Useless Magic: Lyrics, Poetry and Sermons

“THEN LIGHTNING STRUCK / NOW I’M TOTALLY F****D.” I had the supreme joy of reading Florence Welch’s lyrics and poetry, ‘Useless Magic’, a couple of days early. What a monumental gift this book is. The lyrics-by-album serve as a retrospective, a chronology of the artist’s growth over ten years; lyrics which (excepting High As Hope) have been subjective and disputed. Laid out on the page there is no denying the sheer power and poetry of Florence’s song-writing; never does a lyric become a dead thing, flattened to the printed page. And what a joy to read through and discover new meanings. The book is stunningly packaged, complete with photographs and artwork, of/by her and her influences, as well as sketches/notes from her notebooks over the years, seeds planted to bloom much later. But it is the poetry I was most excited for, and most enjoyed. Though only sixteen poems in all, it feels like plenty, with each poem its own marvel, Florence’s voice confident and contemplative. In ‘Oh You’re A Real Man’, a verse in ‘Patricia’ is altered to ask “how many have to die / so that you can feel loved?”, while in ‘Rage’ Florence mourns the “age of rage” we find ourselves living in, the seeming obsolescence of softness and compassion. The inadvertent triptych of ‘Love Hospital’, ‘Wedding’ and ‘Honeymoon’ make a really stunning moment of both circularity and progression, while the insistence of ‘American Mother’ and its personal introspection provide another perspective to Florence’s near-romanticised processing of the world. ‘Monarch Butterflies’ handles the problem of putting written lyrics and poems into the world, “confined to the page so permanent”, while ‘I Guess I Won’t Write Poetry’ muses on “the blank face of god / your demon door / your own personal sad machine”. A true delight in every sense and hopefully merely a prologue of all the poetry to come.

This book looks extremely beautiful but I just wish it had more poems than lyrics. I felt the poems were such a small part of the book and were the most interesting (at least something new). I guess I didn’t care that much about the lyrics because I already have all her albums.Hopefully Florence will write a poems book soon.

This arrived today. It is absolutely beautiful. So much care has gone into making it. As a huge fan of Florence this is now one of my most treasured possessions. If you love Florence and The Machine this is a must have! I'm so happy to have received it today.

I ordered this for my dearest friend, a long time fan of Florence + The Machine. It's an intimate and touching view into the soul of Florence Welch through her poems, lyrics and artwork, some reproduced directly from the pages of her notebooks. Beautifully arranged and packaged into a book that will undoubtedly be a treasured item for anyone who feels a connection to Florence's music.

This book offers a fantastic insight into the mind of Florence Welch, and everything about it, from the cover to the very last page, suits Florence's aesthetic so very well, in a way that fans will instantly recognise this book as a creation of the mind of Flo. I love having this book on my shelf, as it's like my own little piece of Florence's mind.