“The best way of putting the song in context is what I was doing at the time of writing it: I was travelling more than I’d traveled before. It was the first time I’d been far enough away from childhood to really miss my parents. I’d been living a legitimately adult life in London for 3 years and suddenly I was away in very foreign places and I really missed home and my boring village I grew up in. Also it was a time I was having to do a lot of stuff on my own.”Laura Marling (259)

“I was single for the first time for 6 years when I wrote this song and was on a bit of a power trip. I found myself pursuing inspiration. I wanted very, very pure beauty. That pursuit of beauty and inspiration: you touch one inch of it and it falls apart, which is what aesthetic beauty is: skin, paper. The song was meant to be funny, light-hearted.”Laura Marling (259)

“I was in the midst of an incredible bout of fear of death. I still to this day don’t really know why. I was obsessed by age. The thought of getting old terrified me. It was such a dark image; now I couldn’t think any more differently.”Laura Marling (260)

“I know what the Beast is. It’s just a figurative darkness, a character, a capability of darkness and the temptation of it.”Laura Marling (261)

“It [New York after the power failed during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 – Ed] was like a zombie apocalypse. When all the lights go out, what does anything actually mean? Nothing. I’ve had that kind of thought in my head for the past two years.”Laura Marling (510)