Last Saturday, I posted Jarvis Cocker's Must I Evolve?, a new song which attempts to recapitulate the chain of evolution from the Big Bang until a very specific present moment.
Sweden's Jens Lekman did the same thing back in 2017 with his song How We Met, The Long Version.
Two completely different songs by two very different artists. Who's song was better?
Jens Lekman, the Swedish genius of pop, has a new record coming out, or maybe it's out already, IDK, but here's a first cut, which, as far as I can tell, is not about Donald Trump getting golden showers in Moscow hotel rooms, but what's almost as good as this song are his notes on the album, in which he states, among a great many other things,
"I love growing old with my listeners because hopefully that means I can be your parallell twin that you can check in with to catch a glimpse of yourself and the path you've taken. I'm 35 now. I don't want to be any other age really. Or maybe sometimes I do. Sometimes I wish I was older, sometimes I wish I was through with this transitional phase. Being in your thirties is like your teenage years, but without all the cool role models. When you were a teenager you had the Ramones. When you're in your thirties you have the characters from Seinfeld. But anyway, as I said, I'm 35 now. So I should be writing about that."
Oh, look. Gothenberg, Sweden's Taken By Trees, fronted by the incomparable Victoria Bergsman,. performed a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR, playing I Want You (not the Beatles' song) and Only You.
Gentle, laid back and almost hypnagogic, their set opening for Jens Lekman (who also did a Tiny Desk concert) was one of the highlights of Rocktober 2012.
