Dance Fever Analysis- "Dream Girl Evil"
Added 2023-06-23 00:33:21 +0000 UTCI discuss the diction, imagery, syntax, alliteration and allusion found within this track, as well as the motifs and themes throughout the album.
Poems mentioned in video-
Barbie Doll - Barbie Doll Poem by Marge Piercy (poemhunter.com)
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats | Poetry Foundation
Comments
I'm absolutely loving your reaction to this album! It's so complex and layered and you unpack so much in every video! I joined you patreon yesterday after seeing your King video on yt and have just been binging your Dance Fever analyses. I think Florence said in an interview that this song signifies a sort of shift in tone of the album as she steps into a darker headspace at the end of Girls Against God. I think the flow of the tracklist is super important and she seems to have had some greater story in mind when arranging the order of the songs which I haven't quite managed to get my head around but think is super interesting. Anyway, I really just wanted to say I'm loving your Patreon and hope you are doing well. P.S: I think you would enjoy Florence's other albums, (especially How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful,) even if you don't react to them. They have less of an eerie vibe and don't include the creepy vocal growl things haha.
emtherainbow
2023-06-28 20:57:31 +0000 UTCHi teacher, new Patron here after seeing your video on King via YouTube. Thanks so much for taking us on your journey with this album. For this song many things come to mind, and one of them is actually a Yu-Gi-Oh card called ‘Change Of Heart’ you should look up the picture of it. This card really sums up this song very well for me because of the reference back to “changeling” in King and the ‘change’ of tone from Girls Against God from sounding heavenly then falling into hell. Dream Girl Evil title also reflects this image to me: the word girl being in between ‘Dream’ and ‘Evil’ is the “center that cannot hold.” So a woman/girl changes in between good and evil frequently due to society. The reason why I brought up a Yu-Gi-Oh card is because Florence actually practices tarot, and also created her own tarot deck for this era and every song has a corresponding card. Again, just wanted to say thank you for analyzing this album, I think it’s Florence’s most detailed and complex.
VadersPetPig
2023-06-28 00:55:29 +0000 UTCI can totally see that! I'm really loving how Florence is tackling these issues in this album!
English Teacher KP
2023-06-27 19:22:39 +0000 UTCI really love the Madonna/whore dichotomy. This album along with "if I cant have love I want power" which also faces the listener with this archtype . They were very important albums to me at the time of their release. I feel like this album is healing 😅😌
Moriah
2023-06-25 20:02:41 +0000 UTCWait, this is SUCH A GREAT CONNECTION!!! Thank you for sharing that because you are absolutely right--both songs deal with reflecting people's projections! We love a Taylor connection!
English Teacher KP
2023-06-24 00:32:58 +0000 UTCOh wow! Ok thanks for this, y'all! I'll have to figure out the best way to go about it!
English Teacher KP
2023-06-24 00:30:29 +0000 UTCTHIS!!!! The second verse of "The Second Coming" is so powerful! The expectation versus relality aspect of it is brutal and the imagery is so chilling! Thematically, it really is the perfect poem to allude to in this song!
English Teacher KP
2023-06-24 00:29:39 +0000 UTCI think what you said about the song being about society's madonna/whore or virgin/whore dichotomy in looking at women is spot-on-- especially how you can be one of these two, but never something more complicated in between. A lot of this album deals with either/or good/evil binaries for women, actually. This song especially made me think of women in the public eye being especially targeted for having these kinds of dichotomies projected on them. I got excited when you mentioned that "shimmer" made you think of Taylor Swift, because I was thinking lately about how she uses "shine" and "shimmer" in her songs. She describes herself as "shimmering, beautiful" in "mirrorball," and in a way, "Dream Girl Evil" reminds me of kind of a darker, angrier version of "mirrorball." The "mirrorball" speaker seems willing to reflect people's projections back at them, but the "Dream Girl Evil" speaker seems pissed about it.
Erin
2023-06-23 18:07:35 +0000 UTCI was about to write that. Yeah next song is like 6 verses so it would be 5 minutes video
Kitana Khan
2023-06-23 12:31:14 +0000 UTCMermaids has some of my favorite lyrics on the album, so it would be great to get an analysis on it :)
Anna
2023-06-23 07:38:01 +0000 UTCTeacher, here’s some information about the tracklist that might help you plan the next videos. Next week’s track, “Prayer Factory”, is just 1 minute. It might be considered an interlude. It’s often performed on tour after “Dream Girl Evil”, as a continuation. Track 9, “Heaven Is Here”, is 2 minutes, but it counts as a full song. Florence opens the tour with it. Track 12, “Restraint” is also an interlude, with just 44 seconds and only 2 verses. It is often performed after “My Love” and it sounds similar too. Then I don’t know if you plan to analyze “Mermaids”, but it’s a deluxe track that was included as Track 14 on the 1 Year Anniversary on the album. The original tracklist goes “Restraint”, “The Bomb” and “Morning Elvis” as the closer.
oifogs
2023-06-23 02:36:33 +0000 UTCI never even noticed the allusion to The Second Coming! I love that poem. The last two lines of that poem are my favorite. The imagery of the beast slouching towards Bethlehem (such good diction). I think that second verse really mirrors the duality portrayed in this song. The speaker expects the second coming of Christ to be beautiful and bring salvation that makes sense of the destruction, but the beast that emerges is rough and pitiless. In the same way women are expected to be beautiful and bring salvation to men, but when they inevitably fall short they are written off as evil.
Sav Miller
2023-06-23 01:49:14 +0000 UTC
