Never Let Me Go

Album: Ceremonials (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • Florence Welch and Paul Epworth wrote this R&B-tinged piano ballad with the latter also handling the production. The band first premiered the song during a concert at New York's Creators Project on 15 October 2011, two weeks before the release of Ceremonials. Talking about the track, Welch said: "The gospel thing comes from my obsession with hymns. I'm drawn to anything that has a hymnal quality, be it Spiritualized or dusty old albums by Georgian choirs." It was released as the fourth single from the album on April 2, 2012.
  • Florence + the Machine performed this as one of their encore songs during their second worldwide Ceremonials Tour (2011-2012).
  • The song's eerie music video was directed by Tabitha Denholm, who is one half of the English indie/disco duo Queens of Noize. She previously helmed Welch's "Cosmic Love" and "Rabbit Heart" clips. The visual stars the actor Jamie Campbell Bower as Welch's love interest, who is best known for his role of Caius in The Twilight Saga New Moon movie.

    The clip was shot at the Slough ice rink in England.
  • Florence + the Machine played the song live for the first time in nearly 10 years during their April 15, 2022 show at Newcastle's O2 City Hall. "I had a really strange relationship with it," Welch explained to the audience. "I had a lot of time to think – as many of us did – and I reassessed a lot of the old material. I think I rejected it because it symbolically seemed like so much pressure. And I think you being here and listening to the music for the last 10 years has changed everything."

    "It used to symbolize a person under a huge amount of pressure," she continued. "But every time I try to push a song away, you love it the most and you bring it back to me. I'm so grateful to you for that. Like the tide bringing it back to me, I wanted to give it back to you."

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