Jens Lekman – When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog
Label: Secretly Canadian
Style: Swedish Pop, Chamber Pop, Indie
Released: 2004
My Grade: 4 stars
AMG: 4.5
Sounds like: The Magnetic Fields, Calvin Johnson, Jonathan Richman


There is no one quite like Jens Lekman, and I don’t think anyone really wants to be like him; not to say he is a freak because he is much more like a lovelorn Swedish kid who grew up listening to the oddest assortment of Chamber Pop and never really got in to anything else. The music is his love song.

With lyrics like “ Did you take Tram #7 to heaven/Did you eat your banana from 7-11” it will have most people scratching their heads in confusing while indie scenesters smile knowingly. Not to box Jens into a strictly ‘scene’ popularity, because he is so much more then that, but at the same time he is an acquired taste for all involved.

The standout track, bar none, would be the classic “You Are The Light” blurring baroque style 60s pop with modern lyrics and clever musical changes, it bursts through the album and has you taping your toe before you ever know what hits you. The extremely personal lyrics on the song are haunting – he is claiming a girl to be ‘the light by which I travels to this and that’? How scary, I am sure that girl would probably slap a restraining order against him before you could say ‘obsessive’; at the same time that is part of the charm, and each song is sung with such a sincerity it is like a wide-eyed child seeing the world for the very first time through a dying man’s eyes.

The album closes with the moving “A Higher Power” a sick yet clever look into the world of Jens, where he talks about suffocation, Nietzsche in church, vomit during Christmas parties, and of course ‘a higher power’. Goodnight people, this is the charming genius of Jens Lekman.

Reviewed by: Samuel Aaron

Official Website: jenslekman.tk