Track Review: Just A Girl // Florence + The Machine

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“The moment that I step outside, so many reasons for me to run and hide” cited 90s pop-princess turned Hollaback-Girl Gwen Stefani in No Doubt’s breakthrough single ‘Just a Girl’. The year was 1995, just one year before the girls of Showtime’s Yellowjackets (2021-) found themselves stranded in the wilderness, filled with reasons to run and hide, after their plane crashes. Ahead of the second season of the Emmy nominated thriller, Florence + The Machine have been welcomed into the forest in the form of a cover of the iconic feminist anthem.

Premiering in the second season trailer, the cover’s tonal shift from the original suits the uneasy situation the girls of Yellowjackets find themselves in as winter approaches and the dire reality of their situation begins to sink in. In recruiting Florence Welch, British queen of witchy-pop, the speedy bubble-gum covered naivety that Stefani lended to the track is gone. Instead we find acoustic guitars replaced with a slow, anxiety ridden reverb as Welch recites “Oh, I’m just a girl, what’s my destiny?” as an omen of the trauma that lies ahead. 

Such a decision to assign Florence to interpret the single’s feminist message with the female-lead hit series is both obvious and surprising, with Florence and her musicality being so integrally related to the mainstream rise of indie pop-rock in the early 2010’s. But the result is frankly perfect, with Welch’s mezzo-soprano operatic tone lending to the haunting tension the trailer presents ahead of the season premiere on March 26th. 

Not one part of Florence’s eclectic career thus far would suggest she would fit so comfortably into the musical scene of the mid-90s, but it is this subversion of expectations that make the cover so solid. Yellowjackets as a series remains a forward-thinking retrospective on late 20th-century girlhood. There’s no doubt (pardon the pun) that had the series been made at the time in which it is set, the gender-politics presented would have been riddled with sexism and narrow-mindedness. Instead Yellowjackets finds its power in its subversion, and the same can be said for Florence’s cover of ‘Just a Girl’.   

Words by Ben Carpenter


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