Rabbit Heart is the fourth single from Florence’s debut album, Lungs and reached 12th in the UK singles chart after being released on 22nd June 2009. The genre of the song is classified as indie pop on the music site last.fm and alternative in the iTunes music store.
The video follows a narrative structure with Florence singing in a field accompanied by a number of actors and dancers. The theme seems to collaborated with a spiritual ritual that appears within the video, where the actors, dancers are seen dancing and having a feast which at this point the food is thrown from a table to the floor and finally Florence is boxed into a coffin and wrapped with a white cloth which is a symbolic reference to purity which could fit into to Ronald Bathes theory of connotation and denotation. The coffin is then pushed into the river floating peaceful away, which a signifier reference, to a Biblical story or ancient Burials like the Romans and the Greeks. These Spiritual and ancient themes relate back to the lyrics “ we raise it up, this offering, we raise it up” as well as the songs chorus.
The video opens with a extreme close up of Florence mouth with the rest of her face covered by a piece of see through material which has sequins at the end, again this gives the ideology of purity a woman unveiling her face. The camera the pans out then pans outwards towards Florence and she lifted the material from her face. This captures the audience interest as the video opens. Tracking shots, close ups and medium close up’s are regularly used throughout the music video making Florence constantly the centre of the audience’s attention.
Only one musical instrument from the song appears in the video. A man in a suit playing a harp appears immediately we are transport to a fairy tale of sorts creating a peaceful and harmonious background and themes, fitting along side the lyrics and meaning. Two other instruments are used in the video but are only used as props to aid the narrative and meaning within the contextual themes.
The rhythm of the song is slower than most of Florence and The Machine Videos, but still retains it upbeat posture within in terms and pop indie. The combined with the filter used on the camera and the occasional use of the fade transition gives the music video a dated theme, as to suggest that the video was a period drama of sorts.
A number of props appear in the video, most notably is the ending where Florence is carried towards the riverbank and pushed out onto the water. This makes the whole theme and ceremony of spirituality, purity and ancient rituals look like a joyful and Harmonious occasion as the singing and dancing takes centre stage.
While Rabbit Heart (Raise it up) wasn’t Florence’s first single, it was an important song as new artist are quickly label within the media for their public image. This video help shows that Florence is not the typical female sex symbol but an artist as an artist passionate about writing interesting with peculiar videos to accompany them. This could fit in with Laura Mulvey ideology of the Male Gaze.
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