Delilah - Music Video Analysis (The Odyssey Chapter 8)

Delilah

The Odyssey, Chapter 8 Analysis

“Delilah” marks the end of Florence’s state in purgatory. For all the other music videos since the crash in “What Kind of Man”, Florence has been tormented by her boyfriend.

This video starts with the same hand-in-the-air as “Long & Lost” ended. Remember, Long & Lost ended with Florence being pulled away from her love, and now she’s without him, being told by a man that her faith can be restored if she loves herself (a hint to Third Eye?) now that she’s apart from her love. Florence #2 is seen walking away from this room, as if Florence #2 is the only one mourning, and the man is exorcising that Florence out of her body.

Florence #1 is then seen walking down a landing, with Florence #2 following her behind, tormenting her thoughts. Florence #1 is then seen cutting her love’s hair; just as in the biblical story of Sampson and Delilah, Delilah cuts Sampson’s hair since it is his power. Florence cutting her love’s hair may be suggesting Florence is cutting the chains and power that he has over her. This is reiterated when he is seen slumped on the bed, lifeless. The other women in bed with her could be a symbol of all the strong women Florence has drawn on into her own life to gain strength whilst her love has lost his. They support her as she is about to fall off the edge of the bed; when she’s seeing life upside-down literally.

The scene cuts to Florence hugging Florence #2, showing that she’s not quite ready to let the pitiful side of her go yet. They’re both mourning together.
Florence’s love is seen to cover her eyes, emphasising the lyric “and I’m going blind”, that her love blinded her from reality. In contrast to the women, the men around Florence are just lying there, unempathetic.

Florence beats her head against a chair, as if trying to eliminate her pain and sorrow of what she’s done on her own as well as a sort of prayer. The daemon on the bed is a reference to Florence’s sleep paralysis, which is said to give sufferers delusions of a shadow figure over you, stopping you moving. This could reference the sorrowful Florence #2 again - when awake, Florence #2 is seen as harmless to #1, but when asleep (metaphorically speaking, Florence has her eyes closed to reality in this relationship), #1 realises this “harmless” side to her is stopping her from moving on, just like the daemon stops sleepers from moving.

Florence suddenly wakes up from this. She goes outside and searches out/retraces all the men that were bullying her, as they were in “What Kind of Man”. She’s got total control over them now, until she goes too far and they start winning her over again. However, her woman friend (Comfort Fedoke) comes out and although Florence sees her as an obstacle at first, she takes Florence away from the situation, maybe a metaphor for her real friends helping her get over the loss of her boyfriend. Comfort Fedoke is then seen repeating the head-banging moves that Florence did earlier, emphasising that Comfort was helping Florence because she has been through the same situation before.

Then, the turning point comes. Thanks to the support of these women, Florence finally sees herself (#2) struggling with this man, and realises it’s not healthy. The disguise of it all is revealed, and Florence doesn’t want to believe it. Florence #2 tells Florence to run; to leave her old sorrowful self behind, and Florence #1 struggles with this. “I’m not you” mouths Florence #2

Florence #2, seen with all her torments (the men) behind her, ushers Florence away, and is also seen embracing Florence #1 by the pool in acceptance that this is the reality of things. The scene cuts to Florence #1 in the pool with her man. This highlights the fact that Florence was barely above water, solely dependent on this one man to save her before. Florence #2 is then shown face-down in the water; Florence has said goodbye to that destructive side of her, and now she's been killed off.

Florence changes out of her old clothes; literally, she is changing. She drags her man out of her life like he dragged her into it. Now, highlighted by Florence cruising on the car, she is truly free. Remember, that hand-gesture to the sky in Long & Lost / Queen of Peace was a symbol of freedom, but unlike in those two videos, now Florence is actually moving. She’s not statically hoping for freedom, but now she has it.

The video ends with cut-scenes from “What Kind of Man”, and what looks like “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful”. The “WKOM” scenes highlight how things have come full-circle. Florence is now out of hell, and is at a stage before the car-crash again. Now we’ve seen Florence go through everything after the crash, if it does happen again, we as the audience know how to deal with it. The greens may also be signifying a “grass is greener on the other side” mentality.

As with the shots of the trees resembling HBHBHB, we speculate that the whole Odyssey will come full-circle and end with the full video, especially since in the short version, there is an obvious scene cut when Florence goes into the cave and comes back out.