St Jude - Music Video Analysis (The Odyssey Chapter 3)

St. Jude

The Odyssey, Chapter 3 Analysis

St. Jude is a huge video, although it appears so simple. We can now see how Florence + the Machine are linking each music video to each other, showing the traumatic journey of pain and anger, but also love and happiness, Florence went through in her break from music. If you still don't think the videos so far make sense, we suspect that by the end of this era, everything will fit together if this continues! 

Just as a side point: notice how in every video so far, Florence has been wearing white. We think this is to symbolise her life as a blank canvas, easily spoilt, but also a basis for something beautiful (like love).

The basis of the song itself is that Florence feels her love for this man is a lost cause, and the saint of lost causes is St. Jude.

When introducing this song for the first time, live at The Dome, Florence said that the song was written because she felt like this huge storm was following her, physically (there was a storm in October 2013 called St. Jude across the south of England) and mentally. Just take a listen to the start of the “What Kind of Man” video again; Florence describes herself as in this storm, and it’s calm, but it’s still there and she can feel it.

The music video begins with Florence’s doppelganger commanding and appreciating the sky. Remember from the “How Big How Blue How Beautiful” video, this person is Florence’s other self that she’s battling with and getting to know. One half of Florence loves this huge sky, and the other half is scared of it (it brings storms, after all, and Florence said this in an interview). She's also naked above the waist - she's feeling at one with nature, and Florence said that this album is about loving the earth, whereas Ceremonials was more a dream-world album.

The setting is in hell (the director himself said this in a press release). Florence is literally going through hell, travelling through the “Circles of Hell”, of which there are 9. This video mainly focuses on the 1st and 2nd circles.

Just as a bit of background, historically, in the 1st, there is a state of limbo. The people who did not show faith go here. Maybe, in the video, this symbolises how Florence’s love with this man is almost hellish, and she’s in a state of limbo with it too. Is it good, or is it bad for her? It’s often described as a deficient form of heaven (the children symbolising innocence and good in the video), which therefore describes Florence’s love situation perfectly; at the time, it seems like heaven, but when she takes a step back, she realises it was actually hell.

In the 2nd circle, those who have sinned by lust are sent. The sinner’s soul is ruthlessly battered in a storm, and symbolise show the feeling of lust for someone is like being thrown around in a fierce wind. This reflects perfectly in the music video, which begins by showing a stone circle, in the pattern of a hurricane, with Florence and her man standing in the rain, in literally a broken home. Her man is carrying her in this storm; Florence feels weak and helpless in his grip, but he isn’t forceful in it (he lets her down). Once again, an ode to Florence feeling that she’s in a storm in this relationship. The stone storm circle (and therefore the storm) is left outside her house, showing that the storm has passed now. We believe “What Kind of Man” was set within this storm, when things were going terribly. Hence, in that video, the storms on TV, and the lightning on the balcony scene.

Another interesting scene is when Florence walks past herself outside the church. This is the same Florence that collapsed (during a storm, may I point out again) on the steps of the church in the “What Kind of Man” video. Now the storm has passed, she can reflect upon herself, and see herself from a different angle. The men carrying away the rocks are a way of showing the heavy weight love can have, and how confessing to the church is like lifting a rock from above her. Alexa Foor adds that "In Dante's Divine Comedy (on which the director based this video), there's a scene where Dante comes across men carrying heavy stones on their backs to pay for a specific crime". Another fan, Juan De Jesús, tells us that in Mexican Catholicism, people carry rocks to pay respect to St. Jude (manda).

After this scene, we see Florence being carried again, just like in the “What Kind of Man” video, but in a different situation. In that video, she was being carried into a chamber of torture by men. In this video though, she has the power to let herself down, because she isn’t in this storm anymore. You could even say that St. Jude caused this devastation in WKOM, in order for Florence to see what was truly happening, and therefore indirectly helping her.

A native asks her when she leaves her man’s side whether she’s lost, and Florence responds saying that she’s letting loss reveal it. She’s purposely lost her man, and lost herself, to reveal what she truly has in life, because St. Jude had caused the devastation in order for her to see it. She’s “trying to find the meaning” of her lust, and the second circle of hell is often described as the soul being blown by the storm meaninglessly to symbolise how lust meaninglessly pushes and pulls someone. Why does Florence love this man so much? It seems pointless.

Florence strays off the path that her man is taking her on, and collapses, maybe from the exhaustion of the storm throwing her around, or maybe because she’s off the path she was on that kept her supported. The birds then form a circle, hinting again at the circles of hell, reminding Florence that although everything looks like it could be heaven, it isn’t. Although she's separate from her man now, and she can take a step back and see the mistakes made, she's not out of the dark yet.

What do you think of the video? Think we’ve missed something? Comment below and we’ll add it in! 

FAN ANALYSES

Ryan Smith

At the beginning where it's raining inside the house, but then suddenly stops when she walks out, it could represent that there is a 'storm' within. Also the fact the house is a ruin could suggest that there had been some kind of disaster (such as a huge storm) in the past. the rain could represent that although the main disaster is over, there is still a part of it left that she is yet to overcome, and that this 'disaster' is within herself.
This therefore links this video back to the beginning of WKOM in the car where she says 'what if the disaster is within themselves', showing that what she was previously worrying about actually then became a reality. Leading on to my belief that these videos are her way of visually representing this journey of lust and heartbreak that she's been through in the two years that she had off. These two videos could just be the beginning of a journey that I'm hoping is going to be carried on throughout in future videos.