NOUEL

Laura Marling

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In Nouel, the titular character "lays herself across the bed / Like the Origin Du Monde." Asked whether reference to Gustave Courbet’s 1866 painting of a woman sprawled naked on a bed with her legs spread was intended to objectify or liberate Nouel, Marling told Alexandra Pollard: "That’s an interesting one, because Noel is a person who exists. She’s a dear friend of mine. She fulfilled, for me, the classical role of muse, in that she’s an extraordinary person, she has an extraordinary air about her... And the Origin Du Monde is an image that I’ve always found very powerful in relation to women, in the origin of the world being this very graphic female genitalia. There was something to me about her that had the essence of that painting, rather than the literal gaze that I was experiencing. So I was writing it, and I was aware that I was treading this line between sexual ambiguity and innocent adoration."

Rachel Aroesti wrote in The Guardian: "What is different about [the album] Semper Femina is its vantage point. The lyrics were largely informed by that period in LA and the new relationships she formed there. One, a friendship with a girl called Nouel, became the inspiration for the song of the same name...'Everything’s about sex, I believe,' says Marling, sitting on a sofa in a homely Hackney recording studio and explaining why she decided to write about her friend’s vulva. 'This idea there’s a very finite difference between sexual and romantic love and friendship is crazy,” she says. “I think you fall in love with friends.” Yet she feels relationships between women have “either been ignored or commodified, or sexualised. So I wanted to give a different perspective on that.'"

LYRICS

She sings along to sailor's song
In a dress that she made
When she's gone I sing along
But it doesn't sound the same

Oh Nouel, you sing so well
Sing only for me
Fickle and changeable
Though I may always be

I pulled a thorn from her tiny paw
Her feet were unclean
Fetch water, blessed twice
And hand a sponge to me

I do well to serve Nouel
Whatever service I may be
Fickle and changeable
Weighing down on me

She speaks a word and it gently turns
To perfect metaphor
She likes to say I only play
When I know what I'm playing for

Oh Nouel, you must know me well
And I didn't even show you the scar
Fickle and changeable
Semper femina

She'd like to be the kind of free
Women still can't be alone
How I wish I could hit the switch
That keeps you from getting gone

Oh Nouel, it hurts like hell
When you're so afraid to die
Semper femina
So am I

She lays herself across the bed
Like the Origin du Monde
Slight of shoulder, long and legged
Her hair a faded blonde

Oh Nouel, you sit so well
A thousand artists' muse
But you'll be anything you choose
Fickle and changeable are you
And long may that continue

I do well to serve Nouel
My only guiding star
Fickle and changeable
Semper femina