–85), Frontispiece of ‘La Guirlande de Julie’, c. 1642 (w/c on vellum), Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.