Jens Lekman Quotes
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I became paranoid for a long time: I thought that people were out to harm me.
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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.
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There's so much nostalgia for music from the past.
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I need to write a sitcom, but something with warmth, not one where the dad comes home and he's treated like an idiot.
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I don't want music to be a museum.
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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.
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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.
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I wouldn't write about something that I haven't experienced myself.
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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.
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I struggled with a lot of doubts around my songwriting and around what I was and what my purpose and mission were.
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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.
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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.
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The whole thing with playing on a stage with mics and all that has always been kind of uncomfortable to me.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I feel like it's my responsibility not to leave the listener in a pool of dread.
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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?'
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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.
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Nirvana was a band that led you somewhere, as opposed to all the grunge bands that began and ended with themselves.
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I really do believe in clearing samples, and I believe that people should be compensated for them, but the laws are just so stupid.
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'Postcards' was just a way of slapping myself in the face and saying, 'You can do anything! Just go for it!'