New York has an alternative rock station now!! Though I don't follow Florence + The Machine, I do like many of their songs and when I heard Hunger playing on the radio, I was immediately impressed. It sounds so good and deep so let's analyze the lyrics!!
Hunger by Florence + The Machine, Song Meaning and Lyrical Interpretation
At seventeen, I started to starve myself
I thought that love was a kind of emptiness
And at least I understood then the hunger I felt
And I didn't have to call it loneliness
When I heard the first line, I felt so sad at the idea of Florence starving herself. That is a gut-punch opening line. Then as I listened to the rest of the song, I was like oh wait, she isn't talking about literally starving herself from food. The hunger and starvation are supposed to represent something else. Maybe she is starving herself from human connection. She was afraid of love (calling it emptiness) so she starved herself from connection.
Then I went on genius.com to see what they had to say about it. Looks like I was wrong!! Florence did have an eating disorder. That fact made me change my mind about how I interpret this stanza.
Maybe Florence thought she had to be skinny to be beautiful. Only people who are skinny can get love so "love was a kind of emptiness." The last two lines are saying, even then, she still knew her thinking was wrong. She knew, even then, that love was complex and more deep than the superficial notion.
"And I didn't have to call it loneliness," is one of my favorite lines. I still stand by my interpretation that hunger is supposed to represent that primal need for human connection. She doesn't want to call it loneliness. She doesn't want to call it an absence of human connection. Instead, she wants to call it the intense need of human connection. She is coming from a place of abundance in this way. She doesn't lack love, she is just passionate about it instead. She has a hunger for love.
Tell me what you need, oh, you look so freeWho is this stanza talking about? Sometimes, I feel like she is talking about her lover but other times I feel like she is talking about her self. Her lover's body may not be perfect but she still loves it. He or she looks free and beautiful. By seeing how she feels about her lover's body, she can also feel love for her own flawed body. "Don't let them get you down," is saying don't let the media or society's standards of beauty get you down.
The way you use your body, baby, come on and work it for me
Don't let them get you down, you're the best thing I've seen
We never found the answer but we knew one thing
We all have a hunger
The hunger, or the primal need for love and connection, is more than the superficial
And it's Friday night and it's kicking in
And I can't dress, they're gonna crucify me
Oh, but you in all your vibrant youth
How could anything bad ever happen to you?
You make a fool of death with your beauty, and for a moment.
The "I can't dress," may be saying she can't fit into her dress (on a night out when she is supposed to be mingling with potential mates) and now society will look down on her. But then she tells herself, she is full of so much life and hope. She should stop focusing on the superficial and take everything life has to offer in.
I thought that love was in the drugsShe tried finding love in drugs and in her career but it wasn't enough. When she does try to find love in other people, she feels alone. She feels like she has to dissect and understand it ("staring at your phone"). Instead, she just needs to understand that this need for love and connection is just as natural as literal hunger.
But the more I took, the more it took away
And I could never get enough
I thought that love was on the stage
You give yourself to strangers
You don't have to be afraid
And then it tries to find a home with people, oh, and I'm alone
Picking it apart and staring at your phone
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