'Alas I Cannot Swim' by Laura Marling

Alas I Cannot Swim

by Laura Marling

Release Date: 4th February 2008

Track List: Ghosts / Old Stone / Tap At My Window / Failure / You're No God / Cross Your Fingers / Crawled Out Of The Sea (Interlude) / My Manic And I / Night Terror / The Captain And The Hourglass / Shine / Your Only Doll (Dora) //

It's probably become quite obvious by now that I like to write about albums. I struggle to write about individual songs because I don't listen to music that way. I like to listen to them as albums; as stories; as within albums all the songs link together, and are ordered in the way that they are for a reason - to tell that story.

This album is one of my go-to albums at the moment; I've been listening to the same five songs over and over - Crawled Out Of The Sea (Interlude), My Manic and I, Night Terror, Ghosts and Tap At My Window. Crawled Out Of The Sea (Interlude) is what got me listening to the album again this year. It leads into the second half of the album, My Manic and I, then to Night Terror, which are my favourite songs on the album. Although, her music is relatively simple, as the basis of her music is her voice and guitar accompaniment, it doesn't come across that way. Her lyrics are meaningful and well written, which for me, is the what makes her music the standard that it is. Each song is a new story, of a new person told from Marling's point of view full of youthful ardor and emotion, themes that are easily relatable, but the way in which she strings words together make them something else. Such as the track Ghosts, that portrays a young man unable to forget the ghosts of his past loves, "He walked down a busy street, / Staring solely at his feet, / Clutching pictures of past lovers at his side. / Stood at the table where she sat, / And removed his hat, / In respect of her presence / Presents her with the pictures and says, / "These are just ghosts that broke my heart before I met you. / These are just ghosts that broke my heart before I met you." The stories that she tells feel like lucid dreams, making you want to know these characters - these people, and learn more about what happens at the end of the story.

I haven't had the chance to write many posts recently, due to the time of year and the amount of work at university, however, an essay I wrote on my project about sounds in the environment led me to the idea of storytelling and how it is created in all different forms - not just the traditional idea of passing on stories via word of mouth. The concept of storytelling is what creates our history and our past by keeping memories moving forward, and in a way, infinite. (I know that this is probably an obvious point to make, as music originally was a way of storytelling, but although it's known - it isn't spoken about, and the research I did made me question it and think about music in a different light.) This is what Marling achieves, through her lyrics introducing My Manic and I: "He wants to die in a lake in Geneva, / The mountains can cover the shape of his nose. / If he wants to die where nobody can see him, / But the beauty of his death will carry on so, / I don't believe him." She concludes her songs in a way that is effortless, and open, allowing the listener to carry on their idea of her stories.

Although this review is very late, considering the album was released in 2008, if you haven't already listened to this album or given it a chance it is well worth it.