La Nostalgie de Laura Marling

The first song I listened of hers was "New Romantic". The fist thing that reached my mind, was the nostalgic spirit of it. It was not the lyrics, it was not the tune, it was her. It was her voice, and her eyes. The song couldn't be sang in a cheerful tune, but it was not sadness which flooded the tune. It was nostalgia.

This is what defines her.

Nowadays mainstream tends to make dull references to "depression" and "sadness". They reach so very little of it, its like a scratch to a wound that will not bleed for so little. But nostalgia, nostalgia has always existed, specially in the romantic movement. The romantics and their longing for desire, better times, impossible ideals. The romantics were lead by nostalgia, Lord Byron as my best example. Its all about longing.

Each of her songs. They can vary in the main idea of the song, they do. They are not all about love if thats what you think. They have little to do with love, but with longing, with nostalgia. They do not talk about what others do. Her words can be so simple, and they don't refer to what others do.

Its her, in every song that longs for love, for time, for hope, for sanity, or insanity, safety or risk. Its the eternal curse of the real romantics, those who long in nostalgic agony. If its Gaspar Frederick with a man standing before the edge his back to the world, or if its Byron mourning for a lover he never had.

Opened up his little heart
Unlocked the lock that kept it dark
And read a written warning
Saying ‘I’m still mourning

Mourning lost lovers, ghosts of love. Oh those ghosts that define that "I don't believe in ever lasting love" Nostalgic longing.

Sorry Young man I can not be your friend
I don't believe in fairy tale ends

Its a lack of belief in happy endings, but its the sadness that comes from this lack. The want for it, mixed with the pain of the lost. If it ever occurred.

Examples like these I have many, but they will loose force if I go into each. Anyway you can't understand what this all means if you don't listen to her. You can't understand her nostalgia unless it comes from her very voice. From her voice tick tick ticking away every tune of the her songs.

So if you are ready to give up the banal "misery" sold by everyday bands, if you are ready to merge into the realms of nostalgia and fully lived, past and felt longing, then here it is an option, here is the gate. She won't tell you to slash your wrist cos of the sadness in the world. No she never will state such things. She will give you a much scarier alternative.

Don't run from your pain, live it. Don't escape from your sadness, don't make it an alien to your eyes, make it your own, live through it, long for it.

Don't cry child
You've got so much more to live for
Don't cry child
You've got something I would die for