“Strangeness and Charm” describes love on an atomic basis. Strangeness and Charm refer to quarks, the smallest known type of matter. There are six types of quarks: up, down, strange, top/truth, charm, and bottom/beauty.

It was one of the earliest songs to be written and included on Ceremonials. It was debuted live during the Lungs tour – premiering on May 2nd, 2010. It was performed during the tour a further fifty-four times, up until July 2011. Interestingly, after Ceremonials‘ release, it was only played four times, in March 2012. Florence spoke about the song and future albums in a 2010 interview with Australian radio station, Triple J:

[“Strangeness and Charm”] was written with Paul Epworth… Time to start writing starts in earnest in September [2010]. So from then on, you know depending on how well it goes… we’ll see.

In the same Triple J interview, she spoke about the meaning of the song:

I was talking to my dad about these two sub-atomic particles called ‘strangeness and charm’. People only know they exist because we can feel their effects. I thought that was quite a nice metaphor for you know affection and emotion. I think with things like that it’s always finding the humanity in things. But I thought it was quite an interesting phrase and it kind of took me in a tangent that resulted in this song."

Florence is not the first artist to use Strangeness and Charm as inspiration. British band, Hawkwind had an 1977 album called Quark, Strangeness And Charm. The lead single from that album also shared the name.