Dog Days Are Over

This was the second single to be released by Florence + the Machine, the recording name of London-based alternative pop artist Florence Welch and her back up band.

This paean to the inevitability of happiness was inspired by a giant text installation (of the same name) by the artist Ugo Rondinone, which Welch used to see every day riding her bike over Waterloo Bridge. Florence told Mojo magazine April 2012 about the rainbow-hued text: "It was plastered over the south Bank in London for six months and I rode past it on my bike every day. It's a reference to the dog star, Sirius: when it was closest to the Earth, all the animals would get languid and sleepy; when it moved away, they'd wake up. I've tried to get in touch with him to say thanks."

Welch told CultureDeluxe that most of the sounds on this song, "came from a tiny Yamaha keyboard." Also the percussion sound was "hands on the wall while hitting a drum underneath it at the same time and the beat was really accidental." She added to BBC Newsbeat: "It was just a song that I did at my friend's studio in Crystal Palace [south London]. We didn't have any instruments and we were in a studio the size of a loo."