<![CDATA[Patterns in Repeat : The Tarot of Songwriting]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/s/the-tarot-of-songwritinghttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ElC7!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fada3732e-fe3c-47c2-8edc-10aaeb6a29db_1280x1280.pngPatterns in Repeat : The Tarot of Songwritinghttps://lauramarling.substack.com/s/the-tarot-of-songwritingSubstackMon, 04 May 2026 23:05:23 GMT<![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting Finale 22 - The World]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-finale-22https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-finale-22Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:50:20 GMT

I gave birth for the second time in mid-June - two weeks passed my due date, just as my first had been. The wait was horrendous—the promise of the unbearable state of late pregnancy being over. Feeling useless and mammalian, I dragged myself through those last few days, trying to come up with things to keep me cheerful. On what was, unbeknownst to me, t…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 20 - Judgement ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-20-judgementhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-20-judgementWed, 25 Jun 2025 11:26:06 GMT

unto the 3rd and 4th generation shall the sins of the father be visited

Exodus 20:5

I believe I was quite young, 9 or 10 maybe, when I recall waking up on more than one occasion with a sharp intake of breath, terrified I would fuck up my children; It sounds dramatic, but I remember it vividly.

It can’t have been till my early teens that I first read the P…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 19 - The Sun ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-19-the-sunhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-19-the-sunSat, 10 May 2025 14:13:53 GMT
Morning Sun Edward Hopper, 1952

The central premise of Quakerism is that the light of God exists within all people without exception or prejudice and cannot be stolen, extinguished or even diminished. I attended a Quaker secondary school and suffered through hours and hours of mandatory silent reflection on this. It wasn’t until my daughter was born that…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 18 - The Moon]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-18-the-moonhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-18-the-moonFri, 25 Apr 2025 20:06:09 GMT

I think of Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, perhaps unfairly, as the film that inspired a thousand boring music videos (and personas). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a deck for a music video that didn’t include a still from that movie. This is a statement of fact and not value as it relates to Wim Wenders; it is, of course, a mark of flattery to be so frequentl…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 17 - The Star ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-17-the-starhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-17-the-starSun, 09 Mar 2025 15:44:37 GMT

I like two types of art - portraits and expressionism. Call me basic. I like reading about surrealism and abstract art but rarely find myself moved by pieces in real life. I count various types of sculpture as portraiture; Camille Claudelle’s The Mature Age, Rodin’s Little Dancer. I like the human subject and/or things that say the unsaid. I like the fe…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 16 - The Tower]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-16-the-towerhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-16-the-towerSun, 23 Feb 2025 09:52:39 GMT

Once upon an evening in Los Angeles, I took a bunch of mushrooms by myself and sat out in the backyard of my bungalow under the dim urban stars, wondering what the fuck I was doing in this godless hellscape of a place.

I was four years into my American adventure and lived with a gay couple at the time, and they had recently had an orgy in the hot tub t…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 15 - The Devil]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-15-the-devilhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-15-the-devilSun, 09 Feb 2025 18:47:58 GMTI found this entry more difficult to write than others. The only other one I’ve had this difficult a time with was The Lovers. The two cards are quite similar. In the Rider-Waite deck, they both show a man and woman presided over by a third mediating entity. In the case of The Lovers, an angel, in The Devil, unsurprisingly, a devil. I have found myself …

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 14 - Temperance ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-14-temperancehttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-14-temperanceSat, 25 Jan 2025 09:22:45 GMT

If you want to know how I am doing, you need look no further than my living room - is the furniture in the same position as last time you saw it? No, of course it’s not. My cleaner thinks I’m a psychopath. “Every time, change!” says lovely Polish Anna every other week, whose lack of English gives her a directness I find oddly comforting. “ but still no …

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 13 - Death]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-13-deathhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-13-deathSun, 12 Jan 2025 21:31:02 GMT

I read a book called Mutants and Mystics ten years ago when I was travelling up Highway 1 with my sister. It’s about science fiction and comic book culture and their relationship to American West Coast occultism. I was staying at Deejtens in Big Sur when reading about how the nearby Esalen Institute inspired the creator of X-Men. I love shit like that.

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 12 - The Hanged Man ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-12-the-hangedhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-12-the-hangedMon, 30 Dec 2024 22:56:02 GMT

For Christmas, I gave my daughter a 1986 edition of Ferdinand the Bull, the same one I had growing up. It was my favourite childhood book. Written by the fabulously named Munro Leaf, the black-and-white illustrations are etched on my mind for eternity. On first reading it to my daughter a few evenings ago, however, it seemed that key details of the stor…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 11 - Justice ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-11-justicehttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-11-justiceSun, 08 Dec 2024 21:53:38 GMT

When I lived in the States, I used to write a lot of letters. I didn’t know many people in my new city, so spent a lot of time alone—quite happily. In the evenings, after dinner and with a glass of wine, a surfeit of words would rush out of me, trying to describe what madness and beauty I had encountered on any given day. Like the time I was walking hom…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 10 - Wheel of Fortune ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-10-wheelhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-10-wheelSun, 24 Nov 2024 21:17:14 GMT

In 2016, I had my birth chart analyzed by an astrologer who a friend of mine had studied under in London. I was living in Los Angeles at the time (which will surprise no reader of the first sentence), so my three-hour reading was done over the phone. I would classify this among the impulsively desperate acts often performed by the ephemerally lost - li…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 09 - The Hermit ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-09-the-hermithttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-09-the-hermitSat, 19 Oct 2024 20:48:38 GMT

A few years ago, I took a full dose of magic mushrooms by myself and read Ouspensky’s book about his time as a student of Gurdjieff, In Search of the Miraculous. It’s one of many things I’m glad I did before I started having children, as I cannot currently even imagine a time when I will be able to partake in such a spectacular indulgence.

I say ‘read’;…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 08 - Strength ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-08-strengthhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-08-strengthFri, 04 Oct 2024 17:44:43 GMT

Lately, I have been back on the treadmill of doing promotional interviews and performances in support of an upcoming album. I think it's fair to say that for someone my age, I am preternaturally well-versed in this undertaking. I have done it nine times before - and, apart from a progressive slouch towards self-generated social media content, not much c…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 07 - The Chariot]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-07-the-chariothttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-07-the-chariotSat, 21 Sep 2024 14:05:04 GMTI signed my first record deal when I was 16 before I even had a manager. I remember being courted by various (harmless, I suppose) old dudes from a few major labels. They bought me and my sisters drinks and drove us around in their chauffeured cars. It seems completely ludicrous now, given how spectacularly uncommercial my music career has turned out to…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 06 - The Lovers ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-06-the-lovershttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-06-the-loversSun, 08 Sep 2024 21:07:22 GMT
Persona

A few years ago, I was taken by a theatre-loving friend of mine to a double header of Ingmar Bergman plays produced by the Amsterdam Theatre Company. Comprised of After The Rehearsal and Persona, it was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. I was familiar with Persona, but After The Rehearsal was new to me. It centres around a thea…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 05 - The Hierophant ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-06-the-heirophanthttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-06-the-heirophantFri, 23 Aug 2024 16:18:48 GMTOn my first day at secondary school, I met a Buddhist. Her parents were part of a community that practised in the tradition of Soka Gakkai: Shrines, chanting and silence. It blew my mind. Our school was Quaker, so we became quite familiar with silence as a practice. But Quakerism was, in the eyes of a suburban eleven year old, ruddy and austere. Buddhis…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 04 - The Emperor]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-emperorhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-emperorSun, 11 Aug 2024 20:41:36 GMTI was 17 when I wrote my first album, Alas I Cannot Swim. And like most 17-year-olds, I knew the square root of fuck all. This is not to dismiss the dizzying intensity of being a young person, nor the spectrum of experience it is possible to have at any age. It’s just been on my mind recently -  provoked, I suppose, by the intermittent presence of the 1…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot of Songwriting 03 - The Empress ]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-empresshttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-empressSat, 27 Jul 2024 08:00:31 GMTTarot of Songwriting - The Empress

My mother was, for many years, the head gardener for a large house a few miles from where I grew up. Our garden was always beautiful, with wild, colourful borders and wisteria climbing up one side of the kitchen. Summer evenings were spent following her slowly along the edges, smoothing out kinks in the hose - the scent…

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]]><![CDATA[The Tarot Of Songwriting - 02 The High Priestess]]>https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-02-the-highhttps://lauramarling.substack.com/p/the-tarot-of-songwriting-02-the-highFri, 12 Jul 2024 12:03:08 GMTThe High Priestess - 

When I was 24 and living in east LA, I visited an energy healer at an establishment called The House of Intuition on Sunset Boulevard. She performed her skit, I guess you could call it, and offered me a care plan. One year into living in the self-indulgent capital of the world, I was mainlining Kool-Aid at that point and down for wh…

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