Songfacts®:

• "For You" is a simply-strummed tune that Laura Marling wrote at home with her musician boyfriend George Jephson. The unequivocal declaration of gratitude for an imaginary child is tagged with a reminder that love doesn't necessarily bring fulfillment, but is "the line that marks the start."
• This country-pop number appears in its original demo form on Song For Our Daughter, with George Jephson contributing the male vocals. Marling told Apple Music she kept her "terrible guitar solo" because she found it amusing. "I thought it sounded like a five-year-old picking up a guitar for the first time," she said.
• Marling was a late convert to Paul McCartney; she'd always been into his fellow Beatle John Lennon, but it was only when Marling heard Macca's 2005 song "Jenny Wren" that she had a full awakening. "For You," she told the BBC, is a "little homage" to McCartney at his warmest and most openhearted.
• Marling told NME about her Paul McCartney conversion: "I listened to 'Jenny Wren.' It's from 2005, on a Paul McCartney you wouldn't think twice about – not to be harsh – but it is the most astonishingly beautiful song. I suddenly realied that there was an entire catalog that I hadn't paid attention to that was full of these stunningly beautiful songs. I'd never thought he was bad, but I'd overlooked him, certainly."
• The song is the closing track of Songs For My Daughter. Marling based the record around the concept of her addressing a fictitious child who is portrayed in this instance as a newborn baby. Said Marling, "When I listen back to it now, it makes more sense to me than when I wrote it ... The sentiment of that album [is] how would I guide my daughter, arm her and prepare her for life and all of its nuance?"