Borne from a 2020 novel-with-music side project idea with writer David Levithan, the Swedish singer-songwriter charts his 20 years’ experience of being an occasional and accidental wedding musician in this witty, profound double LP that among other issues and emotions, examines the role of love songs in our lives. Euphoria, doubt, dislocation, tenderness, conflict, playfulness, gratitude, ingratitude, longing, belonging, questioning and answering all come into play as Lekman captures what it’s like fielding song requests from strangers. When the novel, with the same title came together, Lekman began to imagine what happened between the book’s chapters. Some songs therefore capture the difficulties of a relationship outside these settings, which are always set in relief in the wedding setting The book and the album eventually became intertwined, the former remained the structure of the story, but the album sometimes slips behind the scenes. Stories from the songs made their way into the book and vice versa. Written a bit like a musical, the heart and highlight of the album is Wedding In Leipzig, a 10-minute tale of moving reflections and observations, in which for example the priest beforehand “asks why I sing at weddings and I say it makes me feel like a midwife / Like I deliver these people into the next phase of their lives …” but then remarks with a putdown “‘You observe and study but you don't really participate in life’ / I pretend I don't hear him as I cut an apple into slices / At a wedding in Leipzig, wedding in Leipzig.” This is one of several rather lovely, crisp half rhymes in the refrain. At the wedding feast tables he is placed with all the oddballs, two of whom look like Patti and Selma from The Simpsons, ask him if he has a girlfriend, but also tell their own rather beautiful, melancholy song about lost love. The album also makes musical jokes, mimicking some of the cheesy music at wedding discos, and feels like a musical book that could also have been penned by Tim Minchin or Father John Misty. Other highlights include the opener The First Lovesong, which sets up the wedding singer’s role; A Tuxedo Sewn For Two, describing a comically awkward encounter in the toilet with a gay couple getting married on big outfit'; Candy From A Stranger, a love song about being with his girlfriend at a wedding in which people dress up as love songs themselves, such as Crazy in Love or Raspberry Beret.
Then there’s Speak To Me In Music, a gently sensitive number which he describes trying to write a bespoke song - “Over a coffee, I ask the lovers / Where they went wrong / Why are you doing this to yourselves?/ Blink twice if you need help / And they laugh / And then the nervousness is gone / I say, "Close your eyes and focus / Think of the first thing that you noticed / The first thing that drew you to the other" / And the cliches start pouring in/ I chew on the pencil 'till I get lead poisoning/ But like a journalist I wait until they start talking / 'Cause in there, the answer lingers / She says they're just like two country singers / When she takes the lead / He joins in on the harmony / He says she gives his notes space to breathe”. But as he writes it, he starts to think about his own relationship - moments on the subway and more, and then “I give the couple a hug / And tell them, "See you Saturday" / The song is finished, but it's not for them anymore.” Just For One Moment, in which he meets a friend in a bar and hears one of his own songs played on the stereo; and finally The Last Lovesong, which captures in a spread of feelings, all the difficulties of and transience of the genre: “At first, so sweet at its arrival/ But when I've written down its words / It stares back at me like a stuffed animal.” An album rich in emotions, humour, detail, subtlety, wit and stories and a profound look at the art and purpose of songwriting itself. Out on Secretly Canadian.
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