I have a habit of needing to know everything there is to know about the media that I consume–books, movies, songs–that’s given me a lot of random and mostly useless knowledge. I read the Acknowledgements section in books, Wikipedia asks me for money a lot because I’m always looking up actors and singers, and I frequently say the phrase “I need to know the lore.” Naturally, when my 17-year-old self first listened to Florence + the Machine’s fifth studio album, Dance Fever, there was a lot to unpack. One of my favorite songs off the album was “Cassandra,” the signature combination of off-putting lyricism and remarkable vocals and instrumentation. So began my interest in the story of the mythical Cassandra, a fascination that only grew two years later when I listened to Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poet’s Department, which also includes a song entitled “Cassandra” (not to mention another track featuring Florence + the Machine). 

Cassandra is only lightly mentioned in Homer’s Iliad–the famous epic about the Trojan War, focusing particularly on Achilles–as being the most beautiful of Priam’s many daughters (Cassandra | Myth, Significance, & Trojan War | Britannica). The story that both Welch and Swift play with in their songs is primarily from Aeschylus’ tragedy Agamemnon. In this version of Cassandra’s tale, she’s desired by the god Apollo, who promises her the gift of prophecy on the condition that she sleeps with him. She accepts, but after being granted the gift, refuses Apollo, who then curses her to never be believed. True to the curse, Cassandra accurately predicts the fall of Troy, but isn’t believed. After the destruction, she’s “claimed” by the Greek general Agamemnon, and enters the palace of Mycenae knowing she will be murdered alongside him by Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife. a. However, before suffering the queen’s wrath, she performs a series of disturbing visions (Cassandra, The Gift of Prophecy and Apollo’s Curse). 

There are striking similarities to both “Cassandra” songs, as is to be expected given their shared mythological inspiration and similar production time. First, both Welch and Swift inhabit the persona of Cassandra. This, in addition to their obviously shared interest in the story itself, is an intriguing overlap, especially considering the two main concepts of the story are a woman refusing a powerful man’s (or god) advances and her words not being believed by the public. The themes of Cassandra’s story are strikingly similar to the issues at the forefront of the somewhat debated fourth wave of feminism, with a focus on sexual assault and harassment (particularly in the workplace), including the high-profile #MeToo movement on social media. Initially a grassroots movement founded in Tarana Burke in 2006, the hashtag went viral in 2017 after actress Alyssa Milano encouraged survivors to use the hashtag. Though less prevalent in 2025, the movement launched sexual violence awareness into the mainstream and has served as a defining feature of modern feminism–yet, as the story of Cassandra demonstrates, these issues have existed long before the inception of the #MeToo movement. 

Swift and Welch’s shared use of Cassandra’s story and imagery seems to me to be a parallel to the feminist interpretation of the Medusa story, in which Athena’s “curse” of Medusa–giving her snakes for hair and a petrifying gaze–is to protect her from further violence at the hands of men, and the related use of Medusa tattoos for survivors of sexual violence. Both are instances of reclaiming, and somewhat reinterpreting, the stories of mistreated ancient women of mythology as modern symbols of survival and empowerment. In what follows I share some of what I consider the most intriguing points of contact between Taylor Swift and Florence + Machine’s songs.

Big God

Florence + the Machine is known for its use of religious imagery, most obviously in songs titled “Girls Against God,” “St. Jude,” and “The Old Religion,” as well as “Big God.” Interestingly, many songs include a mixture of Christian–particularly Catholic, as Florence Welch was raised–and pagan imagery.  “Cassandra” features this intriguing combination: “‘Cause they put crosses on the door to try and keep me out,” “All the gods have been domesticated / And Heaven is now overrated / And the churches, they all closed their doors / You can take your complaints straight to the Lord,” and finally a plea: “Take  me back / Oh, drunken gods of slaughter / You know I’ve always been your / Favorite daughter.”  Like in her other songs, the mixture of Christian religious imagery like crosses and Heaven alongside plural addresses to gods lends a certain universality to the song, expressing in this instance a general idea of being abandoned by religion and deities themselves, despite having once been beloved. The combination of the different types of religious imagery in this song seems also to bring Cassandra to modernity, perhaps linking Welch with the persona she inhabits in the song. 

 

Though it’s less prevalent in her music than in that of Florence + the Machine, Taylor Swift does have other songs that use religious imagery or directly mention faith, such as “Holy Ground” and “Guilty as Sin?”. Unlike Welch, Swift self-identifies as Christian and uses almost exclusively Christian imagery (some of the lyrics in “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” are ambiguous, but that’s a rabbit hole for me to fall into another time). True to this, Swift’s “Cassandra” utilizes Christian imagery, asserting that the people who denied the prophecies knew them to be true, she sings, “The family, the pure greed, the Christian chorus line / They all said nothing,” directly referencing organized religion as not supporting the speaker. She portrays them as staying silent and allowing for the speaker’s mistreatment despite knowing, or at the very least suspecting, her prophecies to be accurate. Soon after in that same verse are the lyrics “Blood’s thick but nothing like a payroll / Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul,” suggesting hypocrisy of the figures who are so quick to condemn her, and an abandonment that’s motivated by monetary gain. While this doesn’t necessarily fit with the mythological namesake of the song, it’s an interesting way of modernizing the themes of the story. Like Welch, Swift’s use of religious imagery speaks to an abandonment by a higher power and its followers, a shared theme that reflects the original Cassandra’s mistreatment by a god. 

Don’t Blame Me

Both Welch and Swift’s interpretations of “Cassandra” include defensive lyrics, suggesting pervasive societal blame. Welch sings, “It wasn’t me, it was a song,” a heartbreaking line that reflects Cassandra’s helplessness. With the dismissal of her prophecies comes the dismissal of Cassandra herself as mad and untrustworthy, one that Welch’s Cassandra-adjacent speaker tries to argue against. Additionally, Swift sings in her version of “Cassandra,” “So they killed Cassandra first ’cause she feared the worst,” which holds interesting implications of the Cassandra figure in the song, not only being dismissed but actively harmed as a result of her prophecies, a greater level of the societal blame expressed in Welch’s song and the original mythology.

The common thread of the blame of Cassandra between these two modern songs mirrors the fourth wave feminism issues discussed earlier. The term “victim blaming” was coined by psychologist William Ryan in 1971, defined as “the transference of blame from the perpetrator of a crime to the victim-survivor, who is held entirely or partially to blame for the harm they suffered.” The term is often applied in the context of sexual assault, and is a notable aspect of rape culture. Though the logistics of the curse in the myth complicate matters a little bit, the scorning of Cassandra is inherently entwined with her refusal of the god Apollo. She is blamed, disbelieved, and disparaged–experiences that Welch and Swift link to modern womanhood in the exploration of such themes in their songs. 

Alone in My Tower 

Understandably given the original story, both “Cassandra” songs make significant references to isolation. It’s an especially interesting theme given the timing of the albums, both being released within the first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset. 

Welch in particular references isolation and inability to tour as key inspirations for her use of the mythological Cassandra. With the planning of albums and tours came the constant comfort of a schedule, a certainty about the future–one that was stripped away during the pandemic. She told Torsten Gross of Annabelle (Florence Welch: “Mit der Pandemie hat mich der prophetische Geist meiner Songs verlassen” – Annabelle), “I had no idea what the future would hold. The prophetic spirit of my songs had deserted me; I was fishing in murky waters. As if the gods had robbed me of my gift.” In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, she goes into more detail about the impact of the pandemic on the album’s making, which began with prolific producer Jack Antonoff in the ill-fated month that was March 2020. Many songs were written virtually, and Welch discusses the impact of isolation: “A world without live music…I was really questioning whether I even wanted to be in that world” (Florence + the Machine: ‘Dance Fever’ and Lessons from the Indie Scene in London | Apple Music 29:51)  This uncertainty and isolation is evident in the lyric “And there’s no one left to sing to.” While the contexts of Welch and Cassandra’s isolation are wildly different, the feeling remains the same. Welch was a performer unable to perform. Cassandra was a prophetess no one believed–the cruelest part of her curse is the isolation that comes with never being believed. 

While Swift also had a tour (Lover Fest, scheduled to begin in April 2020) canceled due to the pandemic, two brand-new albums came between this and the release of “Cassandra” (my personal favorites folklore and its sister album evermore) both of which were written, produced, and released during the pandemic. Perhaps as a result of this, the lyrics in her “Cassandra” related to isolation appear to be more related to the original mythological context. The line “I was in my tower weaving nightmares” suggests imprisonment, or at the very least overt physical isolation. Interestingly, in some versions of the story, Cassandra is locked up by her own father due to her perceived madness (Cassandra in the Classical World). Additionally, lines “You can mark my words that I said it first / In a mourning warning, no one heard,” and “When it’s ‘burn the bitch’ they’re shrieking / When the truth comes out it’s quiet” portray the dismissal of Cassandra’s prophecies as at least somewhat willful, suggesting a willingness to judge and condemn but a reluctance to admit wrongdoing. This has some overlap with the version of events in Book 12 of Quintus Smyrnaeus’ The Fall of Troy, in which Cassandra warns that the Trojan Horse is a trap set by the Greeks, and even attempts to burn it down. Unfortunately for Cassandra–and fortunately for the Greeks–her fellow Trojans respond with cruel insults and immediately stop her from her attempt to set the Horse aflame (QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS, THE FALL OF TROY BOOK 12 – Theoi Classical Texts Library). Besides the mythological explanation for these lyrics, they add to the portrayal of Cassandra as a woman scorned. 

Everybody Scream

One particularly interesting (and admittedly minor) overlap between the two songs is the reference to riots–a term that remains highly politicized. 

In Florence + the Machine’s “Cassandra,” she sings “I try to still look on the wonder of the world / As the roses bloom / And the riot van still plainly in view.” The specific mention of a riot van is an interesting image, implying a police presence that interferes with the speaker’s attempts to admire the world in spite of the isolation and suffering. 

Similarly, Swift’s “Cassandra” includes lines “When the first stone’s thrown, there’s screaming / In the streets there’s a raging riot.” This version of a riot presents it less as something being monitored and contained by a police presence (for better or for worse), and more as a wild, uncontrollable force. While these references are minor, I find the common theme to be intriguing and reflective of the chaos of the fall of Troy as well as the prevalence of social change movements and conflicting media reports in the modern era. 

Snakes & Stones

Swift’s “Cassandra” also references snakes (“So they filled my cell with snakes”), which can mean a lot of different things. Most obvious for a Swiftie is the use of serpentine imagery in the singer’s Reputation era, particularly the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, which features snake jewelry and snakes slithering up a golden throne. Through a mythological sense, it’s even more intriguing. In an alternate version of Cassandra’s story, Cassandra and her twin brother Helenus are both gifted as prophets when sleeping in the temple of Apollo, where their ears are licked by snakes, thus bestowing the gift of sight (Cassandra (mythology) | Research Starters). Helenus’ prophecies, however, are believed (Cassandra, The Gift of Prophecy and Apollo’s Curse)–yet another area with modern feminist implications about the impact of a person’s gender on trust. Despite the fact that this origin story for her powers is less troubling, the disbelief of Cassandra and simultaneous belief of Helenus reflects the same themes. 

Even if this line is not a direct reference to this alternate version of the story, Apollo (who cursed Cassandra) is strongly associated with snakes, as he killed the Python at Delphi to establish his oracle there, reflecting the connection between snakes and prophecy. Filling a prophetess’ cell with symbols of prophecy is a fascinating image, the snakes functioning as both a physical and psychological punishment. 

How Did it End? | The End of Love

Despite the fact that she’s not a real person, Cassandra’s story is one that continually haunts me. I find some comfort in two areas. 

First, she’s believed by Aeneas when he encounters her on his journey to the underworld in Virgil’s Aeneid (Cassandra: Princess of Troy, Cursed Prophetess, Tragic Prisoner | TheCollector), though it is a little disheartening that her warnings are only heeded after her death (Aeneas having been on a temporary trip to the underworld to gain insight on his future as the founder of Rome). 

Second, and most significantly to me, is the idea that her story was told by two modern women with very large audiences, who know that she was right all along. When the two artists collaborated for Taylor Swift’s “Florida!!!” I like to imagine they had a discussion about Cassandra–about their songs, each other’s songs, the story and why they connected with it. I like to think they talked about feminism, about religion, about COVID and isolation, about the tumultuous sociopolitical landscape of recent years, about experiences with fame and performance. Mostly, though, I just like to imagine them talking about Cassandra, that ancient woman cursed with disbelief. 

At long last, the curse has been broken.