Laura Marling releases children’s covers collection Laura Sings Raffi

The collection draws heavily on Raffi Cavoukian’s 1980s catalogue, a body of work that soundtracked millions of childhoods across the English‑speaking world. Marling, whose own songwriting has long been marked by a literary precision, frames the release not as a lullaby side‑hustle but as a genuine artistic step. “Laura Sings Raffi marks a logical next step for me, but it’s not only a desire for tolerable children’s music that landed me here,” she explains. “Having discovered Canadian songwriter and children’s entertainer, Raffi, while living in North America, I developed a love for his sincere, deadpan renditions of both his original songs for the very young and those plucked from the canon – all before I even had children of my own.”

That affection is audible throughout the record. Raffi’s signature song “Baby Beluga” sits alongside nursery‑rhyme standards such as “The More We Get Together” and “Mr Sun,” as well as quieter originals like “Thanks A lot” and “One Light, One Sun.” Marling treats the material with the same hushed concentration she brings to her adult work, building the tracks around close‑mic’d guitar and vocal, leaving out any hint of condescension. It’s an approach that echoes a mantra she credits to Raffi’s ethos: “Be funny, be kind, and never patronise.”

Rather than faithful replicas, the recordings carry the loose, lived‑in warmth of a parent singing at home. “These covers, though not all Raffi originals, are delivered in homage to his style and ethos,” Marling says, “that being not only a respect for children and his expert attendance to what entertains them, but also to his wider audience – the parents whom he has blissfully attended also.”

The release lands two years after Marling's last full-length studio album, Patterns in Repeat, written after the birth of her daughter. Since then, she has been regularly publishing essays, interviews, and recordings of cover songs on her Substack.