AND IT’S PEACEFUL IN THE DEEP

Florence + the Machine and To Those Willing to Drown By Mark Matthews

A photo taken by Sadie Hartmann of her copy of To Those Willing to Drown

I’m a big fan of Florence & the Machine and Mark Matthews so I’m opening my blog space to this guest post today from, Mark. Please enjoy. - Sadie Hartmann

In the film, I Saw the TV Glow, one character is so entrenched in fandom, she decides the reality of the characters she covets is a better reality than the one she lives. Finally, something that understands my fandom for Florence + the Machine Her music speaks to something inside me in a way no other music can, and seeing her live in concert just makes that impact hit even harder. The mythologizing, the depth of self-reflection, in both the lyrics and the notes she carries. There is an immense love of life and a constant flirting with tragedy in her songs. Her voice is a beautiful siren, summoning me to crash on the rocks. I have seen her in concert every chance I can, and each time there’s an unmistakable feeling of communing with the crowd. It feels like a place of worship, with the goddess and muse on stage, as the revelers dance themselves to death. Music has always been my fuel, and oftentimes, F+TM is the only music I listen to. Put me on a deserted island with only her catalog, I would not feel lonely.

And since Florence Welch has been so open about her recovery from addiction, that connection has only grown deeper. She sings about addiction in songs such as Restraint, South London Forever, Mermaids, and of course, Morning Elvis, which has become my addiction recovery anthem.

All this may not be normal. But that’s okay, I wouldn’t want it any other way. My novel The Hobgoblin of Little Minds was written to the song HOWL, with its visceral and passionate depiction of Werewolves and the passion inside each of us. And my latest novel, To Those Willing to Drown, has been guided by Florence’s multiple depictions of water; of drownings, of ships that wreck, and the mermaids below with their teeth so sharp.

Florence has talked more than once about how she has an obsession with water and the idea of drowning and submersing yourself entirely. She joked about how people said “You already have one water song, you can’t have another” but instead, she drowns in more water songs. In one interview, she shared the origin of her water fascination:

“When I was growing up, there were these stories that kept popping up in my life

about children who would get swept out to sea, and the parents would dive in

after them. It made me think of this idea of the sea being this entity that needs a

sacrifice, like if it’s going to take your children, then you have to give yourself... I

also remember this idea about a river that has to have someone drowned in it

before you can cross it —like, if you see a river running smoothly, it’s because

someone has drowned in it, and if it is raging, it means that it’s still got bloodlust.”
(credit for this quote)

Such is the content of my novel, To Those Willing to Drown. The title came from the phrase: The lake speaks most honestly to those willing to drown, and the parents in the novel risk sacrificing their lives to the lake to save their daughter’s soul. I was on a mission to try and brand this novel with some Florence lyrics. After many attempts to find the right corporation who held copyrights to her lyrics, I reached out to them, and finally received a reply months later. Before they would agree, I had to show them how the words would appear on the page, and the name, content, and expected distribution of the novel. Finally, after paying a fee and agreeing to instructions on how to credit, I received permission. While this might seem standard fare after I celebrated the permission to use the F+TM lyrics, even Sir Chuck Wendig replied to that social media post with:

*takes a bow*

But which song lyrics did I use? As it was, for a single passage, Never Let Me Go had the best impact. A song about drowning, about the pull of the water’s bottom, a longing for the only resting spot that will bring peace. Below is how it appears on the page:

Florence spoke about how she was in such a bad place when she wrote the song Never Let Me Go, that she had avoided playing it live for ten years. When she finally revisited the song, the audience's reaction brought her to tears. It became a regular on her setlist for the Dance Fever tour, and now its lyrics are part of my foreword. Oddly, I’d hardly be considered her target audience, but my interests have never aligned with my demographics And now here I go again, I have just written another story inspired by Mermaids and Morning Elvis. With my Florence fandom, at times it seems every word I’ve ever written, is just another way to scream her name.

Check out To Those Willing to Drown, where to save her child’s soul, a grieving mother must battle a sinister pastor who haunts a lake community.

“A powerful, thought-provoking, multifaceted story that proves nearly impossible to put down.” —D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Mark Matthews is a graduate of the University of Michigan and a licensed professional counselor who has worked in behavioral health for over 25 years. He is the author of On the Lips of Children, All Smoke Rises, Milk-Blood, and The Hobgoblin of Little Minds. He is the editor of a trio of addiction horror anthologies including Orphans of Bliss, Lullabies for Suffering, and Garden of Fiends. In June of 2021, he was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. His novella, KALI’S WEB, is coming in August 2025 from Crystal Lake Entertainment.