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Aug 25, 2016 Florence and the Machine By Christopher Roberts

Florence and the Machine have shared a brand new song, “Wish That You Were Here.” It’s taken from the soundtrack to the forthcoming Tim Burton film, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which stars Eva Green (Penny Dreadful, Casino Royale) and is based on Ransom Riggs’ 2001 novel of the same name. The film is out September 30 and the song will be released digitally tomorrow via Republic but can be streamed below, followed by the film’s trailer.

Florence and the Machine’s Florence Welch is a big fan of both the original book and Burton’s films. She had this to say about the song in a press release: “‘Wish That You Were Here’ is a song about the idea that love is a journey and a risk. Having been on tour, I’ve lived in a sort of magical time bubble, where the days almost blend together. It’s amazing, but it comes at a cost - a cost of leaving the people you love behind for a year or two. You kind of feel like if you could sing a song into the wind, maybe the wind could take it to them in a way that you can’t with a text or a call. You just want to send your love in a different way, in a way to somehow reach the unreachable.”

Welch also commented on working with Burton: “I’ve always been a huge fan of Tim Burton’s. We have a very similar sensibility. It’s the kind of dark, dark romance of his work - so beautiful and whimsical, but with an element of darkness to it. That’s something that I always try and achieve in my work, too.

“I knew we would get along really well working together and we did. I feel like we’re coming from a similar place of quite frantic imaginations trying to get the words out before the pictures in our heads disappear. He feels like a kindred spirit. I actually sent him a note about six years ago. I was in Australia on tour there for the first time and visited an exhibition of all his work. I wanted to leave him a message and all I had on me was an x-ray of my hand, as I had just broken my finger. So I wrote on the x-ray and gave it to the gallery to pass on and never knew if he got it. When we met for the first time, he told me it’s been hanging up in his office ever since.”

Florence and the Machine’s most recent album was How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.