Songfacts®:

• The English singer-songwriter Laura Marling's fourth album takes its name from this pointed dispatch to a former flame, in which she describes herself as an eagle symbolising empowerment. The record acts as a song-cycle, which recognizes the complex dynamics operating in relationships as Marling charts various responses to emotional upset. Marling was asked by Radar magazine if she is simply adopting characters for the songs? "I'm creating characters to say certain things," she admitted. "There is a story to it, but it's not a true story. It's a kind of narrative, but everything is from my experience, because that's what I know - I'm not a great fiction writer."
• Once I Was An Eagle was recorded at the Three Crows studio owned by Marling's producer and instrumentalist Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, Michael Kiwanuka), with Dom Monks on engineering duties.
• During an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the comment was made that there is something very tough and self-possessed about Marling, reflected in lyrical imagery where she casts herself as an eagle, a Beast and a Master Hunter. "I suppose it is my nature. I feel more akin to something aggressive rather than delicate." the singer said, adding that she is by nature an over-thinker, but, "I'm sort of at peace with it. I enjoy living in perpetual cognitive justification."