Jens Lekman and the Curious Case of the Amateur Cartographer
Sep 05, 2012 Jens Lekman
A funny thing happened to me somewhere in my mid-twenties: I started lying about my age. I’m sure it was bound to happen. Like all women, I dread that moment when my odometer will turn over, taking what’s left of my beauty, grace, and—mostly likely—brains with it.1 While I’m certainly not excused from the oft-shameful quest for eternal youth (as experienced by the poor clerk who failed to card me while buying a bottle of wine), as of late, my lying has taken on an all-together rarer and weirder form: I’ve been adding—rather than subtracting—years.
In person, I’m unlikely to get away with this trick. (Despite having recently been invited to a double-digit high school reunion, my charm is still best described as “girlish.”) But in all other forms of communication, be it analogue or digital, I often find myself stretching my cultural reference points until they’re more suited to someone in their mid-40s rather than someone who just left her 20s.
The fact that I’m in possession of enough useless knowledge to pull off this low-level deception probably marks me as the kind of bore that you wouldn’t want to sit with at a dinner party. But why I would want to is a bit more oblique. I suspect it has something to do with Jens Lekman.
Or, at least, that’s where it started.
Recently I visited Stockholm, a fantastic place I make a point to return to every few years. While I’m in love enough with the locale that I would jump for the chance to write any matter of tourism propaganda (seriously, really email me), the setting is significant to our story only because it marks the location of the last time I believed I knew the exact path that my life would take.
The time was six years ago, at the end of my first trip to city. A series of rose-colored memories accumulated with a two-day music festival. There, during Jens Lekman’s set, an unnamed, guy strolled up, handed me a beer, and begun translating the all-Swedish stage banter.
This moment became endemic of what I believed my future would be. While I didn’t hold any illusions of partying for a living (the fact I’m now often paid to go to concerts is a very weird twist of fate), this was how life was supposed to feel. Easy. I would go back to the states, get a job, and the elements of adulthood would simply fall into place, like so many attractive Swedish guys unexpectedly quenching my thirst with unasked-for beers.
Of course, if I had been able to look back at the moment with any sort of clarity, the analogy would have instantly fallen apart. The mystery man’s translations devolved into banal observations (“He’s making a joke”) and I’m more a fan of fermented grapes than hops. Still it was a moment of near-perfection I carried with me—up until the time I discovered that temps are not often lauded for their cleverness, and no one enjoys a turn of phrase from a set PA at four in the morning.
During that time of transition, Lekman’s album Night Falls Over Kortadela was my reminder that there was life on the other side of the looking glass. It was an idealized soundtrack to a season of brutal reality checks. My armor? Penultimate track, “Kanske Är Jag Kär I Dig,” and its battle cry of “The best way to touch your heart is to make an ass of myself.” Dreamer: meet personal manifesto.2 Great—now get to industry cocktail party and act a fool.
I admit this isn’t original ploy. It’s culturally accepted to make yourself the butt of the joke. (Just ask any hot girl who has ever claimed that she was “like, such a geek” in high school.) And while I don’t believe that Jens Lekman is the romantic incompetent that he often makes himself out to be any more than I believe Woody Allen is Alvy Singer, there’s something to be said for owning your shortcomings. Control the laughter, and you control the mockery. Power to the persona…or something like that.
Of course, there comes a time when you realize you have nothing to gain from refusing to own your strengths—and that all the Andy Griffin “Aw-shuckary” is interfering with your more pressing personal affirmations.3
Maybe that’s why on first listen to Lekman’s new album I Know What Love Isn’t, I immediately gleaned from the seemingly throwaway line “Sinatra had this shit figured out, I presume.” Five years on, and we’re all trying to figure out what road to take. The kings of awkward are still looking to the icons of cool. I seemingly failed at getting the “Ol’ Blue Eyes = awesome” memo and have settled on emulating anyone with an active 401K.
I guess we’re all still drawing our own maps.
Don’t ask me for directions. I’m carrying on—the oldest, youngest, goofiest 30-year-old in the world. But I’d like to think that in my spare time—somewhere between following through with my promises to embroider Jens Lekman quotes on throw pillows, and arguing about Morrissey’s discography as though I was actually around the first time to have an opinion on it—I’ll find time to campaign that amateur cartography be taught in schools.
Wish me luck.
1. My apologies to Ms. Steinem for the vaguely inappropriate humor.
2. An MO that predated Tina Fey by several years.
3. You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggoneit. people like you!
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September 5th 2012
6:03pm
hey, I really enjoyed this article, it’s dope!!!
October 15th 2012
3:41pm
In the case of men, often when they start to get older they start looking at teenage girls thinking they could get their youth back that way. But women around thirty are actually much more interesting because they are complete human beings while most under 25 are a bit “raw”
April 24th 2017
1:00am
Thank you!Good article.I like very much!
July 5th 2017
8:42am
It’s the Swedish singer musician’s third collection, and continues on coordinating his uncanny skill with a good pop song to his literate, infinitely quotable lyrics.