While artists like Lady Gaga delay the releases of their albums amid the pandemic, Laura Marling was one of the few musicians who opted for the opposite. Originally slated for a summer release, Marling pushed her album, Song For Our Daughter, to April. Celebrating the record’s early release, Marling grabbed her acoustic guitar and performed three tracks for NPR’s At-Home Tiny Desk concert series.
Opening with her album’s lead single, Marling begins crooning the lyrics to her gentle ballad “Held Down.” Next, the singer picks up the pace to strum along to “Strange Girl.” Marling ends her three-track set with a rendition of her record’s title track. “Do you remember what I said? / The book I left by your bed / The words that some survivor read,” Marling swoons.
In a statement ahead of her album’s release, Marling poetically detailed its theme:
“I’d like for you, perhaps, to hear a strange story about the fragmentary, nonsensical experience of trauma and enduring quest to understand what it is to be a woman in this society. When I listen back to it now, it makes more sense to me than when I wrote it. My writing, as ever, was months, years, in front of my conscious mind. It was there all along, guiding me gently through the chaos of living. And that, in itself, describes the sentiment of the album — how would I guide my daughter, arm her and prepare her for life and all of its nuance?”
Watch Marling’s Tiny Desk concert above.
Song For Our Daughter is out now via Partisan/Chrysalis. Get it here.
