“Welch’s mother is a professor of Renaissance studies at King’s College London who worried about her daughter skipping university to focus on her musical career, lamenting “what a waste of a brain!” Both the lyrics and the poetry in Useless Magic validate Welch’s choice, offering a chance to appreciate on the bare stage of the blank page the fineness of her words. And like fellow poet-musician Nick Cave (thanked for “inspiration and encouragement” here), Welch has found a way for the song and the voice of the rabbit-hearted girl to coexist. As she says herself: “you can have everything.”
