Songs for Other People’s Weddings

Description

Jens Lekman is an accidental wedding singer. But he’s also a wedding singer for a reason. Ever since his 2004 song ‘If You Ever Need a Stranger (To Sing at Your Wedding)’ he has had a side gig fielding requests from strangers to sing at their weddings. For over twenty years, he’s had a particular vantage point from which to see the role love songs can play in our lives. In 2020, he and novelist David Levithan co-conceived a novel-with-music, ‘Songs from Other People’s Weddings’. Originally this album was meant to contain the songs from the weddings in the book, but as the novel came together, Lekman began to imagine what happened between the book’s chapters. The book and the album eventually became intertwined but also found their own paths. The book remained the structure of the story, but the album sometimes snuck behind the scenes. Stories from the songs made their way into the book and vice versa. The result is an exploration of what we sing about when we sing about love — euphoria, doubt, dislocation, tenderness, conflict, playfulness, gratitude, ingratitude, longing, belonging, questioning, answering. It’s very much about a relationship and how it’s reflected through the relationships and weddings of others, but most of all it’s a lovesong to lovesongs.

Tracklisting

Disc 1
1. The First Lovesong – Jens Lekman
2. A Tuxedo Sewn for Two – Jens Lekman
3. Candy from a Stranger – Jens Lekman
4. Two Little Pigs – Jens Lekman
5. Speak to Me in Music – Jens Lekman
6. With You I Can Hear My Own Voice – Jens Lekman
7. I Want to Want You Again – Jens Lekman
8. GOT-JFK – Jens Lekman
9. Wedding in Brooklyn – Jens Lekman
10. For Skye – Jens Lekman
Disc 2
1. Increasingly Obsolete – Jens Lekman
2. On a Pier, On the Hudson – Jens Lekman
3. Wedding in Leipzig – Jens Lekman
4. LEJ-GOT – Jens Lekman
5. You Have One New Message – Jens Lekman
6. Just for One Moment – Jens Lekman
7. The Last Lovesong – Jens Lekman