Patterns

"Patterns" is the lead single from Laura Marling's eighth album, Patterns in Repeat, an evocative collection of songs written during the first three months of her daughter's life. "I was just bouncing a BabyBjörn and playing guitar all day. It was all written looking her in the eye," she told The Guardian.

As if multitasking wasn't challenging enough, once the songs were ready, Marling decided the best place to record them was not a slick London studio, but her living room. That's right, between the crib and the coffee table, she set up a makeshift studio.

"Patterns" is a meditation on family and the recurring cycles of life: birth, growth, the passage of time. It's a finger-picked guitar number with lyrics touching on the universal truths that dawn on you when you're holding a tiny human who has just arrived on the planet. Motherhood, Marling muses, made her realize just how profoundly her own parents loved her when she was an infant, which put all of life's "little complications and difficulties into context." There's a hopefulness in her voice as she considers the idea of this realization echoing down through generations. "If my children have children of their own, they might hit this realization as well. That is an endlessly repeating cycle," she explained to The Guardian.