GWAS: The Clippings Post

This week's clipping is something from the web I'll be printing out to keep in a scrapbook – because it's deserving of a paper base (sorry, environment); not a cursory bookmark.

Writing for The Boot, folk singer Jewel opens up about her struggles with her self-image, the cruelty she endured as a naive young woman entering the entertainment world, coming under media scrutiny (she was cast as "Renée Zellweger's fat doppelganger"), and a life-defining decision to adopt the motto 'Do No Harm'.

Her strength, determination and resilience are the stuff that great folk songs are made of. Speaking of which (cue promotional segue)... Laura Marling's new album, I Speak Because I Can, is out today.

The former Noah and the Whale vocalist, who looks as disarmingly sweet as Alison Ashley, packs 10 feisty, don't-mess-with-me tracks into her second solo offering, which has all the drama and lyricism of a Robert Browning poem infused with Fiona Apple intensity.

In songs like "Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)", she evokes a feminist resolve (“I tried to be a girl who likes to be used/I’m too good for that/There is a mind under this hat”) accompanied by violins. She has said this album is about "responsibility, particularly the responsibility of womanhood" and, though just 20 years old, Marling demonstrates a wordly maturity beyond the brooding of Avril Lavigne, snark of Lily Allen and wistfulness of Taylor Swift, though her melancholy may find you wishing for something lighter and brighter to chase the blues away.

WIN! I have five copies of I Speak Because I Can to giveaway. To win an album, email satchelgirl@gmail.com with your mailing address and answer to this question: What is the ultimate break-up song?

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel