The new single from Florence Dore is a rocking, insistent anthem for a problem that many of us will associate with: meetings at work that manage to be both boring and pointless. With Will Rigby’s restless drumming as a backdrop, Twelve Great Minds (Department Meeting) captures that workplace frustration or apathy. Florence Dore delivers urgent, driven guitar, propelled along by a forceful strum. Likewise, her vocal performance is intense and compelling – there’s a touch of Lucinda Williams in her commanding, assertive voice.
Directed by Christopher Cooper, the good-humoured video is set in a school, where the band take part in a meeting that is suitably dull and self-important. On the board, there are references to “Actionable insights,” “Capacities,” and “Mission-driven synergy.” It’s precisely the sort of blue-sky thinking and indulgent, meaningless waffle that fills the air in such meetings, as workers compete to sound like their thinking is the most up-to-date and relevant.
Dore says of the song: “I have a bit of a potty mouth, it’s true, but ‘mess it up’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. There was a particular meeting where a decision was made that was just so stupid and pointlessly divisive that the song came flying out of my mouth wholly formed. This small-minded bureaucracy is filled with people trying to preserve their status, and they don’t even notice that they are undermining the glorious potential of a literature classroom. It’s maddening. And it’s an epidemic. I’m a proponent of great books, and there’s no literature requirement in college anymore. Students should be confronting the big questions. Is there free will? Is there a God? Questions that literature helps us to ask. Art makes our life better, but academics are focusing on themselves rather than thinking about what’s best for the students.”
The new album from Florence Dore, Hold The Spark, is due out on 1st May 2026. Dore and her band cover a range of genres across the record, including acoustic folk, country-rock with a touch of twang and ’60s-style psychedelic folk-rock. An impressive collection of artists feature on the album; amongst others, there are appearances from Dore’s husband Will Rigby (Steve Earle & the Dukes, The dB’s), Jason Wilber (John Prine), Chris Masterson (The Wallflowers, Steve Earle & the Dukes), Eleanor Whitmore (Elvis Costello, Steve Earle & the Dukes), her sister Bonnie Whitmore (Hayes Carll, John Moreland) and more. Fans can catch Dore live on two dates with Steve Earle on his Fifty-One Years Of Songs And Stories tour this summer. Before then, get moving to Twelve Great Minds.
