Thanks for reminding me, New York.
December 13th , 2010
Thanks for reminding me, New York. |
December 12th , 2010
A COMPLETE LIST OF MY BELONGINGS AS OF DEC 12TH 2010 - 1 large suitcase (Topic for the month of December is : Belongings)
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November 7th , 2010
Seven minutes. Looking forward to the 10th for now ! |
November 7th , 2010
The topic for the month of November is: "Fine print". This will be the compulsory main subject of your e-mail. If you write to me it will have to be about this. If you wanna talk about something else you will have to make associations, find reference points. Love,
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November 1st , 2010
I'll be your mirror.
A selection of self portraits sent to me the last month. From top to bottom - Andrew Hall, Jana Esmeraldo, Ben Smith, Jack Adams, Pedro Hernandez, Carl Bigsten, Jonathan White. Thank you ! |
October 16th , 2010
General Norman Johnson died a few days ago. His melodies always had a way of sneaking in to my songs when I played them live.
He wrote a handful of pure diamond pop songs, I think I'm gonna head down to East Brunswick and scan the thrift stores for some Chairmen of the Board vinyl this afternoon. You should too. Here's a favourite:
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October 6th , 2010
Oh Australia, you're always like an alternate dimension. Where spring is on it's way and the greens and the centre-left won the election. Where friday night means you drive up and down the street and shout random words at people. Where the cold dandelion beer is for holding against your sweaty forehead. It's good to be back. I'll be busy with lots of work now so not sure how good I'll be at replying, but if you want to write to me this month the mandatory topic is "Self Portraits". With your e-mail I want you to include a portrait of yourself in whatever format you feel like. Painting, photo, text, audio... I want to know how you perceive yourself. Oh, and keep it small. Don't send anything larger than 0,5 MB. Love, |
September 26th, 2010
I've been trying to digest the last week, I just can't believe the outcome of the election. Did we just get four more years of Reinfeldt? And four years of a nationalist deeply racist party in the parliament? And for the first time since the 1940's, was a nazi party democratically elected ? Did people elect nazis ? There are cold winds blowing through Europe and Sweden and there are no blankets to crawl in under anymore. |
September 19th, 2010
It's the 19th. Please remember to vote with your heart today. It makes me so sad to see Sweden go in the direction it's been going the last four years. I don't want to see more friends have to argue about wether they are able to work or not when they are clearly ill and need rehabilitation. I don't want to see our welfare state be deconstructed with clever expressions. I don't believe a word coming out of Fredrik Reinfeldts mouth. |
September 15th, 2010
On December 4th I will play a solo show at the Mondrian skybar, overlooking the Los Angeles skyline. You find the details here. J |
September 6th, 2010
I'm singing a few lines in spanish on Javiera Mena's new record. The track is called Sufrir. |
September 5th, 2010
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September 1st , 2010
Topic for the month of september is : Necks
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August 31st , 2010
HEJ DÅ GBG - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Jag kör en liten avskedsspelning nu på fredag innan jag sticker tillbaks till Oceanien. Solo, utan band. Det blir på Kontiki. Man kan köpa biljetter från och med onsdag kl 16 på Karltex Herr, 150 biljetter finns det. Kontiki är pyttelitet. Fredag, tredje september 2010. Kram - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I'm doing a small farewellshow this friday before going back to Oceania. Solo, no band. At Kontiki. You can buy tickets from wednesday at 4pm at Karltex Herr, there's 150 tickets. Kontiki is tiny. Friday, sept 3rd 2010 Hugs - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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August 29th , 2010
Viktor Sjöberg from my band has just put out a truly stunning vinyl LP with his jazz ensemble on Kalligrammofon. In his own words: "The ‘Lover man project’ is based around the song “Lover man” as Through performing "Lover man" we shall study the concept of freedom. Is it really all that free?" Also, keep your eyes out for Viktor's new solo album "Breakfast in America", out soon on St. Ives. |
August 28th , 2010
For some reason, at this time of year I always receive donations from people who feel guilty over downloading my music "illegally". I'm not sure why it's always at the end of the summer, but this year it coincides with a terrible flood in Pakistan. If you feel like you owe me money, or if you have money to spare, please consider donating to for example Oxfam's relief effort. Here's a link. Thank you. |
August 11th , 2010
For one night and one night only I was Florian Schneider.
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August 9th , 2010
Topic for the month of August: Teachers This will be the compulsory main subject of your e-mail. If you write to me it will have to be about this. If you wanna talk about something else you will have to make associations, find reference points. Love, |
August 8th , 2010
One question to Khaela Maricich (The Blow) who is currently touring Europe with us
J: You seem to write songs about as often as I go to the dentist. Is there a connection between these two things? Is a song a bad tooth that needs to be pulled out or is it a golden tooth that you get when the bad tooth has been pulled out ? K: You know, Jens, I have thought about this a lot, and I actually don't really know what a song is. I ask myself, why do you do this, make words attached to melodies? Seen from a distance, doesn't it seem just a little bit absurd? The only reason that I can come up with is that now and then, I find myself singing aloud, and when I listen to the words coming out of my mouth, they have the feeling of being a little knot of meaningfulness. In the best cases, the words sound like the answer to a question which I have been wondering over. Sometimes they are an answer that I haven't wanted to hear. It is almost always clear to me whether or not they are true, whether or not I am trying to lie to myself. All I can say is that the truer the words, the better the song. Is this rotten or golden? I think the song is the aural process of dealing with whatever you have there in the mouth. |
July 28th , 2010
The End of the World Is Bigger Than Love It was the day before the american election 2008 and I was filled with a hopelessness that only a McCain supporter could have shared with me at the time. I was in Washington DC to perform for swedish TV, sitting in the couch with a proffesional smile on my face, joking with the hosts and discussing the lobster with the TV chef. I saw the clips online sometime ago, it's amazing what an actor I can be if I really make an effort. I lived in America back then, up in New York. At the time I felt like everything I touched was turning to shit and I had decided to put everything on one card. Subconsciously I knew I needed to hit the bottom so I could work my way up again. I needed confirmation, I needed someone to tell me it wasn't going to work out, not this way. Yes, there was a girl involved in this. I was very much in love with her. Some things you just go through. You don't write about it, you don't turn it into art because it can't be turned into art. I didn't write any songs that year because you can't pour manure into an espresso machine and expect a cappucino to come out. When they announced the results and the streets filled up with people celebrating I felt happy to be part of something bigger than myself. It was a feeling that lasted me until the very last days of December 2008 when I finally sat down in my old teenage room at my parents house and I wrote this song. Then the year ended. It's a song of hope. When love turns it's back on you it's nice to know there's a world out there that doesn't give a shit about your problems. That forces you to keep your head held high and move on. A world that is fragile and beautiful. Maybe it can sound cold to some of you, but let me make it clear that I believe in love, I just get so wrapped up in it sometimes that I need to put it into proportion. It's something you have to do a lot when you're Jens Lekman. The title of this song "The End of the World Is Bigger Than Love" was written to me in an e-mail from my friend Maggie Macdonald. The song is based on the sentiment of these words and I owe her a lot of gratitude for letting me use them and for her support during this time in my life.
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July 7th , 2010
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I got the opportunity to remix my favourite song from Au Revoir Simone's beautiful album Still Night, Still Light. While listening to the song I realised how nice it'd be to transform their straight 4/4 time synthpop into a whirlwind waltz or maybe a barcarole if you will. It took a long time to chop up all the syllables and the tiny tiny samples, but I think the result got the song into a whole swirling new direction. While making the remix, my mind started working in 3/4 and 6/8 time. I started looking around for tracks in that time signature to make a mix, I wasn't intending to but I couldn't help it. It was all a big swirl. After a while I heard it everywhere. In soul ballads, in polyrhythmical african pop, in old movies. In the ocean waves tumbling in against the shore, in the beat of a lovers heart. One two three, one two three... Au Revoir Simone - Shadows (Jens Lekman's remix) /// Barbara Mason - Oh How It Hurts /// Thomas Mapfumo - Madiro /// the Morning Benders - Excuses /// dialogue from Gregory's Girl (1981) /// Chad & Jeremy - Everyone's Gone To The Moon /// music and dialogue from Day Of The Locust (1975) /// Eggstone - Birds In Cages /// Pete Drake - Forever /// Armando Mantovani - Around the World /// dialogue from Puberty Blues (1981) /// Jane Morgan & the Troubadours - Fascination /// Armando Trovajoli - L'Amore Dice Ciao /// Sharon O'Neill - Puberty Blues /// Like A Sleepy Blue Ocean |
July 2nd , 2010
I just occurred to me that over the years I've replied to over 25.000 emails from you people. Twenty five thousand. I hope that doesn't make anyone feel insignificant. I treasure every one of those conversations, they are the one thing that gets me through the day. We need a topic of the month though. The topic for the month of July will be "Quitting". Whatever connotations that word has to you. Love, |
June 23rd , 2010
Photo by Tammy Karlsson
June 21st , 2010
Street The Beat !
"Street The Beat was a group of very talented latino ex-gang members from the South Bronx. The group consisted of the Melendez brothers: Benjy, Robert and Victor on his "custom" drum kit, the original group also featured Manny Cortez. Cousin David Silver joined the group when Manny left for Wisconsin. The group's original purpose was to prove that you can leave the gangs and drugs behind and do something positive with your life. Here they are on "Hispanic Horizons" in 1983 with original member Manny Cortez doing an original song. Unfortunately Victor passed away about 10 years ago. but brothers Robert and Benjy are still out their doing their thing with the Ghetto Brothers" |
June 19th, 2010
Sorry for the lack of writing here lately, but you should know by now that I come and go. It's healthy. I think sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the wanting to write big truths. Then you realise the only way to write big truths is to avoid the big truths. As I'm writing this I'm at the Helsinki airport, just about to fly into Gothenburg where I'll be spending the northern summer. Just in time for the continued inbreeding of our symbolic ruling class. I discuss this with an older finnish man, dressed in business, sitting across the table at the airport café. He thinks the king has a nice smile and I agree. We talk about the importance of it, that your beauty often relies on your mouth and the facial muscles that make up your smile. We look at a photo of the royal couple in the paper and come to the conclusion that the bridegroom needs to relax those muscles more. It would do him good. I tell him that as the simple peasant I am, I have no objections to the idea of a monarchy. Just as long as I don't have to pay for these bozos with their dark family history and sometimes frightening opinions to travel the world and represent me on official missions and ribbon cutting ceremonies in the world. It's hard for me to see the monarchy as a harmless institution since everytime they open their mouths they manage to sell a couple of fighter jets. That's what I tell him. Anti-royalism might be politically correct, so are a lot of other things I feel strongly about in my native homeland. But the way things are in Sweden right now, politically correct really seems like something to strive for. If politically incorrect by now simply means hating foreigners, then yes. I tell the finnish man I'm excited about this northern summer because I've spent three years away and while I don't miss my former home, I find it exotic now. The jacket I've brought along to make it through the cold nights does not weigh heavy on my shoulders like it used to. I intend to walk over daggstänkta berg and fill those pockets with styvmorsviol. The finnish man doesn't know styvmorsviol. I web translate it for him: keto-orvokki. The finnish man gets up and leaves for the taxfree shop and I realise it's time to head to the gate. An old lingering cleptomania makes me pick up the salt shaker from the table and put it in my bag. But a righteousness deep within protests, I let them fight it out and eventually put the salt shaker back on the table.
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May 4th, 2010
Europe Aug 1 - Dublin, Ireland - Whelans |
March 4th , 2010
That's me in front of the Story Bridge in Brisbane, where I'm doing two backyard shows this month ! Well not on the actual bridge, but in Brisbane. 1. Friday March 19th 2. Saturday March 20th For those of you new to the backyard shows, here's a little background: Because of my current visa situation I can't do shows in real venues with real tickets. So to stay out of trouble I am doing these shows in peoples backyards instead. They're fun, intimate, much more enjoyable than normal shows. The way it works is that I send out a newsletter (this one will go out monday the 15th at 3pm) and the first to RSVP get theirs and a friends name on the list, plus the address and full instructions. Thanks to Nikolaus for setting these shows up and having patience with me ! |
February 21st , 2010
Have you heard Tracey Thorn's new song "Oh, The Divorces"? There's a verse in there where she sings: "Oh Jens, oh Jens |
January 5th , 2010
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