Florence Welch was 22 when she decided to scream into a microphone about building coffins and digging out eyeballs. Honestly, it shouldn't have worked. In 2009, the UK music scene was busy transitioning from the indie-sleaze of the Arctic Monkeys into the polished, retro-soul era of Adele and Duffy. Then came this red-headed art student from South London. She wasn't doing soul—at least not the kind you'd hear in a smoky jazz club. She was doing something "church-like and then doom-like," as she once put it. She called it Lungs.
It’s been seventeen years since Lungs by Florence and the Machine landed, and the record hasn't aged a day. That’s rare. Most "indie-pop" from that era sounds like a very specific time-capsule of skinny jeans and wired headphones. But Lungs feels like it exists in a vacuum. Or maybe a haunted forest.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Sound
You've probably heard people call this album "ethereal." It’s a bit of a lazy label, right? People see a woman in a vintage gown playing a harp and they think "angelic." But if you actually listen to the lyrics on "Girl With One Eye" or "Howl," there is nothing angelic about it. It’s violent. It’s messy.
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The album was built on a foundation of "enthusiasm over skills." Florence has been pretty open about the fact that she didn't know how to play the guitar when she started. She didn't want classical structures. Instead, she and Isabella "Machine" Summers would just bang on things in a small studio called The Crystal Palace. They used tribal drumming to backdrop Florence’s soaring vocals because, frankly, they were just making it up as they went along.
The Five Producers Problem
Usually, when an album has five different producers, it's a disaster. It sounds like a compilation, not a cohesive thought. Lungs had Paul Epworth, James Ford, Steve Mackey, Eg White, and Charlie Hugall all twisting knobs at different points. Somehow, it didn't break. Why? Because Florence’s voice is the glue. It's so loud and so specific that you could put her over a blender and it would still sound like a Florence and the Machine record.
Why Dog Days Are Over Was a Happy Accident
"Dog Days Are Over" is the track everyone knows. It’s the one that gets played at every wedding and in every "coming of age" movie trailer. But it wasn't supposed to be a polished pop anthem. The song was inspired by a piece of text by artist Ugo Rondinone that Florence saw on a bridge. It’s a song about the fear of happiness.
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"Leave all your love and your longing behind / You can't carry it with you if you want to survive."
That bridge is basically a survival manual. Most people treat it like a "yay, everything is great" song, but it's actually about the frantic, terrifying moment when you realize things might finally be okay and you don't know how to handle it. The percussion—those legendary handclaps—wasn't even done with high-end equipment. It was just a bunch of people in a room making as much noise as possible.
The Gothic Underbelly: Death, Blood, and Harps
If you strip away the harps, Lungs is a horror movie. Seriously.
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Take "My Boy Builds Coffins." It’s a jaunty little tune about the fact that everyone you know is going to die. Or "Kiss With a Fist," which sounds like a 60s garage-rock track but describes a relationship that is literally on fire. Florence told The Independent back in 2009 that she’d rather write about a flower dying than blossoming. You can hear that cynicism throughout the tracklist.
Key Songs That Define the Era:
- Cosmic Love: Apparently written in ten minutes while Florence was hungover. It’s perhaps the best representation of the "Machine" sound—massive drums meeting delicate harps.
- Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up): A song about the price of fame. It uses the "lamb and the knife" metaphor to talk about how the music industry essentially guts artists for content.
- Between Two Lungs: The title track (sorta). It captures that breathless, claustrophobic feeling of being in love.
The 2026 Perspective: Its Lasting Legacy
Looking back from 2026, Lungs by Florence and the Machine was the blueprint for the "Witchy Pop" movement. You don't get Lorde, Billie Eilish, or even the later eras of Taylor Swift without Florence proving that you can be weird, loud, and incredibly successful at the same time. She bridged the gap between the weirdness of Kate Bush and the accessibility of mainstream pop.
The album eventually won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year in 2010. It hit number one in the UK after sitting on the charts for nearly half a year. It didn't explode overnight; it breathed. It grew. People had to find it.
How to Revisit Lungs Today
If you haven't listened to the record in a few years, don't just put on the hits. The real magic of Lungs is in the deep cuts.
- Listen to "Blinding" on loud speakers. It’s the most underrated track on the album. The way the drums kick in after that eerie intro is a masterclass in tension.
- Watch the 2010 Brit Awards performance. The "You Got the Dirtee Love" mashup with Dizzee Rascal shouldn't have worked, but it defined a moment in British culture where genres stopped mattering.
- Find the Tenth Anniversary Edition. The demos of "Ghosts" and "My Boy Builds Coffins" show how raw the project was before the big-name producers got their hands on it.
The album is a reminder that you don't need to be a technical prodigy to make a masterpiece. You just need a lot of feeling and, well, a very strong pair of lungs.
To get the most out of the record's 17th anniversary, start by listening to the original 13-track sequence without skipping. Pay attention to how the harp—played by Tom Monger—isn't just a background instrument but acts as a lead guitar. Then, compare the studio version of "Cosmic Love" to any live recording from the 2009-2010 era; the raw power of Welch's voice without the studio layering is where the true "Machine" is revealed.