You need a big god
Big enough to hold your love
You need a big god
Big enough to fill you up
[Verse 1]
You keep me up at night
To my messages, you do not reply
You know I still like you the most
The best of the best and the worst of the worst
Well, you can never know
The places that I go
I still like you the most
You'll always be my favourite ghost
[Chorus]
You need a big god
Big enough to hold your love
You need a big god
Big enough to fill you up
[Verse 2]
Sometimes I think it's getting better
And then it gets much worse
Is it just part of the process?
Jesus Christ, it hurts
Though I know I should know better
Well, I can make this work
Is it just part of the process?
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, it hurts
(Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, it hurts)
You need a big god
Big enough to hold your love
You need a big god
Big enough to fill you up
[Non-Lyrical Vocal Interlude]
[Outro]
Shower your affection, let it rain on me
Pull down the mountain, drag your cities to the sea
Shower your affection, let it rain on me
Don't leave me on this white cliff
Let it slide down to the, slide down to the sea
Slide down to the, slide down to the sea
About
Released prior to High As Hope, though not as an official single, “Big God” is about “obviously, an unfillable hole in the soul, but mainly about someone not replying to my text".
The track was premiered as Zane Lowe’s World Record on Beats 1 radio, 19th of June, with the music video premiering a day later on Apple Music.
The song features Kamasi Washington and credits producer Jamie xx as a co-writer.
According to Florence, the song was written to provide a tense atmosphere, with a feeling of release at the end. The co-producer Emile Haynie attempted to add strings to the sparse introduction, but Florence refrained from including these in order to maintain this tense sound.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
Talking to DIY Magazine, Florence states:
‘Big God’ was written about that feeling when someone has not replied to your text, the modern phenomenon of ‘ghosting’ which is one of my favourite words but not my favourite feeling. I was describing it to someone and they said to me ‘you need a big god’, as if the need in me were so cavernous it would take something enormous to fill it. Probably something bigger than a text message.
The video was partly inspired by the painting by Goya called ‘Witches’ Flight’.
Talking to i-D, director Autumn de Wilde said:
It’s about the power the darkness of longing can give you when you embrace your inner beast alone…. Women who bond themselves together like this, and rise up together like this, are usually accused of being witches, so I wanted to explore that. I also wanted to create an abstraction of Florence as if every woman was a small piece of glass that had shattered inside her. Now they join her outside her body and fight with her, love with her, go to war with her.
- 3.Choreomania
- 4.Delilah
- 5.Hunger
- 6.Shake It Out
- 7.King
- 8.Cosmic Love
- 10.Falling
- 11.My Love
- 13.Drumming Song
- 14.Ship to Wreck
- 15.Free
- 16.Third Eye
- 18.Big God
- 22.Dream Girl Evil
- 25.Seven Devils
- 26.Blinding
- 27.The Bomb
- 28.What Kind of Man
- 29.Never Let Me Go
- 30.Mermaids
- 32.June
- 34.Mother
- 35.The End of Love
- 36.Cassandra
- 37.Heartlines
