Laura Marling: 'Cross Your Fingers'

The second single off ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’, the enchanting debut album from folk singer songwriter Laura Marling, this song is a bewitching combination of innocently cheerful, wistful melody and dark lyrics (‘Cross your fingers, hold your toes, we’re all gonna die when the building blows…’) delivered with exquisite nonchalance. And that voice…

Most notable on this track is the soothing, warm, gentle quality of Marling’s voice. It is the mature, well-rounded voice of a woman with an underlying breezy brightness that reminds you this timeless voice is coming from the vocal chords of an 18-year-old girl. If 'Cross Your Fingers' is anything to go by, I suspect that there is a lot more where this came from and we can expect to be hearing from Laura Marling for years to come.

Released on 2nd June 2008 by Virgin.

Written by Polly Rappaport.