I start writing songs first as an entertainer, and I like funny stories that wrap up with dignity.
— Jens Lekman
I don't want music to be a museum.
I think it's healthy that people that work in a creative field look for inspiration in a different creative field.
I think it's because Toronto is the Gothenburg of Canada, with the trends and the music and everything. I feel very at home when I'm there. Everyone has always been so kind to me.
I feel like it's my responsibility not to leave the listener in a pool of dread.
I realized that even though I had this urge, this longing, to write about other people, in order for it to be emotionally gripping, I needed to be in there somehow.
A lot of people would write to me long stories from their lives, and I felt they were thinking of me as some sort of treasure chest to keep their secrets. I felt like sometimes they would tell me stories they wouldn't tell anybody else in the whole world. And I loved these stories.
If there's two things I will never do, it would be grow a beard and pick up the uke again.
The way to write really good songs is to write about the things that happen in your life and where you are in the moment, and writing about stuff that happens in your 30s is not the sexiest song subject.
Any band that doesn't have a sense of humor has a little bit of a problem.
A lot of my songs are written prophetically: I write something, and then I make it happen.
You carry all these hurts and breakups with you forever. But there is this sort of joyful realization that the things that caused you pain were real. There is something beautiful and invigorating in holding onto that.
I was in my early 30s, and I longed for real friendships and real relationships, and I started asking myself why I didn't have that. I had a couple of male friends, but every time I would hang out with them, it felt like there was something keeping us apart.
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.
I struggled with a lot of doubts around my songwriting and around what I was and what my purpose and mission were.
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.
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.
Summer is always best through a window.
There's so much nostalgia for music from the past.
Contemporary Swedish artists that chose Swedish as their language tended to sing about certain topics and use words I wanted to avoid.
I wouldn't write about something that I haven't experienced myself.
It always feel like people are doing more grown-up things than you are.
I think when you get into your 30s, you start to realize all of the patterns you have in your life and all of the stuff that you're avoiding. It's a terribly unsung period in people's lives. I can't think about many artists who have sung about it, because it's so not sexy.
I think sometimes when I sit down to write a song, it doesn't come out naturally, but when you are writing an email to someone, especially if you are writing to a stranger, you write much more spontaneously, and it's freer.
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.
I have this part in myself that sometimes gets me into situations that can never end well, just because I want to prove to myself that I'm no good.
I like telling stories with a sense of humor. But humor can also distance you from the subject you're writing about. I'm interested in using humor as a portal to something a bit more serious.
I became paranoid for a long time: I thought that people were out to harm me.
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.
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.
I would love to hear Marilyn Manson's fans or something, what their stories would be like.
You always try different versions of yourself through songwriting. It can get a bit annoying to see them walk around and do their thing when you feel like, 'I'm not that person any more.'
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.
I grew up in the '90s and remember the lyrics back then were so abstract and open to interpretation. That always drove me crazy.
One of the nice things about songwriting is you can be inspired by absolutely anything.
Really, to me, a really good evening would be a comedian, followed by a band, followed by a really good DJ.
I had a drummer in my band who started teaching me tricks to come up with interesting rhythms. Because I don't come from a musical background, I've never studied music, and I don't know music theory at all, so a lot of stuff I discover on my own are things students would learn in the first grade of music.
I think all the best songs do that: they offer some sort of hope and light in the darkness.
I've always been interested in listening to people's stories.
Nirvana was a band that led you somewhere, as opposed to all the grunge bands that began and ended with themselves.
What I can't fit into my suitcase is probably something I don't need.
When you're writing about difficult things and darker issues, it's nice to offer some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Some sense of hope. Sometimes, the best way to do that is by offering it in the music, so that you can dance your way out of the darkness.
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.
I have mood swings, but I'm sure people in England have that, too. Me and my friends, we're just a bunch of happy idiots.
My first single was based around the mishearing of the words 'make believe' - 'I thought she said maple leaves.' That kind of stuff is very central to my music and my life.
Even if I wrote a song about math or animals or whatever, there would still be the question, 'Why did you write about that? And what does it say about you?'
Goteborg used to be a not very cool place to live. The culture centered around shrimp and bingo. Bands played Copenhagen and Stockholm and skipped Goteborg.
For me, it's sort of like a cultural democracy or musical socialism to take a stand and get out of the major cities if you can.
I find it quite hard to connect with the songs where I portray myself as this clumsy, adorable, love-struck man-child.
If you come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion, well, that's a conclusion, too.
