Florence + The Machine Covers Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Silver Springs’ for The Spectrum

Florence Welch is in a totally new headspace for “High as Hope,” the follow-up to Florence + The Machine’s chart-topping “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.”

Speaking to The Spectrum’s Jenny Eliscu ahead of her exclusive SiriusXM performance, which included a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Silver Springs,” Welch acknowledged that her life and the way she views the world have changed since her last record. This led to her single “Hunger” becoming a celebratory song about the human condition rather than something dark and dramatic. Along the way, she also learned that freedom can come from being disciplined and isn’t just a “let loose, smash everything to bits kind of thing,” she said.

Elsewhere in the interview, Welch discussed the origins of the album title, “High as Hope,” revealing that it came out of a poem she wrote about New York. She also clarified why her recent breakup wasn’t a focal point of the album.

“I didn’t feel like people needed to hear that any more, and I think, at that point, there were bigger heartbreaks going on than my own heartbreak,” she told Eliscu. “It somehow didn’t feel like that interesting to me. And maybe ‘How Big, How Blue’ had covered every nook and cranny of heartbreak that you possibly could. And also, I guess, in the journey that I had in the last couple of years, I understood that it wasn’t really about the other person, you know?”