{"id":90,"date":"2014-10-30T07:01:18","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T06:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/?p=90"},"modified":"2018-10-11T20:05:01","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T18:05:01","slug":"laura-marlings-once-i-was-an-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/2014\/10\/laura-marlings-once-i-was-an-eagle\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Marling’s “Once I Was an Eagle”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image: Photo \u00a9 Justin Tyler Close. Design \u00a9 Alex Cowper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Author<\/strong>: Jonathan Afonso<\/p>\n

When it comes to love at first sight, I must confess that I do not have a lot to say about it relationship-wise. However, I remember very clearly the times I fell in love with music; this always strikes me as a very transcendental experience, something that I never quite entirely recover from \u2013 which is a very good thing, actually, because what is the point of listening to music if you are not deeply moved by it, if it does not help you think about the world in which you evolve?<\/p>\n

Last time I went through such an experience \u2013 the falling in love at first sight\/hearing \u2013 was one year ago (more or less). That morning I woke up, as usual, brushed my teeth, as usual, had breakfast, as usual, and the day seemed as boring\/exciting (it all depends on the point of view) as any other one. Nevertheless, as I was standing in that crowded M1 train, stuck between a girl trying to revise her medicine stuff (something about the inner ear, if I remember correctly) and a guy proudly telling his erotic exploits of the weekend (well, he was way cruder about it than I am, but since I am all for subtlety, I will leave it to this), something magical came to my ears. Prior to entering the metro, I had chosen to put all the albums of Laura Marling on shuffle and let my iPod rule it out as it wanted. I had recently been stuck on Marling\u2019s debut album, the 2008 Alas I Cannot Swim<\/em>, which showed, in a way, Laura Marling\u2019s skilfulness at playing guitar and her talent as a songwriter, but also lacked a bit of maturity, even though one could easily sense that she would eventually come to something majestic if we just gave her some time to grow up (as she was 17 back then); I had decided to buy all her other albums, given the spell that her music seemed to cast on me. And then, at that moment when the metro was crossing its last meters before arriving on the campus, right on that bridge over the motorway, there was Laura Marling fascinating me: \u201cWhen we were in love, if we were \/ I was an eagle and you were a dove<\/em>.\u201d This was sung with Laura\u2019s sweet but determined voice, as if she had seen it all, as if the world had no surprises left for her, as guitars were gently strummed before ferociously engaging in an infinite crescendo. How could I possibly not fall in love with it?<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, as soon as I had time, I sat at my desk and let my CD player spin Once I Was an Eagle<\/em> and deliver its magic. This album is, in my opinion, a masterpiece of British folk music, and this is what I would like to show with this article. Therefore, I will mainly focus on some of the aspects that I find most striking in Once I Was an Eagle<\/em>, sometimes referring to past Marling\u2019s albums as she uses a lot of the imagery she has already deployed in different albums and refines it. We should first start with the notion that this album is a concept album, that is, an album that is centred on a specific image and builds it up throughout the whole work. As such, this album explores the idea of naivety given that Marling sets a persona who has lost every notion of naivety and seems not to be able to fall in love again. I will argue that this view is not linear in the album, and that we switch from one position (the \u2018Master Hunter\u2019 as the title of one song shows) to another one (a more fragile one, where the album\u2019s persona is insecure about her experience, her life and her dealing with love itself) rather frequently, which actually constitutes one of the strengths of the album (because who may say never to have been tormented in love and to have always been clear about they wanted?).<\/p>\n

One of the first elements of analysis is the structure of the work itself: it is very well wrought, whilst previous Marling albums were not so much focused on producing that kind of continuity. This 16-track album can easily be divided into two parts: the first one is made of tracks one to seven, whilst the other goes from track nine to sixteen, with track number eight, rightly called \u2018Interlude,\u2019 serving to delimitate them. There is also a very clear thematic distinction between the two parts, as the first one consists of various rhythmical pieces, some being more upbeat than the majority, while the second one is mainly made of calm, reflective songs. Nevertheless, it is possible to go even further and to break the first group in two, with the first four tracks being part of a series that is musically linked by the presence of a recursive guitar and drums pattern introduced in diverse ways in each of these tracks. A lot of emphasis was put in these tracks, as Marling played the whole series during unplugged sessions<\/a> and even had a short film made on them (When Brave Bird Saved<\/a>). Therefore, analysing them, as well as the following tracks of this first part, provides much of the work\u2019s themes and key-concepts.<\/p>\n

The first track of the album, \u2018Take the Night Off,\u2019 presents something that could be read as a post-breakup situation. The I-speaker mentions a \u2018beast\u2019 that \u2018should be gone\u2019: this is a very precise reminder of Laura\u2019s latest album, titled A Creature I Don\u2019t Know<\/em>, in whose track \u2018The Beast\u2019<\/a> and the longer eponym web-published poem<\/a>, Marling calmly claimed that she \u201cchose the beast\u201d and that \u201ctonight he lies with me,\u201d while urging listeners to \u201cput [their] eyes away \/ If [they] can\u2019t bear to see \/ [their] old lady lay \/ Down next to the beast.\u201d We therefore seem to be, at the opening of Once I Was an Eagle<\/em>, in a situation that has slightly evolved, since the narrator does not want the beast anymore, but on which she does not have complete control. She seems to be saying that she has no interest in love anymore, as she mentions \u2018I don\u2019t want you to know me \/ Wouldn\u2019t want you to know \/ I don\u2019t care where you\u2019ve gone, beast \/ I care where you go<\/em>.\u2019 The second track, \u2018I Was an Eagle\u2019 (the one that I fell in love with whilst riding to the university), gives us a sort of snapshot of the relationship the narrator has just been through, although only providing us with hints about it, since, as the NME review<\/a> pointed out, the album is more concerned about the poetic persona and his\/her evolution than the actual events. Marling makes huge statements about naivety, saying that \u2018Every little boy is so na\u00efve<\/em>\u2019 but also that \u2018Every little girl is so na\u00efve \/ Falling in love with the first man that she sees<\/em>\u2019; she is moreover determined to build her character as someone who \u2018will not be a victim of romance \/ will not be a victim of circumstance \/ Chance, or circumstance, or romance, or any man \/ Who could get his dirty little hands on [her]<\/em>,\u2019 as is stated in the chorus. The very depiction that Marling gives of their past relationship also shows how peculiar, if not tormented, it was, as she says that \u2018When we were in love, \/ If<\/strong> we were, \/ When we were in love, \/ I was an eagle and you were a dove<\/em>.\u2019 This last line becomes even more interesting when we compare it to the traditional imagery that is linked to birds in love poetry, where the eagle is often used for the male part of the relationship while a woman is a dove. For example, John Donne in his Canonization<\/em> glorifies his relationship with his lover by saying that \u2018\u2026 we in us find the eagle and the dove. \/ The phoenix riddle hath more wit \/ By us; we two being one, are it\u2019: their love is so strong that gender distinctions do not matter anymore, they form only one being. On the contrary, Marling specifies and delineates this dichotomy, and even goes further as she inverses gender roles: she<\/em> is the eagle, whilst her lover is merely the dove. Marling ends the track, lyrically speaking, by saying that \u2018I was an eagle and I rose above you \/ And preyed<\/em>,\u2019 thus giving an even more striking statement on her previous relationship, making it a scene of hunting.<\/p>\n