Shake It Out

This is the second single by the English indie pop act Florence + the Machine from their second studio album, Ceremonials. The song was released on iTunes in Australia on September 14, 2011 and received its radio debut on London's XFM on the same day. It was released in the UK on October 2, 2011. Florence Welch says the song is about "getting through something or seeing the light at the end of the tunnel." She adds, "When you're on tour and things can get worrying, that song's always a good one."

This gospelly pop tune features a churchy organ and concludes with Florence Welch roaring, "It's hard to dance with the devil on your back. So shake him off!" It was produced and co-written by Paul Epworth (Adele, Bloc Party), with whom Florence worked with on the entire album. The studio guru had previously collaborated with the singer on several of her Lungs tracks and she told Pitchfork it was because of one of his contributions to her debut album that she got him to produce the whole of Ceremonials. "The way that 'Cosmic Love' turned out really made me want to do the whole next record with him," she said. "That song was written in like half an hour in a tiny bedroom studio and I always had this idea for a really big sound coming from all that clatter, and he managed to capture that on record in the best way."

Welch told A Journal Of Musical Things the album title was inspired by some video art. She explained: "Years and years ago, I saw an art exhibition and there was this video art piece called 'Ceremonials.' It was done in the '70s and was done in Super-8 and it's kind of Coquette-sy - there's that documentary called Coquette about this '70s theater troupe that lives in San Francisco and I came kind of obsessed with it. This video piece is all about these processions and it's kind of color based and everyone's wearing masks and there's all kinds of different colors... colored balloons... and strange ceremonies going on. That word - ceremonies - got stuck in my head. And then went it came to this album which was influenced by hymns and poems and sounds of church bells. There's kind a lot of ceremonial influences and aspects to it, so it seemed to fit."