I love Laura Marling, largely because she reminds me of a certain time in my life in 2009/10. She was rising in the UK indie folk scene, while I was liberally bathing my ears in as much indie folk music as possible, attending gigs and festivals with my buddy Greg.
Listening to ‘Rambling Man’ today, almost 15 years later, it feels as fresh as its release date. Taken from the album I Speak Because I Can, it’s such an amazing song and I still think about how amazing it is every time I hear it.
We begin with a beautiful acoustic guitar, setting us up for the vocal. I love how the verse starts quietly, with Laura’s voice singing:
Oh, naïve little me
Asking what things you have seen
And you’re vulnerable in your head
And you’ll scream and you’ll wail ’til you’re deadLaura Marling – Rambling Man
Moving into the next verse, a backing vocal appears on the left, with the main vocal on the right. It’s great to listen to on a good set of speakers. Everything is in this nice, quiet place. Into the chorus, things have picked up a little bit, but then at the end of the chorus – bam! – we are hit with a banjo and another guitar part, the intensity increasing throughout the next two verses. At that moment, something in my heart sings and there are goosebumps on my arms.
I’m reminded of something Joni Mitchell said in her interviews for the book Both Sides Now, about how it was important to perform with a feeling of warmth because that’s what people respond to. If you’re conceited, there will be no warmth in your performance. The vocal performance here has emotion in the delivery, which gives it warmth. That may be why I still love listening to it all these years later.
In one interview with Daniel Rachel for his book Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters, Laura talked about the bridge lyric, specifically the first 2 lines:
It’s funny how the first chords that you come to
Are the minor notes that come to serenade you
And it’s hard to accept yourself as someone you don’t desire
As someone you don’t want to be
She reflected that once you indulge, you can get addicted to writing melancholy songs (i.e. minor chords) as “It’s much easier to be unhappy than happy”. I think this is an important realisation. We are wired to look for the negative, to find the things that need fixing. It is easy to swim in those deep, melancholy waters. I feel most people though are looking for a scrap of hope in the pile of crap the world appears to be. But I also think that an artist needs to create what is right for them – melancholy or not – otherwise they just make inauthentic, mediocre art. That idea is echoed in the last 2 lines of the bridge – it’s hard to accept yourself if you’re not who you want to be. That’s the reason to stay true to yourself, despite what anyone else might think or expect.
After the bridge, there’s another chorus and then a simple outro with that banjo ringing out beautifully until the end. Mumford and Sons were her backing band for this album and I think their influence shows on this track. As that final note rings out, I feel warm and whole and ready to set off into the world, maybe to create art, so that it will always be known that I was who I am.