Image Description: Laura Marling singing into a microphone with a guitar, on a black stage.Â
In August, I wrote a review of Haimâs bubbly, frenetic, exploratory album, Women in Music Pt. III. I thought that it was a lockdown vibe, it buoyed me up, and I listened to it over, and over, and over again. But since September, a very different album has taken its place. Since moving back to Oxford, and joining my six housemates in a frankly chaotic resumed student life, Lauraâs voice has been a constant presence. Cooking in the kitchen? Laura Marling. Reading in your room? Laura Marling. Drunkenly dancing around the flat at 1am? Laura Marling.
Cooking in the kitchen? Laura Marling. Reading in your room? Laura Marling. Drunkenly dancing around the flat at 1am? Laura Marling.
Released in April of this year (hardly the prime time for releasing new music, one would think), Song for Our Daughter is Marlingâs 7th studio album, and was (unsurprisingly) nominated for the 2020 Mercury Prize. An explore of Spotify shows that Laura Marlingâs discography is extensive, but nothing there is quite as good as this. It is all folksy, all sung beautifully, but it doesnât have the heart of this. Or perhaps it doesnât quite sit so well with the moment.
The album drifts from theme to theme seamlessly, and by the end she is contented, in love, singing to someone she hasnât even definitely met yet. It is this happy, fulfilled, mellowness which is the albumâs shining gem. She talks of her daughter growing up, and âall the bullshit that she might be told.â She sings of her strange, angry, girl, and feeling held down. Marling doesnât shy away from distinctly dark themes: her motherâs running away fund, or a woman believed because of the blood on the floor. âThe End of the Affairâ is a sad, conflicted, elegy: the line âI love you, goodbyeâ is sung with heart-breaking sadness. Itâs this truthfulness, I think, which makes this album so distinctive, and a more emotive whole, anchored down by the theme of a daughter, than Marlingâs previous pieces.
Marling doesnât shy away from distinctly dark themes: her motherâs running away fund, or a woman believed because of the blood on the floor.
Marling said that the album contains “all the confidences and affirmations I found so difficult to provide myself” â this is perhaps why it resonates so well, right now, both historically (the absolute mess of the world), and for many of us at this stage of life. It is going to be hard, it might be sad, it will be messy, but it will also be okay. There is a subtle, comforting, almost pagan religiosity running through it too.
Song for Our Daughter has a distinctly folky sound, interspersing more built-up momentum (Strange Girl) with moments of slow, calm meditation (For You). There is also a conversational quality: she sings brutally and then adds âI hope that didnât sound too unkindâ. Familiarity pervades the songs: little moments invoked by lines such as âthe book I left by your bedâ build up an almost domestic bliss. There are also lots of unanswered questions, enough vagueness to be intriguing without losing the intimacy: Where, my flatmate asked ponderously, after the estimated 1000th listen to Alexandra, did she actually go?
Familiarity pervades the songs: little moments invoked by lines such as âthe book I left by your bedâ build up an almost domestic bliss
Lyrics and I donât genuinely agree: I usually open and close my mouth like a fish in what I hope looks like knowledge of the words. But Song for Our Daughterâs lyrics are intense and poetic (âthunder gives away what lightning tries to hideâ), and they have settled into my subconscious. The line ârelease me, from this unbearable painâ, has been reverberating around my head almost constantly since I heard it â there is something very beautiful about the way she sings it.
Do I have a daughter? No. I am, in fact, a 20 year old university student who is currently failing to keep her one succulent alive. The irony of âbuild yourself a garden and have something to attendâ as I stare out at the mouldy brick bunker outside my basement room is not lost on me. But Laura Marling similarly does not have a child. The beauty of this album is that through this imaginary daughter, so many emotions can be felt. And they are felt strongly, and consistently.
The beauty of this album is that through this imaginary daughter, so many emotions can be felt.
Love, in all of its complexity, is laid bare in 10 songs. âLove is a sickness killed by timeâ, but she also keeps a photograph of her love to keep them safe. It isnât a long album, it is not even a particularly exciting one. But it is so deeply felt as ânote by note, blow by blowâ Laura Marling accompanies us on her very own discovery of love, life, happiness and pain.
Image Credit: danielhermes via Creative CommonsÂ
