MASTER HUNTER
Laura Marling
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Michael Cragg wrote in The Guardian: "The second taster for the album [Once I Was An Eagle] is the rollicking Master Hunter, which was premiered on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show earlier this evening. Showcasing what sounds like an entire set of Lakeland pots and pans as percussion and featuring a vocal performance that harnesses a very Marling trope of sounding simultaneously calm and royally pissed off, it also features strange lyrical couplets ('I don't stare at water anymore, water doesn't do what it did before'), but hinges on a fairly direct chorus of 'you want a woman who will call your name? It ain't me, babe'."
Frank Valish wrote for Under the Radar: "Midway through 'Master Hunter'...[Marling] steals a lyric from Bob Dylan. Calling out a man who seems to want her for self-serving reasons, Marling sings, with a confident yet passive-aggressive viciousness: 'It ain’t me, babe. No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe.' With the appropriation of the famous line, she turns the self-centered Dylan kiss-off into a statement of purpose for a strong woman. It’s classic Marling, her wresting the songwriting form from past masters and flipping it on its head. Yet the gravity of the line was not apparent to her when writing the song. 'I hadn’t really thought about it,' says Marling from her home in London. 'I knew, obviously, when I was writing it, like, "Oh, that’s a Dylan line. I wonder whether anyone will notice that?" Well, obviously it stands out a lot more than I thought it would. But it’s just a fitting line. I wonder whether I will get in trouble for that.'"
LYRICS
I am a master hunter
I cured my skin
And nothing gets in
Nothing as hard as it tries
You want a woman 'coz you wanna be saved
Well I'll tell you that I got a little/lot on my plate
You want a woman who will call your name
It ain't me babe.
No no no
It ain't me babe
I don't stare at water anymore
Water doesn't do what it did before
Took me in unto the edge of insane
When I only meant to swim
I nearly put a bullet in my brain
When the rhythm took me in
I am a master hunter
I cured my skin
So nothing gets in
Nothing as hard as it tries
You let men into your bed
Do they not know you well?
They can't get into my head
No they don't have a hope in hell
See the thing is that we're so alone
There's nothing we can share
You can get me on the telephone
But you want to keep me there
No no no, you won't keep me there
Take me somewhere I don't know
Give me something, let me go
Tell me something I don't know
I have some news
Is this what you think I do
In life when I’m not being used
You're not sad you live for the blues
I have some news
Wrestling the rope from darkness
Is no fucking life i would choose
I am the master hunter
I cured my skin
Now nothin gets in
Nothing as hard as it tries