Always Look On The Dark Side Of Life

At just 21 years old, Laura Marling has achieved more in the last few years than many musicians do in a lifetime – a Mercury Prize nomination apiece for each of her previous two albums, a pair of Brit and NME awards and a host of glowing reviews.

The reviews, she says, are not something she dwells on “for self-preservation purposes”.
Marling is certainly prolific – just 18 months separates her third album, A Creature I Don’t Know, from her last – and if things had gone according to plan she would have released another album late last year, mere months after I Speak Because I Can.
“When we got to the studio I realised that those songs were essentially leftovers from I Speak Because I Can and they just weren’t very good. So I scrapped it and started again,” she says. “Songwriting is what I do and I don’t do much else. It looks like a short amount of time from the outside, but from the inside I’ve had a lot of time. It hasn’t felt that way to me.”
A Creature I Don’t Know is thus a different ‘creature’ from the one she had been planning, one inspired by “a fascination with people and their strange ways.” The title, the cover art and many of the songs, particularly ‘The Beast’, suggests that this is an album about both wrestling and embracing one’s demons.
“It’s the idea of being tempted by melodrama, the temptation of destruction as a way of proving one’s own limits and I think that does crop up through the album. It is kind of a show of how a person is as capable of goodness as they are of darkness. Even with the best intentions at heart, we manage to make some pretty horrific decisions,” says Marling.
A Creature I Don’t Know is given over to brooding introspection, destructive impulses and dark desires. This, says Marling, is a result of how and when she writes songs.
“It tends to be that when I’m most likely to write a song, I’m at my most tired which tends to be at dark times. Happy people generally have better things to do than sit down and write songs,” she laughs ruefully. “Songwriting captures one side of me, I suppose.”
Much has been made of the maturity of Marling’s work versus her tender years. Does she reckon there is a bit of ageism going on there?
“I’ve never felt any age in particular. Some days I wake up and feel 12 years old and some days I could be 60. I’ve never been able to appropriate age I suppose. It’s just another way of bracketing things. I suppose it gives people a reference point in some way, but it’s all about experience really.”
Although Marling has stringently denied that her songs are confessional, the emotional intensity of A Creature I Don’t Know cannot help but make one wonder if she is being disingenuous. This denial seems to be merely a ploy to keep nosey journalists like myself from asking questions about her private life in general, and about her former partners Charlie Fink of Noah And The Whale or Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons, in particular (the latter just engaged to actress Carey Mulligan). If the songs are not confessional, would she see them as a kind of exorcism perhaps?
“They are a kind of therapy as much as they are my expression. I don’t know what I’d do without them. But they are also quite isolating, like having a very horrible, naked mirror held up to you.”
“I can only write what I know so everything starts with experience. Then it’s a kind of extended reality I suppose, a kind of fabrication based on knowledge,” she says.
Along with several references to beasts, one recurring theme is the idea of motherhood. ‘The Muse’, ‘The Beast’ and ‘All My Rage’ all position the singer as a mother. This is less to do with brooding, and more an exploration of the various aspects of female experience, Marling explains.
“For a long time I’ve been fascinated by what the idea of femininity is – what the idea of womanhood is. I guess that’s where my age comes into it, being the age I am and being the sex I am. I’m just fascinated by how many things a woman can, or is supposed to, or would like to be. I think they are all wonderfully conflicting and very confusing and frustrating – and wonderful at the same time.”
Her fascination with female experience is not feminist as such, Marling points out.
“I try and drive a line between the idea of femininity and feminism because I think that’s where it gets very confusing. My fascination with femininity is not the same thing as a fascination with feminism. I think that’s the problem, that the two become incredibly blurred very easily.”
“I read a quote recently which sums it up perfectly, that femininity has become political. Feminism is political, but femininity is far too precious and important a subject for politics. I wouldn’t want to bracket myself into being politically interested in femininity so I wouldn’t call myself a feminist.”
Marling has been touring the new album and debuted a number of new songs over the summer festival season.
“I’m not sure what the reaction has been,” she laughs. “I’m quite conscious of not playing too many new songs live because if I was going to a gig, I sometimes find it a bit boring. But people have been very kind and clapped whether they liked them or not.”
“I love touring. Playing live is a welcome challenge – it gets my nerves going. Playing music is what I love, whether there is an audience there or not.”
Given her stated shyness, how did she ever find the courage to get up on a stage in the first place?
“It’s still a bit of mystery to me. I guess I do what I do because in some way I want to be understood and because I want people to hear it. Playing live is like having a pain in your tooth that’s actually quite nice. So I do get some satisfaction out of it. Which is handy!” she laughs.
This desire to be understood suggests the songs are far more confessional than she claims, but Marling is not about to be drawn.
“I think everybody wants to be understood. That’s a universally nice feeling – to feel that someone understands you. That’s what I like in music, you know, the records that I love I feel that they are saying something I would have said or would have liked to have said,” she says.
A Creature I Don’t Know is distinctly Marling, but offers a more mature and layered sound than her earlier work. It seems a more self-assured work, as if the songwriter has come into her own. From the jazz-inflected ‘The Muse’ to the quiet fury of ‘Night After Night’, A Creature I Don’t Know is full of surprises, both lyrically and musically.
“I’m not necessarily confident but I feel more settled in what I do and my ability to do it,” says Marling. “This has allowed me the ability to explore a slightly more varied musical side to this album.”
This newfound comfort as an artist is matched with less certainty — or rather, an ability to see the world in shades of grey.
“When I was a teenager, when I started playing music, I was so sure of so many things,” she laughs. “I mean I knew I was naïve and I knew I was young, but I was so sure I had so many things I wanted to get out there. As time goes on, things keep unravelling, but it’s all for the better. The older I get the less I know!”

A Creature I Don’t Know is out now.