Laura Marling, a Briton in Los Angeles

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2020

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

The thirty-year-old British singer/songwriter Laura Marling has produced seven albums of dense but delicate folk music, starting when she was only eighteen. After several years touring on the road, she tells John Seabrook, she found herself in Los Angeles. Speaking at The New Yorker Festival in October, 2017, she explained how, growing up, her father played her a lot of Joni Mitchell, and the influence stuck. In Los Angeles, she felt that many of the musicians she had long idolized were still “there in the hills, looking down on the city.” Marling performed her songs “Daisy,” and “The Valley,” accompanying herself on guitar. This story originally aired January 26, 2018.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC
0:07.8	studios and The New Yorker.
0:13.2	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:16.6	Laura Marling released her first album when she was 18 years old.
0:25.3	But it didn't really feel like the work of someone who had just earned the right to vote.
0:29.4	Marling is 30 now, and she's got seven albums under her belt.
0:34.2	The most recent just came out in April, and it's called Song for Our Daughter.
0:48.3	Though they may want you to tread in their trail, only to see if the path they said fails, though they may want you to take off your clothes
0:57.3	Marling's particular brand of dense but delicate folk music
1:03.1	has earned her the acclaim of so many critics
1:05.8	and she's got a lot of passionate fans like John Seabrook
1:09.0	she and Seabrook spoke at the New Yorker Festival in 2017.
1:14.0	In my work, I meet quite a few artists that are very good singers.
1:19.3	Some of those artists are also good players.
1:22.5	And a few of those artists are also good songwriters.
1:26.1	But I never meet someone who is as good as you are
1:30.5	at each of those categories, any one of which would probably make you a very successful artist.
1:35.1	So you're a real artist.
1:42.2	Welcome. You're fantastic.
1:46.0	Thanks.
1:47.0	And Laura and I actually know each other.
1:50.0	We met a couple years ago.
	...

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