While many musicians have decided to postpone their record releases due to the coronavirus pandemic, Laura Marling has opted for the opposite. Originally slated for a summer release, Marling announced her seventh studio album, Song For Our Daughter, will instead arrive next week. Along with making the album’s early release reveal, Marling shared the record’s lead single “Held Down.”
In a statement, Marling detailed the theme surrounding her upcoming record:
“It’s strange to watch the facade of our daily lives dissolve away, leaving only the essentials; those we love and our worry for them. An album, stripped of everything that modernity and ownership does to it, is essentially a piece of me, and I’d like for you to have it. 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? I’m older now, old enough to have a daughter of my own, and I feel acutely the responsibility to defeat The Girl. The Girl that might be lost, torn from innocence prematurely or unwittingly fragmented by forces that dominate society. I want to stand behind her and whisper in her ear all the confidences and affirmations I had found so difficult to provide myself. This album is that strange whisper; a little distorted, a little out of sequence, such is life.”
Listen to “Held Down” above. Below, find Marling’s Song For Our Daughter tracklist.
1. “Alexandra”
2. “Held Down”
3. “Strange Girl”
4. “Only The Strong”
5. “Blow By Blow”
6. “Song For Our Daughter”
7. “Fortune”
8. “The End Of The Affair”
9. “Hope We Meet Again”
10. “For You”
Song For Our Daughter is out 4/10 via Partisan/Chrysalis. Pre-order it here.