A small cover of a song of conviction from one of my brother's bands, an exercise in tonal economy and, since it's me, overworked – but friendly – simplicity. As usual, there are no real instruments, only MIDI. It somehow makes the feeling tighter.

Exterminated

This is another example of music that is unmistakably silly, but that still retains some small trace of sensibility. This particular item is of course based on "Lollipops and Roses" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. This kind of music – competently composed and arranged, but sort of not aging well and ultimately coming across as comically inane – still hid amongst our parents forgotten records when I was young. If anyone ever loved songs like this, it was in a time gone by. Nowadays it could as well be the musical equivalent of a postcard from a holiday nobody remembers.

Lollipop Roses

A cover of a Leonard Cohen song as if Joey Ramone would have done it. Or not, I don't know how music works. This was the first in a long time where I played an actual guitar, which felt way better than I anticipated. I think the harmonies on the chorus belongs to the best things I have ever done.

Chelsea Ramone

This is just silly. But it was fun and went fast. 

I was trying to figure out why GarageBand’s Symphony Orchestra strings had stopped making sounds, and I couldn’t solve it, so I tried the “Smart Strings” instead and they sound, well, technically they do sound. Dammit. 

Anyway, the real joke here is that this is about as long as spring is around here.

Follow-up: and then later I remade the track, mangling it with AudioThing Wires because everything corrodes and dissolves, but remains.

Spring comes

I knew early on that at some point I would have to try to do a cover of this song. So I did. It turned into pretty good results, I might say.

Hold On

This is a cover of Trio Lligo's "Vid sidan av vägen" from years ago. I always thought that song captured something important about the life of the young mind. Something that made you thoughtful but not sad. Early on, there is already a part of you that is old. Because you are a link in a long chain.

Side of the road

This is an example of how you don’t make songs, you capture them. I couldn’t say how the idea came up, or where those chords came from, but there is something there. In the second half I fooled around with the guitar pickup’s ability to take in other sounds, in this case recordings of street sweepers and folk singing played loud off of my phone. The title is completely incidental, it’s not a car song. Maybe a “sundown in a car” song. I should change the title. No, it’s fine. We don't have to make sense.

Solenoid Sunset

I have no idea why this became college rock. Or whatever genre this is. There is something about the song that I just cannot get over. It took some practice to sing in 165 bpm. And I decided to use all the silly sampled guitars of older GarageBand. It was so fun. This is not a hit, as it is in Blue’s original, because I don’t make hits – but it is very much like a hit.

Violet

Two versions of the same song, the first written on the spot and the second as a sort of self-cover.

Shift (1989)

Over sixteen minutes of improvised noodling? You betcha. I was at home, years ago, and a mild thunderstorm inspired me to explore what kind of landscape a cheap guitar and an overpowered delay module could paint together.

Stratocumulus

This is just a start, I will turn into something long-winded and ponderous in due time. But I am having lots of fun.

Windy McWindface

Broken Day

A song like this was needed today, so I made a – hmm – sort of a cover of Wilhelm Peterson-Berger's op. 16/2, which I am almost certain is named "Summer song." Goddamn fucking September.

WPB16-2

I just figured I wanted to keep this old power ballad somewhere. I still like it.

River

Many people recognize this song, but few know where it comes from or who wrote it. With the season changing, I felt the need to turn it into something loud and fast. At the heart of this song is preserved a tender mercy that I need to remember.

Boeve's Hymn

This one is from years ago. I started out just stacking metal riffs, a bit like how D Lee Jackson composed "Grabbag" – or even, just gathering ideas of what metal might sound like. Then it just kept going into weird territory, as my tunes often do. As usual, there are no real instruments here. The end result is fun, but should not be used for any kind of regular metal social activities.

Izanami-no-Mikoto

A woman needs a man  
Like a snake needs a mongoose  
A woman needs a man  
Like a thumb needs screws  

What does a woman need?  
What does a woman need?  
Whatever does a woman need?  
She needs wool.  

Woman needs a man  
Like a rose garden needs hail  
Woman needs a man  
Like a burger needs a fingernail  

What does a woman need?  
What does a woman need?  
Whatever does a woman need?  
She needs wool.  

(I guess it’s okay if he can vacuum.)

Wool

The idea of a Secret Helper is a ghost that still haunts us. We long for somebody capable and fearless to defend us against the cruelty of the world – maybe even to come with us when we are looking for revenge. It is ever the dream.

In 1990, Swedish duo Dive (Krister Linder and Erik Holmberg) released this song, and it has become one of those long-lived tunes you just cannot name, yet neither forget. At some point I decided to rescue the song from the confines of the original's Eighties sound, and used all kinds of improvised setups in the process. This recording prominently features the microphone of an old rotary dial telephone, both on the second guitar and on the backing vocals (combined with a dime store "voice changer" contraption) and a fairly plasticky, but reliable Casio keyboard. All recorded on a Fostex FD-8, and it still amazes me how easy it was to get good sounds out of that thing, compared to all our present day plugins.

Out there, in the cold dark depths, he waits for us.

Captain Nemo

I have no idea why I wanted to do a cover of this song. Nobody knows it, and the Western motif doesn't really mean much to me. But I always thought it was such a happy song, telling me it's going to be okay, even growing up and learning to prepare for trouble.

Big J. C.

The soundtrack to Henry Fool is, as with most of everything Hal Hartley has done, so damn good. However, when I bought the album I found that my favorite track (the end credits) was some low resolution mono version. Not wise enough not to meddle with things I shouldn't, I created this cover version in GarageBand. Because I am a fool, too.

Run Henry

You shouldn't do a cover song unless you think you can best the original, and I really can't drum for shit. But then again, compared to Jaki Liebezeit, almost nobody can. I was alone at the rehearsal place and a bit drunk, so I went ahead and used Olof's drum kit and Ken's bass guitar and played along with myself. I wrote new, equally weird lyrics since Damo Suzuki made a point of singing unintelligibly. I still think the pauses turned out pretty cool.

Tango Whiskyman

For some reason I had to make a cover of Björn J:son Lindh's "Brusa högre lilla å" (roughly: "murmur louder, little stream") and fill it with all kinds of funniness. The things you do to endure winter.

Brusa Högre

It happens every once in a while that I get possessed by a song. Not only does it get stuck in my head, but somehow it becomes The Only Song for a couple of weeks. Or longer. And sometimes the only way I can free myself from it, is to make a cover version of it. The latest one is this Springsteen title, which I for some reason found comfort in during this long strange indoors summer. Among other things, I liked how the lyrics start out with the Giants Stadium itself telling the story ("I was raised out of steel…"), and how it then changes into a story of something much more intangible. 

So naturally, I went my usual weird way and only used midi synth sounds (well okay: there's drums and a bass guitar in there too). I spent a long time trying to get the Radio Ga Ga arpeggio right. And then I mixed it again and again until it seemed to be balanced. Then mastering, which went on even longer, because apparently I cannot trust my ears anymore. And that's all I did outside of my day job this summer. Hard times come. Hard times go. Just to come again.

Wrecking Ball

I always thought that Anna Ternheim's "A French Love" stood out from the rest of her repertoire. I mean, it's clearly a rock song, and the others are not. So, as I am wont to do, I tried to create a typical Nineties alt-rock costume for it. As soon as I began fooling around, weird decisions were made and somehow the first verse was equipped with a sort of horror hip hop texture. Oh, don't worry, the rock thing arrives eventually. All in good messy fun.

Frenchlove

I make weird, wonky covers of songs I find intriguing. With a few exceptions, everything is midi and composed in GarageBand, so nothing is real, authentic or solemnly serious. Except for sometimes. Can music be silly and sincere at the same time? Decidedly so.

Ludwig Franzen

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