Below is a song that didn’t make it onto Song For Our Daughter. It’s quite rare that I write an excess of songs for an album - I suppose ‘one’ is a very ungenerous excess. Song For Our Daughter was the first album I ever wrote in front of someone, and my partner GJ was adamant that this song, the first I had written since Semper Femina, should go on the album. For whatever reason, it didn’t. And just like not putting Daisy on Short Movie it makes me whether there is something pathologically wrong with me. It’s not that it’s such a good song or anything, but rather that it fits so perfectly in the themes of the album - why could I not have just given it the life it was asking for? I think I felt it was too emotionally explicit. God forbid. The voicenote is dated July 2017, in the midi-Pyrenees where we were on holiday, and listening to it now, 7 years later (!!!) I see that it did at least perform it’s task of settling some demons for me. It reminds me that part of the purpose of starting this Substack was to talk about the mystical and ritualistic nature of songwriting - songs might not find their place in the world, but they may yet work their magic, somehow.
© 2024 Laura Marling
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