WHAT HE WROTE

Laura Marling

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Laura Snapes of NME wrote: "Inspired by wartime love letters that Laura read in a newspaper, ‘What He Wrote’ seems to detail the forbidden love of writing to a man other than your husband – she appeals to the Greek goddess Hera, goddess of women and marriage, for forgiveness for speaking to this man when she’s 'spoken for.' The whole song, just vocals and guitar, trembles in its waltz rhythm, but the most effecting line has to be the unqualified frankness of, 'I miss his smell'."

An anonymous author wrote on SongBlog: "My favourite Marling track so far is ‘What He Wrote’, which was inspired by one side of a World War II correspondence: 'I read some letters published in a newspaper, wartime letters, from World War II. It was between a man and a woman, a man who had gone away to fight, and it only had the woman's letters. They never found the man's letters, and it was all about how the last time that they had seen each other, she had been so upset that she was, like, rigid with anger, and I started to think about his letters.' Sung from the perspective of a woman separated from her lover by war (and who has since married someone else), Marling draws from Greek myth (Hera, supreme goddess of fertility and childbirth, is mentioned twice) and biblical references to create a standout track that is both hauntingly intimate and sweepingly epic."

LYRICS

forgive me Hera
i cannot stay
he cut out my tongue
there's nothing to save
love me o lord
he threw me away
he laughed at my sins
in his arms i must stay

he wrote i'm broke
please send for me
i am broken too
and spoken for
do not tempt me

her skin is white
and i'm light as the sun
so holy light shines
on the things you have done
so i asked him how he became this man
how did he learn to hold fruit in his hands

and where is the lamb that gave you your name
he had to leave tho i begged him to stay
left me alone when I needed the light
fell to my knees; I wept for my life
if he had of stayed you might understand
if he had of stayed you never would have taken my hand

he wrote
I am low
please send for me
but i'm broken too
and spoken for
do not tempt me

and where is the lamb that gave you your name
he had to leave tho i begged him to stay
begged him to stay in my cold wooden grip
begged him to stay by the light of this ship
and me fighting him fighting light fighting dawn
the waves came and stole him and took him to war

he wrote
I'm broke
please send for me
but i'm broken too
and spoken for
do not tempt me

forgive me Hera
i cannot stay
he cut out my tongue
there's nothing to save
love me o lord
he threw me away
he laughed at my sins
in his arms i must stay

we write
that's all right
i miss his smell
and we speak
when spoken to
and that suits us well

we write
that's all right
but i miss his smell
and i speak
when spoken to
as that suits me well
that suits me well.