Apr 03 2008 4:17 pm,
Profile: Laura Marling
Words:
One listen to Laura Marling’s debut album and you’d be mistaken for thinking that she’d appear soft spoken and riddled with angst. In fact, by the end of our phone conversation, The Fly are left feeling slightly belittled by her ripe, sharply carved words and nonchalant retorts. She is confident, entirely focused and, in between the fumbling questions we throw at her, you can hear her furiously dragging on her cigarette like an impatient waitress on her lunch break.
From Berkshire to the bright lights of
Since she decided to quit school in 2006 and move to London to seek success, she has joined the likes of Kate Nash and Jack Penate on tour, sings for Noah and the Whale, appears on The Rakesand new Mystery Jets single, and all before she celebrates her 18th birthday. I suppose when you’ve been playing the guitar since the age of three whilst your peers probably were grasping basic cognitive skills, you’re going to be fairly blasé about what most 17-year-olds would give both legs for. “It does feel like a dream come true,” she states, “but I don’t like saying that because a) it’s a bit cheesy and b) it’s a job and I have to make money and I’m in the big wide world now.”
Surely all this exposure must be overwhelming for a girl who should have been in the middle of her A-levels? “It’s quite hard to take in - I have to take one day at a time otherwise I might completely panic and ruin it,” Laura admits. “When I started doing this properly I was like - I’ve got to grow up now. It’s hard work but it feels like an accomplishment so it’s worth it all.”
With songs concentrating on feverish tales of unrequited love, obsession and intimacy, it seems she’s had a life of Thomas Hardy proportions, “My songs are quite gothic I suppose, I like the imagery of that kind of thing and I think a lot of people like that too.” Perhaps it’s become armoury against scathing journalists or just a desire to keep her personal life at an arms length, but as The Fly try and probe further into what lyrics like ‘I roll over and shake him tightly, and whisper if they want you well their going have to fight me’ mean, she retaliates with a vague response, “Well the songs are things that have happened to me. I try and keep some element of privacy but they are all based on my own life, but I turn them in to more lyrical things.”
Still trying to avoid the realization of her own achievements, she says, “I’m going to play South by Southwest. It’s very exciting, but I haven’t thought about it, I’m trying to take it one day at a time otherwise I will freak out.”
As the dial tone resounds and we leave her in her New York hotel room, it doesn’t feel like we’ve got any closer to knowing what Laura Marling, an enigmatic, slight of frame 17 year-old, is all about. In some ways, though, being left in the dark make her bittersweet tales even more alluring.
‘Alas I Cannot Swim’ is released on Virgin on February 11th.
