I had that dream again. Jens Lekman—the dry-witted
Swedish singing sensation, the most relevant of modern-day pop
musicians—live in Vegas, recklessly swinging his hips and his
mic, blinding the audience with a sequined jacket that would make
Liberace blush, and all of this on a stage with a floor-to-ceiling
J-E-N-S neon backdrop. I assume this was a dream because in the past
few years Lekman has created some of the most wildly vivid and creative
pop songs set to music, a large portion of which contain
samples—some cleared, some not—ranging from funk horn
blasts to frantic timpani rolls and thumping dance beats. Or maybe the
dream made its appearance because I fell asleep with his latest
full-length, Night Falls over Kortedala, whispering to me from a
speaker mere inches from where I laid my head.
Yet for Lekman to be in Vegas—if only in my dreams—there
would be an assumption that his music is safe gimmickry, showmanship
over craftsmanship, or at the very least, a musical sleight-of-hand
trick. But Jens Lekman is not the Swedish Tom Jones, or worse, a Nordic
Robert Goulet. He is only worthy of Vegas in that his persona is so
huge, and so baffling, that it belongs not in the humble rock clubs,
but someplace larger. Perhaps someplace with a strip to cruise, a sea
of flashing lights, and possibly a low-priced king crab leg buffet and
$3 steaks.
Reason being is that Lekman’s vintage pop music is so uncontainably
gigantic, and his orchestration rivals even the grandest of Phil
Spector’s romanticized “Little Symphonies for the Kids.” His deadpan
voice effortlessly keeps pace with the frantic instrumentation and, at
times, he sounds like a flawless mix between the old front and the new
guard, like Burt Bacharach fronting Australian DJ collective the
Avalanches. Lekman even spices up his live shows with a cover of Paul
Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” that is so stark, and so pure, that it
will cleanse your mind of those haunting images of a goofy,
lip-synching Chevy Chase.
“I’ve always hated that video, but Graceland is one of my
favorite records,” says Lekman. “What I have been doing when I cover
the song is to cut out the chorus and just sing the verses.”
While his personality and songs are so massive, Lekman’s lyrics fall
on the other end of the spectrum. His words are the painfully earnest
tales of a humble-voiced Swede who travels the globe playing music, yet
returns to his simple Kortedala neighborhood (in Gothenburg, the
country’s second largest city), which acts as both his home and the
backdrop for the lion’s share of his songs.
“For this record I wanted to write about the world, my experiences
and my inspirations,” says Lekman. “I wanted the whole world to be a
part of my music, but it’s the whole taboo about songwriters writing
about things that happen to them on the road. Writing about touring is
next to writing songs about songwriting.”
So instead of his globetrotting adventures on, and off, stage,
Lekman sings about his lonesome late-night walks in the suburbs, his
close friends, and of course, the rural drive-in bingo—where
patrons play bingo while sitting alone in their cars, honking the horn
when they win. Says Lekman, “It’s not a very social game. You sit in
your car and you play. Usually you win a pig with a little ribbon
around its neck.”
I couldn’t even dream something that weird.