What He Wrote

This song inspired by wartime love letters is a hugely emphatic reading of the desperate nature of thwarted love.

Marling has moved on since she released her debut album Alas, I Cannot Swim as a painfully shy 18-year-old. She explained to The Sun March 26, 2010 that this song, inspired by letters from a wife to her husband in the Second World War, reflects that time when she was still looking for her identity. Said Marling: "I assumed they were found with the husband but the wife was so angry that he was going to war that she was rigid. She wants to say 'I love you' or 'Sorry' but she couldn't because of it and it reminded me of when I couldn't tell people what I wanted to do because I was so terrified of everyone. The only thing I wanted to do was play music and that was the only time when I wasn't rigid."