We’re long time fans of Florence + The Machine and now we’ve got some new music from the leggy redheaded goddess. Titled “Wish That You Were Here,” the track was written for the upcoming Tim Burton film Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Burton’s cinematic vision and the vast sweeping sounds of Florence + The Machine are a match made in heaven and a dream collaboration for the musician herself. As Florence Welch explains in a press release…
“I’ve always been a huge fan of Tim Burton’s. We have a very similar sensibility. It’s the kind of dark, dark romance of his work — so beautiful and whimsical, but with an element of darkness to it. That’s something that I always try and achieve in my work, too. I knew we would get along really well working together and we did. I feel like we’re coming from a similar place of quite frantic imaginations trying to get the words out before the pictures in our heads disappear. He feels like a kindred spirit, I actually sent him a note about six years ago. I was in Australia on tour there for the first time and visited an exhibition of all his work. I wanted to leave him a message and all I had on me was an x-ray of my hand, as I had just broken my finger. So I wrote on the x-ray and gave it to the gallery to pass on and never knew if he got it. When we met for the first time, he told me it’s been hanging up in his office ever since.”
The track itself is a beast of sound all swept up in memory. As Welch continues…
“‘Wish That You Were Here’ is a song about the idea that love is a journey and a risk. Having been on tour, I’ve lived in a sort of magical time bubble, where the days almost blend together. It’s amazing, but it comes at a cost — a cost of leaving the people you love behind for a year or two. You kind of feel like if you could sing a song into the wind, maybe the wind could take it to them in a way that you can’t with a text or a call. You just want to send your love in a different way, in a way to somehow reach the unreachable.”
Listen to “Wish That You Were Here” above.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children opens in theatres on September 30th & “Wish That You Were Here” hits digital retailers August 26th via Republic Records (pre-order it via iTunes here). Watch a trailer for the film below.