You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry, I read Patti Smith’s autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.

Goulding reflects on the psychological weight that arrives with early success: once an artist releases a debut record, public and critical reactions can become “baggage” that shapes (and potentially constrains) the next phase of work. Her response is deliberate withdrawal—traveling alone with only a guitar—to recover a private, exploratory creative space. Reading poetry and Patti Smith’s autobiography suggests she is seeking models of artistic resilience and language-driven songwriting. The quote frames songwriting as a process of collecting fragments—words and phrases—until they cohere into songs, emphasizing solitude, reading, and self-directed practice as antidotes to external noise.