Fortune

Album: Song for Our Daughter (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • On this sweet-sounding ballad of a woman ending her marriage with quiet devastation, Laura Marling recounts:

    I'm sorry, my darling, my mind, it has been changed
    Release me from this unbearable pain


    Marling's mother, a music teacher, had a habit of putting coins in a pot above the laundry machine, which served as inspiration for the song. The pot was a "running away fund" in case she ever felt the need to escape the marriage. Marling recalled to the BBC she was reminiscing with her two sisters over dinner one night about their mom's stash.

    "It added up to like £350 or something - by no means enough to run away with - but that was her collection over a lifetime," she said. "And I just thought that was so tragic in a perfect way, that generation's attempt at carving out their own little bit of freedom."
  • Marling credits her father, a recording studio engineer, for teaching her the guitar. Years later, she still played guitar with her dad when looking for inspiration; it was one of those sessions that birthed this song's music. Marling recalled to Apple Music: "He was playing with this little [melody] - it's just an E chord going up the neck - so I stole it and then turned it into this song."

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