youth novels

[20] Lykke Li, ‘Get Some’

Lykke Li

TESTING, testing, one, two, one, two – in the place to be. Here’s the first of the last words on the year, starting in November because there are 20 working days until Christmas. We worked it out.

The entire internet was Lykke-ablaze a few weeks ago when this one surfaced. Which is odd, because I don’t remember everyone going doolally over Youth Novels in 2008 – or perhaps Junior, her mum and I were all so doolally about it ourselves that we inhabited our own remote doolally island far from the doolalliness of the hoi polloi. Whatever the case, everyone loves Lykke now and well they might: ‘Get Some’ hits all the right buttons; you know, the ones marked “voodoo”, “tribal”, “freak-blues” and “really rather rude”.

Junior’s too busy doing some sort of shimmy to pay attention to Lykke Li’s frank suggestions for her partner. A relief, because I don’t really want to explain all that. I’d have to look it up, for a start.

[13] Lykke Li, ‘I’m Good, I’m Gone’

Lykke Li

Junior was poorly this morning, so her mother kept this one back ‘til later. I had no worries about it being a smash with her, though, because we’ve been wallowing in the peculiar cooing sound of Lykke Li all year long. She already had a foot in the door of our house before I’d heard a note – what with my compulsive love of Scandinavian pop – but when she turned out to be a Swedish Björk with enough glorious tunes to fill an ABBA Best Of… well, we practically had the guest room made up.

Whatever you might expect, there’s nothing flimsy about ‘I’m Good, I’m Gone’, the most plainly obvious single from the gossamer-light but hard-nosed Youth Novels album. It sashays about while piano is gamely thumped, and even though Lykke sounds cutesy she’s still letting us know who’s boss. Cementing the Scandi-pop credentials, this and Youth Novels enjoy the production magic of Björn of Peter, Björn and John fame; that’s Peter, Björn and John of ‘Young Folks’ fame; that’s ‘Young Folks’ of Jukebox Junior No.1 Single of 2006 fame; that’s the 2006 Top 20 of I-haven’t-yet-transferred-it-to-this-version-of-the-blog fame. Got all that?

Eventually, Junior listened on the way home from Sainsbury’s and was observed to clap in time (you’ll hear Lykke Li herself declaring, “I know your hands will clap”). It enjoyed a second play at home, where Junior danced like a dervish. So much for being ill. She then asked for “lemico, lemico”, which Lykke fans may recognise as a bastardised refrain from ‘Tonight’. Yes, we’ve played this album a lot.