Florry is a band bred in the crackling warmth of the Philadelphia DIY scene and forged with the alloys of community action, queer liberation and bedroom poetry. Bandleader Francie Medosch and her absolute unit of collaborators have returned with a new album, “Sounds Like”, the follow-up to their debut “The Holey Bible”, and ‘Pretty Eyes Lorraine‘ is the lead release from that. It’s a song that has a clear failing love vibe but also has as its core the words: “I see lines I’ve always realized / A whole story that fell through / all of my dreams that did not come true.” Because Francie Medosch had had her view of the world turned on its head – and all thanks to researching the family tree. This is complicated, so pay attention.
Francie Medosch says about the song: “In my fourth year of studying German in undergrad, something I did in the hopes of connecting with my German heritage, which was something I had never cared about until then, I discovered I had ancestors from the historical region Alsace-Lorraine. We had been learning specifically about Alsace-Lorraine then and how the land was disputed between France and Germany for its coal deposits, helpful in wartime. At this time, France was combatting these disputes by using linguistic mapping, which divided sections of Alsace Lorraine into areas of language. At times they would remove those who did not speak French from areas they determined were French. It was during this part of the course my sister took a DNA test, and we found out we aren’t German at all, which is when I realized my bloodline must have left Ireland for Alsace Lorraine, changed their name from Mud/Mudgett to Medosch (for further research, look up my blood relative H.H. Holmes), learned German, and then got kicked out for not knowing French, which is why Medoschs only live in Austria, Ohio, and Pennsylvania now.
It was a bummer of sorts at the time to lose this sense of connection I had to such a beautiful land I had often dreamed of visiting. In some ways, before, it had given me a sense of home and identity I hadn’t known or even really cared about before, just to know I was a small part of Alsace Lorraine, the Rhine River, and history.”
