“Sometimes you have to burn yourself to the ground before you can rise like a phoenix from the ashes.”
― Jens Lekman
“I’m very very happy for my hardships and misfortunes: they build character and make you a better person. Even if I think it’s something you have to carry with you, it’s definitely something that makes you more empathic towards other people, makes you understand people and relationships so much better.”
― Jens Lekman
“When you’re writing about difficult things and darker issues, it’s nice to offer some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Some sense of hope. Sometimes, the best way to do that is by offering it in the music, so that you can dance your way out of the darkness.”
― Jens Lekman
“I don’t like irony and sarcasm very much. But I do like it when you think someone is telling you a joke, and then you discover it’s serious.”
― Jens Lekman
“Every wedding is slightly different from the other. But you always get to meet the funny uncle and the weirdo relatives, and there’s always someone trying to beat you up for not playing enough Beatles songs or something.”
― Jens Lekman
“What I can’t fit into my suitcase is probably something I don’t need.”
― Jens Lekman
“Hmm… at some point when I was making ‘Postcards,’ it struck me, what the underlying themes for the record would be. It would be about choices, fears and doubts, and it had an existentialist theme to it.”
― Jens Lekman
“I have mood swings, but I’m sure people in England have that, too. Me and my friends, we’re just a bunch of happy idiots.”
― Jens Lekman
“I started running to different albums, and I was starting with the short albums and moving on to the longer albums. I was interested in how they built up, in tempo and intensity. it made me interested in albums again, too.”
― Jens Lekman
“If there’s two things I will never do, it would be grow a beard and pick up the uke again.”
― Jens Lekman
“It was never part of how I imagined my music, and I watched in awe at how this ukulele troubadour image suddenly devoured the Jens Lekman I had planned so carefully.”
― Jens Lekman
“I had a drummer in my band who started teaching me tricks to come up with interesting rhythms. Because I don’t come from a musical background, I’ve never studied music, and I don’t know music theory at all, so a lot of stuff I discover on my own are things students would learn in the first grade of music.”
― Jens Lekman
“My old songs used to take place in Gothenburg; then, when I lived in Melbourne, the songs just naturally took place more in Melbourne.”
― Jens Lekman
“I try and take it for what it is, and I’m very at peace with the fact that when I’m done with the songs, they don’t belong to me anymore. They belong to the listeners.”
― Jens Lekman
“A lot of people would write to me long stories from their lives, and I felt they were thinking of me as some sort of treasure chest to keep their secrets. I felt like sometimes they would tell me stories they wouldn’t tell anybody else in the whole world. And I loved these stories.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think South Korea was one of the best shows I’ve ever done in my whole life. The people there were crazy. It was literally Beatlemania.”
― Jens Lekman
“I grew up in the ’90s and remember the lyrics back then were so abstract and open to interpretation. That always drove me crazy.”
― Jens Lekman
“My aim is for every song to have a purpose – for you to be able to say, ‘This song is about this.’ But love and heartbreak are some of the most abstract subjects.”
― Jens Lekman
“If you come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion, well, that’s a conclusion, too.”
― Jens Lekman
“This is one of the reasons I’m so interested in stories. Because everyone has a story in their life, and when their story doesn’t make sense, that’s when we get depressed, I think.”
― Jens Lekman
“I feel like the few times in my life when I really felt like I love my own story is when I’ve been the happiest.”
― Jens Lekman
“I find it quite hard to connect with the songs where I portray myself as this clumsy, adorable, love-struck man-child.”
― Jens Lekman
“You always try different versions of yourself through songwriting. It can get a bit annoying to see them walk around and do their thing when you feel like, ‘I’m not that person any more.’”
― Jens Lekman
“I struggled with a lot of doubts around my songwriting and around what I was and what my purpose and mission were.”
― Jens Lekman
“For me, it’s sort of like a cultural democracy or musical socialism to take a stand and get out of the major cities if you can.”
― Jens Lekman
“I would love to hear Marilyn Manson’s fans or something, what their stories would be like.”
― Jens Lekman
“I’ve never felt at home in Kortedala, or in Gothenburg, so I always felt like I needed to go somewhere and find some kind of perspective on things.”
― Jens Lekman
“Goteborg used to be a not very cool place to live. The culture centered around shrimp and bingo. Bands played Copenhagen and Stockholm and skipped Goteborg.”
― Jens Lekman
“I was in my early 30s, and I longed for real friendships and real relationships, and I started asking myself why I didn’t have that. I had a couple of male friends, but every time I would hang out with them, it felt like there was something keeping us apart.”
― Jens Lekman
“Even if I wrote a song about math or animals or whatever, there would still be the question, ‘Why did you write about that? And what does it say about you?’”
― Jens Lekman
“I’ve established a certain voice over my albums. It can be an obstacle, but in the end, I think it’s a strength, because I can build upon that voice, which is ultimately very much mine.”
― Jens Lekman
“You carry all these hurts and breakups with you forever. But there is this sort of joyful realization that the things that caused you pain were real. There is something beautiful and invigorating in holding onto that.”
― Jens Lekman
“My first single was based around the mishearing of the words ‘make believe’ – ‘I thought she said maple leaves.’ That kind of stuff is very central to my music and my life.”
― Jens Lekman
“I became paranoid for a long time: I thought that people were out to harm me.”
― Jens Lekman
“A lot of my songs are written prophetically: I write something, and then I make it happen.”
― Jens Lekman
“I like telling stories with a sense of humor. But humor can also distance you from the subject you’re writing about. I’m interested in using humor as a portal to something a bit more serious.”
― Jens Lekman
“Any band that doesn’t have a sense of humor has a little bit of a problem.”
― Jens Lekman
“I have this part in myself that sometimes gets me into situations that can never end well, just because I want to prove to myself that I’m no good.”
― Jens Lekman
“The way to write really good songs is to write about the things that happen in your life and where you are in the moment, and writing about stuff that happens in your 30s is not the sexiest song subject.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think sometimes when I sit down to write a song, it doesn’t come out naturally, but when you are writing an email to someone, especially if you are writing to a stranger, you write much more spontaneously, and it’s freer.”
― Jens Lekman
“Nirvana was a band that led you somewhere, as opposed to all the grunge bands that began and ended with themselves.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think when you get into your 30s, you start to realize all of the patterns you have in your life and all of the stuff that you’re avoiding. It’s a terribly unsung period in people’s lives. I can’t think about many artists who have sung about it, because it’s so not sexy.”
― Jens Lekman
“I realized that even though I had this urge, this longing, to write about other people, in order for it to be emotionally gripping, I needed to be in there somehow.”
― Jens Lekman
“I’ve always been interested in listening to people’s stories.”
― Jens Lekman
“It always feel like people are doing more grown-up things than you are.”
― Jens Lekman
“I feel like it’s my responsibility not to leave the listener in a pool of dread.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think all the best songs do that: they offer some sort of hope and light in the darkness.”
― Jens Lekman
“I wouldn’t write about something that I haven’t experienced myself.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think it’s because Toronto is the Gothenburg of Canada, with the trends and the music and everything. I feel very at home when I’m there. Everyone has always been so kind to me.”
― Jens Lekman
“Contemporary Swedish artists that chose Swedish as their language tended to sing about certain topics and use words I wanted to avoid.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think it’s healthy that people that work in a creative field look for inspiration in a different creative field.”
― Jens Lekman
“Really, to me, a really good evening would be a comedian, followed by a band, followed by a really good DJ.”
― Jens Lekman
“There’s so much nostalgia for music from the past.”
― Jens Lekman
“I don’t want music to be a museum.”
― Jens Lekman
“One of the nice things about songwriting is you can be inspired by absolutely anything.”
― Jens Lekman
“Summer is always best through a window.”
― Jens Lekman
“I start writing songs first as an entertainer, and I like funny stories that wrap up with dignity.”
― Jens Lekman
“I need to write a sitcom, but something with warmth, not one where the dad comes home and he’s treated like an idiot.”
― Jens Lekman
“Australia’s beautiful, but I’m not too into Australian culture.”
― Jens Lekman
“My songs don’t deal with locations that specifically, even if there are very specific references to them in there; they’re sort of just where stories happen, not the stories themselves.”
― Jens Lekman
“Once I release a song, it’s not just about me or the people… I write about. They’re my stories, but they’re not really mine any more.”
― Jens Lekman
“I have a very nice voice.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think a lot of my songs are very silly and very stupid, written to entertain people, but in the end, I always come to that last line, and I feel that I have to wrap this up with a bit of dignity and a little tear in the eye; otherwise, the joke would be on the characters in the song.”
― Jens Lekman
“Some very silly songs can have an almost melancholy feeling when you put it in a different perspective.”
― Jens Lekman
“I realised that music controls me more than I control music. I had to write songs that were convincing me that things would get better.”
― Jens Lekman
“When I was working on ‘Night Falls Over Kortedala,’ I was listening a lot to ‘Graceland,’ the Paul Simon record. I really got into the lyrics on that album. The opening line is so brilliant, the way he sets the scene.”
― Jens Lekman
“I’ve started listening to music in a new way after I started running. When it comes to running, I really got into the idea of track listings that way, too.”
― Jens Lekman
“I remember when I grew up and Dad would take me to kindergarten in the morning, and you could smell the chips in the air from the factory nearby.”
― Jens Lekman
“When it comes to heartbreaks and disappointments, I often have to be more or less done with them to be able to write about them. Then you might ask why I would write about them at all, but I think I owe it to the Jens of the past.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think of the Jens Lekman in the songs as a completely different person who’s stealing my stories.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think that’s a responsibility I have, to not leave the listener with complete dread or depressing, dark thoughts, but to leave a little door open so that you can dance your way out if you want to.”
― Jens Lekman
“I still love touring rock clubs around the world, and that’s something that’s really a part of me. I love making albums, and I’m a wedding singer on the side; that’s my parallel career. So I love all those aspects of making music.”
― Jens Lekman
“Making albums is a very lonely process sometimes. Sitting around working on songs, feeling the pressure.”
― Jens Lekman
“It’s good to let go of control. That’s probably something all artists and song writers will say at some point.”
― Jens Lekman
“I went to Legoland in Denmark when I was five, I think, but I went to Germany when I was 17 to have a little adventure after graduation.”
― Jens Lekman
“It’s not difficult getting into the charts in Sweden. It’s a very different musical climate, and in a very good way, I think, because artists like Jose Gonzalez or The Knife can actually get on the charts.”
― Jens Lekman
“I actually have all these tapes, from when I was five, from when I was 10, and from when I was 15, that don’t really have to do anything with each other, but they’re sort of archeological in my musical history.”
― Jens Lekman
“When I was a kid, I had a period in my life when I was eight or nine when I was so scared of dying that I wouldn’t go out of our house for a whole year. I refused to step out of the door because I thought something would happen. I had all these compulsive thoughts or whatever, and my head was really messed up.”
― Jens Lekman
“I really do believe in clearing samples, and I believe that people should be compensated for them, but the laws are just so stupid.”
― Jens Lekman
“Christmas music is usually more concentrated pop music in a way. It’s meant to make us feel good, and it’s meant to make us like we belong somewhere.”
― Jens Lekman
“I wanted to write songs about other people because I was sick of myself, basically. I didn’t like myself very much. ‘Ghostwriting’ became an outlet for that. And then I could get back to get Jens Lekman again.”
― Jens Lekman
“’Postcards’ was just a way of slapping myself in the face and saying, ‘You can do anything! Just go for it!’”
― Jens Lekman
“I realize that ‘Postcards’ was like input, and ‘Ghostwriting’ was output. I had all these frustrations and feelings before I did those two projects. ‘Postcards’ was something that brought new life and creative inspiration into the record, while ‘Ghostwriting’ was relieving myself.”
― Jens Lekman
“It’s weird talking about the album as a living being with its own thoughts and direction, especially if you’re the one creating it.”
― Jens Lekman
“The ‘sent’ folder of my email program is really my biggest inspiration and my biggest source of lyrics. That’s where I go to pick up a lot of the lyrics that I’m writing.”
― Jens Lekman
“I really love the idea of stepping into another character and being able to sing maybe stuff that is not my thought and my own opinions, but be able to portray someone else and take a walk in their shoes for a while.”
― Jens Lekman
“I found a favorite chord, which is B flat 7 – that’s my favorite chord.”
― Jens Lekman
“Ever since I started writing music, I’ve wanted to know what the songs are about and to be able to tell stories.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think there are definitely a lot of subjects I don’t share with people, but I’m not sure where that border is.”
― Jens Lekman
“In the past, I used to rely on the randomness of working with samples, which was a good way because it threw you in a completely different direction. You just thought, ‘What if I take this samba drum and combined it with an ’80s synth line or something from this record?’”
― Jens Lekman
“I love playing small towns, but in Sweden, it’s sometimes a little bit weird, because all small towns are just so close to bigger cities that people are not as grateful when you show up as they are in Odessa, Texas.”
― Jens Lekman
“I’m not too fond of the typical Australian activities or culture. I’m not into surfing – that’s what I’m trying to say.”
― Jens Lekman
“I like short beards. Not a big fan of the bigger beards.”
― Jens Lekman
“Older men in my family – back to my grandpa – were basically completely bald.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think, in a world of mouths, I want to be an ear.”
― Jens Lekman
“Of the times that I’ve been able to overcome a fear, it’s been by making it something that I can understand, that I can hold on to – just something that’s more tangible.”
― Jens Lekman
“I think a lot of my anxieties and fears are things that are very abstract.”
― Jens Lekman
“The idea of printing out something that’s as scary as a tumor into its concrete form was something that spoke to me – there is something very liberating about that idea.”
― Jens Lekman
“The whole thing with playing on a stage with mics and all that has always been kind of uncomfortable to me.”
― Jens Lekman
“Getting my hair cut is just a very special moment for me. I don’t know exactly why, but it’s such an intimate, almost religious experience. I’m very careful with who gets to cut my hair.”
― Jens Lekman
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