Quotes from Jens Lekman

When it comes to heartbreaks and disappointments, I often have to be more or less done with them to be able to write about them. Then you might ask why I would write about them at all, but I think I owe it to the Jens of the past.

I became paranoid for a long time: I thought that people were out to harm me.

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.

I try and take it for what it is, and I'm very at peace with the fact that when I'm done with the songs, they don't belong to me anymore. They belong to the listeners.

I like short beards. Not a big fan of the bigger beards.

What I can't fit into my suitcase is probably something I don't need.

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.

If there's two things I will never do, it would be grow a beard and pick up the uke again.

I need to write a sitcom, but something with warmth, not one where the dad comes home and he's treated like an idiot.

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.

Family and friends always need to be bigger than your music career, and in that sense, your music will be bigger because you respect your family and your friends more.

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.

Any band that doesn't have a sense of humor has a little bit of a problem.

If you come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion, well, that's a conclusion, too.

It's not difficult getting into the charts in Sweden. It's a very different musical climate, and in a very good way, I think, because artists like Jose Gonzalez or The Knife can actually get on the charts.

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.

I still love touring rock clubs around the world, and that's something that's really a part of me. I love making albums, and I'm a wedding singer on the side; that's my parallel career. So I love all those aspects of making music.

I feel like it's my responsibility not to leave the listener in a pool of dread.

I find it quite hard to connect with the songs where I portray myself as this clumsy, adorable, love-struck man-child.

'Postcards' was just a way of slapping myself in the face and saying, 'You can do anything! Just go for it!'

Of the times that I've been able to overcome a fear, it's been by making it something that I can understand, that I can hold on to - just something that's more tangible.

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 think all the best songs do that: they offer some sort of hope and light in the darkness.

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.