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Short on sunshine
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by ERIK LEIJON “I’ve always had an old man’s soul,” says diminutive Swedish songstress Lykke Li, “but then I got the looks of a 17-year-old and the voice of a 12-year-old.” Therein lies the rub for the 22-year-old singer-songwriter, whose debut album, Youth Novels, is a unique and mature minimalist electropop soundtrack to the achingly personal diaries of a young woman recalling her teenage years. “I think it’s hard for women to get taken seriously for their lyrics,” she adds. “It’s easier for a man because men will always pay attention to my girly voice.” After having toured the globe for a year with hardly a respite, Li’s admittedly youthful exterior and soft, cooing voice have been getting a healthy dose of the rigours of the transient musician lifestyle. “Touring is especially hard on the body. It’s amazing, but I need a break to actually live my life so I can write again,” she says. It was writing what would eventually become Youth Novels that in a sense capped off her teenage years. Although the subject matter pertains to her youth, she still relates to her younger self, as far as contradicting her old-soul theory by saying, “I’m the same person as I was when I wrote those songs, it’s like I’m 17 every day of my life.” The tone throughout the album is rather dour, other than her vulnerable, gentle (dare we say cute?) singing, and the relationship-heavy lyrics remain slightly cryptic despite the personal significance. “Music has really helped me through the very hard times in my life. I especially related to the way someone like Nina Simone sang. I know she didn’t write most of her own songs but she sang them as she lived them. I don’t want to be like [starts singing Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl”] without having actually done it. But if I did it, I would sing it.” If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to live as a broken-hearted teenage girl, perhaps this is a place to start. As an inexperienced songwriter at the time, it was more an issue of transmitting any prevailing malaise from pen to paper and then developing those scattered thoughts into adequate songs, which were mostly done with acoustic guitar and piano. It was with producer Bjorn Yttling, of Peter Bjorn & John fame, that her goal for a very sparse, un-pop album was completed. “I must say I’m not a super happy person. I won’t be singing about sunshine, or blame it on the moonlight, or blame it on the good times [at this point, partially singing the Jackson 5’s ‘Blame It On the Boogie’]. I would never write that kind of song.” If Lykke Li’s old soul contradicts her physical appearance, her nationality also leads to some internal confusion. Just placing the words “pop” and “Sweden” in the same sentence has led to endless ABBA comparisons in her estimation, but Li actually spent most of her childhood outside of her native country, and despite living in Stockholm today, she isn’t the most fervent of flagbearers. “It’s always been a kind of place where I passed through. It’s where I have the most genuine friends so that’s why I come back. The city itself, it doesn’t really mean anything, I could live without it.” WITH WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS AT |
