Per Gessle

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – March 2022

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The March episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM was broadcast on 6th March. Sven tells they have prepared a show which takes them so far back in time that even Per can’t remember. Per says „I do remember!” and the guys are laughing. This time they have a tribute to a 60’s Swedish band from Gothenburg called Tages. Per tells he had loads of Tages singles when he was a kid. According to Sven many say that Tages was the best Swedish pop group in the 60’s. PG tends to agree. He thinks that especially after a couple of years, when they started writing their own songs they made some really outstanding tracks. They had an amazing bass player and singer, Göran Lagerberg who had this R&B touch to his voice and to his writing, which was really cool. It made them stand out a lot in the Swedish crowd. Sven tells they picked out three songs which represent three faces of their career. The pop thing, the slightly psychedelic thing and also something in between. A little bit of R&B, Per adds. But before that, they play some classic Nordic Rox stuff.

First song played is Painted By Numbers from the Dying To Say This To You album of The Sounds. Per tells they are a great band from the South of Sweden. They had their breakthrough with a song called Living In America.

Factory, a Swedish band comes next with Efter plugget from their 1979 album. Per says this song is one of his guilty pleasures, he always loved this song. He loves these synthesizer sounds from the late 70’s. If you were around in 1979-1981, you heard this song all the time on Swedish radio. It was a major hit. This was one of the biggest songs in the late 70’s in Sweden. It came out the same year when Per’s first band, Gyllene Tider recorded their first album. They listened to this band a lot, you just couldn’t avoid them. GT didn’t sound like them at all, though. Factory was topping the charts with their debut album in the spring of 1979. Before them Spirits Having Flown by the Bee Gees, after them Voulez-Vous by ABBA was topping the charts.

Molly Hammar’s Douchebag is next. She’s a Swedish artist who has been around for a couple of years. Per tells she is doing some great singles. Douchebag is her most recent single from 2021.

The next song is James by Ex Cops from 2013 from their debut album. The Nordic connection of the band is Denmark. There are two singers, an American guy called Brian Harding and a Danish vocalist, Amalie Bruun. Per thinks it’s a great song and he says he started singing The Rose Of England by Nick Lowe when he heard the chords. Great chords! Sven jokes that „maybe they listened to Nick and decided to nick some of the chords”.

The guys start talking about Tages. Tage is a male name, Sven tells. It’s not even a cool name, old people had that name. Per tells the Swedish Prime Minister, Tage Erlander had this name. The band didn’t hesitate in giving themselves challenges when it came to the name. The first name they had was Alberts Skifflegrupp. Per laughs and says it’s a terrible name. It was from the singer, Tommy Blom’s middle name, Albert. Here Per sings a line from Paul McCartney’s Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey: „We’re so sorry, uncle Albert”.

Tages won a competition, „The Beatles of the Swedish West Coast” in 1964. Per thinks the song they won it with was Sleep Little Girl. His brother had that as a vinyl single. Per has always been a Tages fan. He had lots of their beautiful singles. They were a singles band with different sides, different qualities and that made them stand out in the crowd a bit. According to PG, their biggest quality was that they had several singers. The Beatles and The Hollies also had several guys who could sing and that makes the sound interesting all the time. Also, the band had different writers who wrote different styles of music. They had a good sound, Per thinks, and they also had a great producer, Anders Henriksson. He went on to become a very big producer in the 70’s.

Sven and PG kick off the Tages special with the band’s Swedish No. 1 song, Miss Mac Baren from 1966. Per’s favourite year. Sven tells a funny story about Tages being on tour when their record company called them that they wanted to print the new single sleeve. All they needed was a title for the single, but the band hadn’t even recorded the song yet. So the guys stopped on the road at a café or something and they saw an advertising sign of Mac Baren Tobacco. That’s how the title became Miss Mac Baren. PG tells it turned out to be a great song.

Sven shares Tages got a lot of flak in the beginning for being incompetent musicians, but they shaped up. Per thinks they sound as good as other Swedish bands in that era. Especially Göran Lagerberg is a great bass player, a great songwriter and a great singer. They changed the drummer halfway through their career, but both of them were good. Per thinks it was probably jelaous people from Stockholm who complained. There has always been a battle between Stockholm and Gothenburg.

The next track is another big hit for Tages, Every Raindrop Means A Lot from 1967. A bit adventurous song in a way. Tommy Blom, the singer was on every girl’s poster back then, Sven tells. Per says he was the poster boy of the band. Tommy sings the verse and Göran comes in and sings the chorus. Mr. G tells it’s sort of two songs combined, because it’s different tempos, which makes the song really interesting. It’s one of PG’s favourite tracks from Tages.

The third Tages song was not on an album, it was just a single in 1968, Fantasy Island. It was one of their last and best singles. Per thinks it’s a really wonderful song. They evolved into a slightly psychedelic pop direction. So many bands of this era broke up, when the classic 1966-67 sound turned into lots of psychedelica and Woodstock happened. Per tells music trends change and times are changing, people started to listen to other things. In Sweden a lot of artists and writers started to write in Swedish which didn’t fit this concept of beat generation of bands at all. Then in the 70’s so many things happened musically, the singer-songwriter thing and the progressive music started. Fantasy Island points in that direction vaguely. It’s kind of a swan song for Tages and the 60’s era. The singers quit shortly after this single. Per says it wasn’t a big song for them, they were over, but it’s a great track. If PG should rank the Top 10 singles of the 60’s made by Swedish artists, Fantasy Island is up there. Sven is curious what Per thinks makes the song so special. Mr. G loves the sound of it, the melody, the title, the cover of the single, but he is maybe too nostalgic, he adds. Sven says he doesn’t know how many singles Per has, but wouldn’t he like a jukebox. PG tells he has a jukebox in the West Coast in his workshop.

7Twenty7 demo by Per Gessle is played next.

Then comes Broken Promise Land by Weeping Willows. Sven laughs and tells the band is the drama queens of Swedish pop. The guys are laughing. The band is cool.

Amanda Jenssen’s debut single, Do You Love Me is played. Per loves that song, it’s from 2008. Sven tells she was the runner-up in Swedish Idol. PG thinks she’s got a great voice.

The Way We Used to Beg by Joel Alme is next.

Per picked a song from Ghost. He thinks they never played this band in their show. They have done some great stuff over the years. This is their latest single, Hunter’s Moon.

Anna Ternheim & Dave Ferguson’s The Longer The Waiting (The Sweeter The Kiss) is next. Mr. G thinks it’s a great song written by Roger Cook and Pat McLaughlin and he also thinks Anna is a brilliant singer. This interpretation of this beautiful song is amazing. Per says he plays it a lot at home when he is feeling a little blue. Sven asks PG if he had the chance to meet them when he was in Nashville. Per says no, but he had a good time anyway. Haha. 3 wonderful weeks. Mr. G thinks Nashville is still the most wonderful place. He brought along a couple of Swedish musicians for that album of his, but the whole idea was very much to work with local musicians. They have the best players in the world. Pedal steel guy Dan Dugmore was amazing, fiddle player Stuart Duncan, too. Per is proud to have worked with those people.

Blodspengar by Japop is next from 1982. Per remembers the band was called Janne Andersson pop when they came out. Janne is the lead guitar player and the singer. It was a trio. PG thinks they were really cool and they were destined for big times, but it never really happened for them for some reason. According to Sven, Japop was the product of the power pop era, the new wave era and suddenly that was also gone in the early 80’s. Per tells then the synthesizers came in. Destroying everything, Sven adds and they are laughing.

Sven tells the next gang bangs on the studio door, so they have to go, but they will be back in a not so distant future. Per’s goodbye words are „you better stay safe and sound!”

The usual closing track is Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for the technical support to János Tóth!

Per Gessle demo cassettes No.7 and No.8

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When Per posted the cover of two of his old demo cassettes from 1988-1990, I thought I would check which demos we haven’t heard yet. I hope I didn’t miss anything, but you know, the more demos are out the easier it is to get lost in PG’s demo jungle. Also, it’s always possible that there wasn’t only one demo recorded of the same track on the same day. You never know when it comes to workaholic PG.

Mr. G fortunately loves sharing info about his ditties and there are many comments he made on the songs themselves, but here you’ll find only those details added that popped up related to the exact demos (date and version) we are talking about. Links in the article are listening links.

And hey, we are happy to have a glance at the covers of demo cassettes No.1-6 and No.9-? anytime!

Demo cassette No. 7

A

1. Dance Away (9th February 1989)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

2. Cry (9th February 1989)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

3. Shadow Of A Doubt (9th February 1989)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3.

Info from PG: „I love this song. This was really cool and I thought it sounded terrific and it had this boo-doo-boom boo-doo-boom, which is always very efficient if you can take control over it. You have the arena vibe to it. It’s just a great track. The demo for me still makes more sense than the finished Roxette album version. I had really high hopes for this song. It became OK, but I thought it would go even further. I thought it had all the melody lines and the rhythm, the groove, killer chorus and Marie was in there.”

4. Don’t Believe In Accidents (9th February 1989 -> if the date stated on the cover was meant for this track as well)
There is another demo from spring 1988 on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and as B-side of the Run To You single.

5. Start! (19th February 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 3.

Info from PG: „This was written for the „Look Sharp!” album. I actually hesitated a bit to include it on this archive series, because I’m not really happy. I think this is not the best song I have ever written. But on the other hand, it also shows that to be able to write all those songs that became really great in my book, like „The Look” or „Listen To Your Heart” or „Dressed For Success” or „Dangerous”, all those songs that were included on that album, I wrote some rubbish as well. Like this one. I played this demo for Clarence and Marie and nobody really liked it. Looking back, I think it was a wise choice not to include it on „Look Sharp!” The sound of that particular era is by far more interesting than the song itself, I think. This has a lot of Scritti Politti style, all this blipping and blopping synthesizers all over the place, sequence synthesizers.”

6. The Look (29th March 1988)
There is another demo from one day later (30th March 1988) on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3.

Info from PG about the March 30th demo: „I actually started it at home with my new synthesizer. This is an exercise in how to work on it. So I wrote this song, using the sequencer. I wrote a melody and I basically kept the words just to memorize the rhythm of the melody. It could be anything. Then when I tried to rewrite the lyrics I just felt that hey, it’s impossible to replace those words, those lines, those phrases. And if you put on your Magical Mystery Tour cap, it sort of makes sense. With the rest of the lyrics I just tried to make the first verse intelligent in some way. When I wrote it I thought it was better if Marie were singing it, because that was the whole essence of Roxette. I was writing the songs, Marie was singing the songs. So in my demo the lyrics are „he’s got the look”, because it was supposed to be for Marie. It had a special power, you could feel it immediately when we recorded the demo. It just stood out, it was a great song. Everyone loved it. The only negative thing I could think of was that I was singing it, because that wasn’t the idea. And I was so surprised when it became the breakthrough song for Roxette. In my world, if there was a song that had to make Roxette big, it had to be sung by Marie. But fate wanted it differently.”

7. Here Comes The Weekend (30th March 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

8. Physical Fascination (17th April 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

9. Drowning In You (17th April 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

10. Kärlekens skepp (17th April 1988)
There is another demo on The Per Gessle Archives – På väg – Demos 1982-86 from March 1986.

11. Paint (28th April 1988)
Released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 1.

Info from PG: „This was a very special song, because this demo recording sounded very different to anything else we’d done before technically. And we were using the synthesizers. It just sounded very special. It was meant for me to sing the verse and Marie to sing the chorus, so I tried to make sort of a masculine verse and a feminine chorus. In this demo we used Camilla Andersson who did the vocals. She’s been helping me out with some of the female vocals over the years, especially in the early days. I just loved the song from as soon as it was done. I knew that was something very special and of course it became a great track for Roxette as well. Even better with Roxette, actually. But the demo has got lots of quality as well, I think.”

B

1. Listen To Your Heart (9th May 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 4.

Info from PG: „It’s co-written with MP. As you can hear, the piano intro isn’t there on the demo. It’s something that Clarence came up with in the studio in Stockholm when we recorded the Roxette version. I didn’t expect it to be a huge song. It felt like a great song when we recorded the demo. It turned out to be this killer track when Marie took charge. I don’t think I’m singing it very well when I did the demo. The idea for the lyrics came to me from a friend of mine who went through a divorce and we sat up all night talking about his situation and then I wrote this sort of fictive story. It went very fast. Sometimes you just need something to inspire you. It can be something someone is saying in a movie or something you pick up from a commercial or a taxi driver says something funny, whatever. My friend’s story was just what I was looking for because I was in the middle of writing this song. So I wrote it down and made a story out of it. Mats and I wrote the music together, but I think we didn’t sit down together. I think the verse part of it is what Mats was writing and I wrote the chorus. He played me something that I thought was really cool, so I put that together with what I had.”

2. Let’s Party (14th July 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and as B-side of the I Want You To Know single.

3. Break It Up (23rd March 1989)
Info from PG: „It’s the same song as “Kärlekståg” (25th October 1989) [track 11 on this list]. Just different lyrics. Written together with Janne Bark.”

4. Rocket From Her Heart (16th June 1989)
Released on The Per Gessle Archives – Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 4.

Info from PG: „It was recorded in the Tits & Ass studio. Probably, I wrote it for the „Joyride” album. But of course, we never tried it out. I think nobody really liked that style. There’s a little 50’s touch to it, rockabilly. It wasn’t really our cup of tea, so I don’t really know why I did it, but I think it’s cool. I think it’s a nice little song. Maybe I felt like I needed a Roy Orbison dose or something. I haven’t got a clue. I remember I tried to convince Marie that this was really cool, but she didn’t want to listen to it that much. There was a Swedish band, The Boppers who did a cover version [Rocket From My Heart] of it, which I really can’t remember how it sounded, but they recorded it. They were a 50’s style Swedish band, so it made sense.”

5. Things Will Never Be The Same (17th June 1989)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition. However, another version was released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3 from the same day – see track 7 here in the list.

6. Rocket From (Break!)

7. Things Will (Synt. Vers)
It might be the 17th June 1989 demo released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3.

Info from PG: „This was very early on for the „Joyride” album and became a magnificent track. I thought it was really cool. It’s pretty long though. The demo is around 5 minutes. You could hear it sounds typical Roxette and you could really hear Marie delivering the song. It’s a very classic ballad for me, it sounds like a typical Per Gessle ballad from those years. I could take advantage of the fact that Marie and I have different preferences when it comes to keys. In the Roxette version I’m singing a little bridge after the verse, before the chorus, which made the song interesting.”

8. See (18th June 1989)
Info from PG: „It’s still unreleased, but there was a Swedish translation and recording made by Sylvia Vrethammar in 1990 with the title „Öppna dina ögon”. My music, Sylvia’s lyrics. Produced by Clarence. How about that? Also…. “See” + “See Me” has got the same lyrics. But different music. “See” = music by me. “See Me” = music by sweet Marie.”

See Me on Crash! Boom! Bang! and on Travelling.

9. Knockin’ On Every Door (15th August 1989)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „August ’89, it must have been when we prepared for the release of „Listen To Your Heart” in the States, I guess. So I don’t know how I had the time to record this one, but it’s a pretty old song. There is another version of it called „Rocket” [9th April 1987], so this song started its life as „Rocket”. I rewrote the lyrics, changed the groove and outcame „Knockin’ On Every Door”. You could hear the influence of the „Rocket” demo as well here, because this is like a drum machine and a certain kind of beat, but also it’s got a lot of accoustic instruments in there, which was the whole idea behind the song to begin with. So eventually, we recorded it for the „Joyride” album and it became one of my favourite songs on that album. I thought it was really cool. Lots of things happened to that song. The beat changed and also when Jonas Isacsson came in and played the guitar riff, lots of things changed for the song as well. I guess Clarence was kind of pleased in the end.”

10. (Do You Get) Excited (19th August 1989)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 1.

Info from PG: „We made really produced demos, MP and me at the Tits & Ass studio. We worked really hard to arrange the songs as you could hear on this demo. You could actually hear that this is almost the same as the Roxette version. This is a pretty advanced song. Mats co-wrote it. It’s got lots of key changes and I don’t know how we could have made it without arranging it like this. Sometimes we spent days and days on just one song and I think this is one of them. It took a long time to do. I wanted to use modern technology into the songwriting and into the demo recordings as well. There’s a guitar riff in this song that was inspired by Led Zeppelin and the reason for that is that at the time we were recording this with Roxette, both Clarence and me were reading „Hammer of the Gods”, Led Zeppelin biography, so we were listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin music in the studio. Jonas who played the guitar on the Roxette version, he is like the biggest Led Zeppelin fan there is. All those little details take the songs into different directions. You could hear that this song has something special even in the demo. And of course when Marie started to sing it, it all made sense. The lyric was written for her. And the title is really cool when it comes from a girl. It’s one of my favourite Roxette tracks ever.”

11. Kärlekståg (25th October 1989)
Info from PG: „It’s the same song as “Break It Up” (23rd March 1989). Just different lyrics. Written together with Janne Bark.”

Maybe it’s THIS song released by Arvingarna?

 Demo cassette No. 8

A

1. Queen Of Rain (2nd January 1990)
It’s either the one released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition or the one released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 4. As far as I can judge, these two are the same, just the fade-out in TPGA demo is longer.

Info from PG: „It’s one of the first songs that was made for „Joyride”. It’s co-written with MP and we probably spent the Christmas period in 1989 writing this. It’s one of my favourite songs. When „Perfect Day” was written, it had this accordion thing in it and we were going on a big world tour with „Joyride” and we realized that Vicki Benckert who was our backing vocalist could play the accordion. So we thought that would be a great ending of the show, so we skipped „Queen Of Rain”. Took it away, because that was the closing track and replaced it with „Perfect Day”. We left it for the next album, „Tourism” and it eventually became a single. A year later it hadn’t grown old that much, it was still a great track. It’s one of the best ballads we ever did.”

2. Physical Fascination (3rd January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

3. Love Spins (2 Vers.) (3rd January 1990)
One version is released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

4. Church Of Your Heart (8th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

5. Another Place, Another Time (10th January 1990)

6. Run, Run, Run (10th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

7. Another Place, Another Time (11th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

8. Every Beat Of The Heart (21st January 1990)
Info from PG: „It ended up with happy Carola! The demo was sharper!” [Every Beat Of My Heart]

9. Hotblooded (24th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

B

1. Watercolours In The Rain (24th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on Bag Of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „This was custom-made. I wrote some lyrics, I didn’t have any music to it. I gave it to Marie and she came back with this haunting and really beautiful song. I don’t know who is playing the guitar on this demo. It’s not me. Maybe it’s Mats Persson from Gyllene Tider or maybe it’s even Jonas Isacsson, the Roxette guitar player who came down to play on it. I can’t remember. The whole song is there already, you can hear that. It’s just a really beautiful song. One of Marie’s very best songs. I think the early part of 1990 was very much a writing time, writing period for us, for me, but I can’t really remember. When I heard „Watercolours In The Rain” for the first time I felt like this is one of the greatest and most beautiful Roxette songs ever. I thought this was really a masterpiece. I thought Marie interpreted the lyrics really really well. Marie’s style of writing is very different from mine. This was just a 5-star song for the „Joyride” album.”

2. I Remember You (15th March 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

3. The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye (16th March 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

4. Sweet Hello (lugn) (29th March 1990)

5. The Big L (29th March 1990)
Either the one released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 4 or the one released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on Bag Of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults Vol. 3.

Info from PG [from TPGA]: „When we recorded this one, I felt like it was supposed to be a single. It’s a very uptempo, catchy song. Later on Marie came down to the studio and we did an other version which is sort of similar to how it sounded on the „Joyride” album. She is answering me in the verses. In this version it’s just me singing it. I guess it was written for both of us to sing, I just tried to show what I meant. „Joyride” wasn’t written yet. There are similarities between „The Big L” and „Joyride”. It’s got the same sort of colourful vibe to it, it’s very catchy. They are like siblings in a way. This was a strong song for the album and eventually it became a single as well. With a very strange video.”

Info from PG [from Bag Of Trix]: „I wrote this song and I wanted it to be a little bit synthesized. When we came to the studio in Stockholm to record it for the „Joyride” album it became much more of a guitar-driven song than it was intended to. On this demo Marie is singing. We needed that sort of style on the „Joyride” album. It became a single and it became a very glamourous video as well. It’s not my favourite song. I just felt like there were better uptempo songs. I liked „Knockin’ On Every Door” more, I liked „Hotblooded” more, I liked „Joyride” more. This is like a sort of a bubblegum edge to it. I wouldn’t have written it again.”

6. The Big L (1st April 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

7. I Remember You (1st April 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on Bag Of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „I was trying to write more uptempo songs. All the ballads we made at the time turned out really really wonderful, so we were desperately in need for uptempo songs. So I wrote for instance „I Remember You”, which in my book you can skip. I don’t really like it. I made a demo myself first, then Marie came in and sang on it and then suddenly it all made sense. As always when she was singing in something. Clarence didn’t really like it either. I think it made the CD version of the „Joyride” album. It didn’t make the LP. Those days the LP was the proper album, at least for us in the band. It turned out to be like a throw-away song for me. I guess for all of us. There are better songs to listen to in life.”

8. Memories… (1st April 1990)
Info from PG: „I don’t think it’s my song. Could be that I “oversaw” the production. Or something. It’s probably an Eddie Jonsson-track. He was around a lot in those days. Btw, I don’t have any cassette player so I can’t check. I’ll ask MP!”

9. Comeback (8th April 1990)
Probably(?) the Come Back (Before You Leave) demo released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

10. Joyrider (23rd May 1990)
There is a Joyrider demo from the day before, released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and another one (longer) also from 22nd May 1990 on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 5.

Info from PG: „This one is a song called „Joyrider” which was the original title for this „Joyride” song. This is actually the very first demo that was made. When we did this demo, Mats and myself at the Tits & Ass studio, we immeditaely knew that this was gonna be a big song. So we went back the next day and basically produced the whole song. The produced demo is also available on this archive series and there you can hear all the main ingredients that were supposed to be there in the final version with Roxette. It was a very wonderful period in my life songwriting-wise. I did some great stuff in those months. This demo is just how it was written, exactly the same chords. It was written without thinking. It just came. The title came… I remember reading an interview with Paul McCartney saying something like writing songs with John Lennon was a long joyride. I didn’t really know what it meant, but I thought it was a really cool word. Then my wife left me a note on my piano saying in Swedish ’Hej, din tok – jag älskar dig’, which means ’Hello, you fool, I love you’, so I combined those two: ’Hello, you fool, I love you’ and ’join the Joyride’. That was fun. Great song.”

Question is if there was a different demo called Joyrider (with the extra „r” at the end from 23rd May [probably not? judging by the PG talks with Sven Lindström]) or it’s the Joyride demo that was released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „If my memory serves me right, we recorded an accoustic version first on May 22nd and the day after we recorded this version, which is a little bit more produced. Or actually a lot more produced. This is very rare that a demo sounds so similar to the finished product. We spent so much time with this arrangement. It just fell into place. Everything we did just made perfect sense. It’s very rare that happens, to tell the truth, but for this one it felt so good immediately. The whistle part, the bassline with a sequencer. It was just a great little song. The idea for the song came from a little not my wife had left me saying ’Hej, din tok – jag älskar dig’ in Swedish, which means ’Hello, you fool, I love you’. So that was like „I have to write a song”. Then I just started to play this A major chord and off I went. The „Joyride” single was delayed due to the Kuwait crisis for 6 or 8 weeks, but we presented it for radio at this convention in the States. After the convention I remember staying in a bar with Marie and someone else and all these people, one after the other just came up and said „hello, congratulations to your next No. 1; it’s gonna be a smash when it finally comes out”, so we had a great feeling leaving that bar, that’s for sure.”

 

Update from PG regarding dates: “Just to clear things up a bit…. sometimes a demo gets two different dates. It can be because you make the backing track one day and the vocals the next. Then you remake the vocals (improve the lyrics maybe?) and wooops… you get a new date. But it’s the same song and recording. This means that there is no more demo of Shadow Of A Doubt for instance.”

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – February 2022

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The latest episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM was broadcast on 13th February. Per Gessle and Sven Lindström recorded it in a very sunny Stockholm and start the show with discussing Christmas. PG asks Sven if he had a great Xmas and Sven says he absolutely had, apart from the minor detail that he had corona for the second time. Sven asks Mr. G if he managed to get away a bit. Per says he did, but it’s still crazy, this corona thing just gets on your nerves. Sven tells Per had to postpone his tour. PG confirms they had to for regulation reasons, but they will hopefully continue in April. The guys say there is new regulation every minute, that’s the way it is, but Nordic Rox continues.

Sven tells that in the upcoming shows they will focus on musical profiles that have made a mark in Swedish music history. One of those artists is Pugh Rogefeldt. Per says it’s an impossible name to pronounce in English, but for Per’s generation he is one of the or even THE most influential artist of all time. In the 60’s he was the first one to make pop and rock music in Swedish language, which was unheard of at the time. Most bands were doing Beatles or Stones imitations, but he went his own way from day one. He is an amazing songwriter as well. He even invented his own language, Pughish. He was a big inspiration, Per adds. Mr. G thinks Pugh’s first 6 albums are really influential. Sven says they are going to focus on his early years later on the show.

Here they play Lykke Li’s Get Some. Son Of Cathy’s Clown from 1981 comes next by Basse Wickman who is one of Per’s favourites and label mates on Parlophone. Per plays that song a lot and still loves it. Sven says Basse was like the Swedish version of Gene Clark from The Byrds in the 60’s. He had the same haircut, he was influenced by the same music. While the guys are talking, Per is checking out the album sleeve of Sailing Down the Years. Basse is posing there with a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar which Per bought from him 3 years later. He still has it and points at it in his office, showing it to Sven. It’s a 1965 Rickenbacker Sunburst and Sven says it’s looking good. Sven asks Per if he has written any famous songs on that one. PG replies no. The guys are laughing and Sven says it didn’t pay off then, Per reacts „but she’s a beauty”.

Then comes Mirror, one of the latest singles of Sigrid from Denmark. Mr. G thinks it’s a good one. The next song is It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane by The Ark. That was the band’s breakthrough song and Per thinks it’s an amazing one. Sven tells it’s from 2000.

Here comes the Pugh Rogefeldt special. Sven asks Per if he knew Pugh’s real name is Torbjörn Rogefeldt. Torbjörn is an old Viking name. Mr. G knew it and says it’s an impossible name for an artist. The guys are smiling and say it’s like e.g. Reginald Dwight [Elton John’s name. /PP] or Declan MacManus [Elvis Costello’s name. /PP], it doesn’t work. In 1967, while he was on his military service, Pugh sent some demos to Swedish producer Anders Burman at Metronome, which was originally a jazz label. Per adds Burman was a jazz drummer and started his own label. As a producer, he was responsible for a lot of amazing records that were made in the 60’s. Lot’s of folk music, jazz and easy listening. Then he had success with Pugh and also had some interesting singer songwriters in the 70’s, e.g. Ola Magnell. He had good ears. Sven knows Pugh sent out his demos to all the labels and the only one who replied was Anders Burman. Sven says one can understand why. Mr. G thinks Pugh’s music is very melodic, that’s the strength of it. The lyrics are also very special. The only artist Per can think of that sounds similar in a way is Captain Beefheart, his old stuff, but Captain Beefheart wasn’t as melodic as Pugh was. Pugh wrote hit songs and he did it in his own way. On his first albums he worked with a jazz drummer and a bass player, Georg “Jojje” Wadenius, who eventually became a guitar player in Blood, Sweat & Tears.

The first Pugh song the guys play is Här kommer natten. Sven says it’s porbably one of the more rock-orientated songs, but it’s still not a typical hit. It’s a bit psychedelic. Per adds it was Pugh’s breakthrough song in 1969. It’s got a really beautiful melody according to Mr. G.

Per thinks Pugh’s music is very melodic, but at the same time very experimental, so he really needed superqualified quality musicians. Janne “Loffe” Carlsson was one of them. He played drums in Hansson & Karlsson and he also played drums for Jimi Hendrix. He and Jojje were professional musicians and Pugh really needed that stability to make this crazy music happening, otherwise it would be unlistenable.

Mr. G thinks the first album, Ja, dä ä dä is beautiful. Sven tells Swedish language you associated with easy listening music or jazz or schlager and Pugh showed that it didn’t necessarily had to be that. Per says Pugh opened up a lot of doors. That generation of artists and songwriters did that. Suddenly, when the singer songwriter thing happened internationally in the late 60’s with Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Cat Stevens among others, there were tons of Swedish artists doing the same thing in Swedish. It was really interesting. Even today some of those albums are outstanding.

Sven asks Per if he remembers he got Pugh’s album when it came out. PG says he didn’t get the debut album, he got the second one. Sven got the second album too. As years passed by, Pugh became bigger and bigger and he played in Halmstad at the big theatre there, which takes 800 people. It was in the early 70’s and that was an amazing show for a 13-year-old PG to watch. Pugh was a superstar those days.

The guys play another song from Pugh’s debut album, Små lätta moln. A very beautiful song which was also a big success for Rogefeldt. Pugh from Västerås. Per tells the title translates into Tiny Light Clouds. Sven adds Per immediately figured he can steal and use this title. Per laughs and says „recycle”.

The guys talk about Rogefeldt’s second album, Pughish. It’s a new language he invented for that album. Per thinks it’s a crazy idea to write songs in a brand new language. Some of those songs are in a language nobody understands. Sven laughs and says it must be a great message to the A&R guy at the record company that wants to sell records that the guy is already a bit complicated, not reaching the broad masses and now for the second album he invented his own language. Brilliant idea, Per thinks.

The next track they play is Föräldralåten from 1970. It’s a great song and a big commercial success for Pugh. Sven says it’s about a nagging mother. This wraps up Nordic Rox’s tribute to Pugh Rogefeldt.

A Roxette track is coming up next. 7Twenty7 is from the Have A Nice Day album, which they recorded outside Málaga, in Spain. They were there all in all for 3 months, recorded lots of tracks and had so many musicians coming in and out, trying things out. They aso had a new co-producer, which was weird. It was a pretty complicated album to make, but Per likes it a lot. It was a new direction for Roxette, a bit more synthesizer-driven than the previous albums. Lot of the songs were written in a more classic way, 7Twenty7 also had a very guitar-driven demo Per made, but they changed that a bit in the studio. Sven is curious how Per likes the studio version vs. the demo. Mr. G admits he likes the demo better. When Roxette got together again and went on tour in 2010, 7Twenty7 was back in its demo shape, it was guitar-driven again. Sven is a fan of the studio version as well. Per tells it’s because Sven is from Malmö. They laugh. Even if Sven tells it’s 7Twenty7 by Roxette coming next, they play Per’s demo.

The next song is Genghis Khan by Miike Snow. Per thinks it’s a great track. Miike Snow was involved in a dance music production as well, in Galantis, as Per informs.

Come Along by Titiyo is next, written by Joakim Berg from Kent and Peter Svensson from The Cardigans. Peter is doing lots of great stuff right now in the States, Per says. He also worked together with Ariana Grande.

Bold as Love by Whyte Seeds is wrapping up the episode and as usual, the guys say goodbye and Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is the last track played.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for the technical support to János Tóth!

Per Gessle at the Tommie Haglund Festival

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As we already informed you about it, Per Gessle and Tommie Haglund wrote music together. Tommie Haglund represents classical music, he has composed chamber music, works for orchestra and for choir. For the song the guys cooperated on, Per has written the lyrics and Tommie has composed the music. The title is Making Something Out Of Nothing and it’s about getting older and looking back on your life and the choices you made.

The song will premiere at the Tommie Haglund Festival in April. The event will consist of 7 concerts (2 orchestra concerts, 5 chamber music concerts) and 3 panel discussions. The concerts are filled with music by Tommie Haglund together with music by composers who have influenced Tommie. Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra from Colombia performs the concerts together with Swedish and international soloists. The festival takes place between 22nd and 24th April 2022 in Halmstad and 28th April in Falkenberg.

Making Something Out Of Nothing premieres on 24th April at the concert Nordiskt ljus starting at 16:00 pm CET at Kulturhuset Najaden in Halmstad, but before that at 15:00 pm CET there will be a conversation between Per Gessle and Tommie Haglund who will discuss how music from different genres speaks to us and why music has an important role in our lives. The panel discussion will be led by Ella Petersson.

Making Something Out Of Nothing was recorded on 1st September 2021 with Emmi Christensson soprano (she will sing it live in April) and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Joachim Gustafsson (music director of Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra). The song will be released on vinyl with Emmi singing on side A and an instrumental version on side B. It’s out for the festival.

All info about tickets and the festival itself you will find HERE. Direct link to the event related to Per Gessle & Tommi Haglund’s discussion and the song premiere on Ticketmaster’s website is HERE.

Photo by Lars Nordin

Uno Svenningsson & Per Gessle – Bara få höra din röst

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Uno Svenningsson and Per Gessle have released a new song together. Bara få höra din röst is now out on streaming services! Listen on Spotify, Deezer, YouTube (track 1, track 2), Apple Music and other platforms! The single contains two tracks, including an instrumental version as well.

It’s not the first time the guys collaborated. Actually, not the first time in the sense of already released material. The first duet we could hear from them was Du kommer så nära (du blir alldeles suddig) on Per’s Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig album, November 2020. In fact, BFHDR originates from an even earlier period!

Per tells RoxBlog:

We wrote and demoed the song in June 2018. The very first demo had just nonsense lyrics sung by Uno. I wrote “real” lyrics pretty quickly with a slightly different title, demoed it on my own and forgot about the song. Uno called me up one day in 2020 and said he would like to use it. He had an idea altering the melody/chords in the chorus a bit but that was fine with me. I wasn’t supposed to sing on it at all but he asked me to add some backing vocals just for fun. It sounded cool. We sound good together! Two very strange voices! And then he wanted some harmony vocals. I was flattered and started fooling around with the production a bit. And then I sang the entire second verse. Suddenly we had a duet. My Gosh.

In the press release Uno tells:

Writing songs together with others is a little craft and adventure in itself and then to have the chance to write with Per, the best songwriter, is fantastic. It’s been easy-going and much fun. Two guys from the countryside who like music, it can’t get any better! I’ve always liked Per’s voice and that our voices fit so well together is awesome. “Bara få höra din röst” is therefore a telling title! My son, Mark Bihli is responsible for arrangements and production, and he has done a brilliant job.

Per adds:

Uno and I have been running into each other for many years. Not least down in Tylösand in the summer. We’ve talked for a long time about writing something together and “Bara få höra din röst” popped up one summer day out of nowhere. Just like the best songs are born. It’s incredibly fun to work with Uno, our voices are so different but fit together in some strange way terribly well. Extra fun that his son Mark wanted to produce. He has done a fantastic job.

A video to the song is set to premiere at 10:00 am CET on 21st January. It was recorded at Andreas Dahlbäck’s Durango Studio in Stockholm at the end of 2021.

Bara få höra din röst

Jag vet det är tokigt
Och alldeles för sent
Jag har suttit framför datorn
Med korslagda ben

Och kvällen har blivit
Som en virvlande vals
Jag kan inte koncentrera mig
På något alls

Du kanske redan raderat mig
Så jag går mot ett annat håll
Logiken studsar som en boll
Mellan tak och golv

Jag vill bara få höra din röst
Ingenting annat nu
Svara mig snälla du
Jag vill bara få höra din röst
Säg vad du vill för du
Jag vill inget annat nu

Det kanske är vinet
Och allt socker och salt
Jag ser din kropp vänd emot mig
Nästan överallt

Så skål för historien
Två hjärtan som brann
Och för ett ensamt skepp
Som letar efter sin hamn

Jag tror du suddat ut mig nu
Jag har försvunnit i ett moln
Jag önskar allt var som förut
Helt under kontroll

Jag vill bara få höra din röst
Ingenting annat nu
Svara mig snälla du
Jag vill bara få höra din röst
Säg vad du vill för du
Jag vill inget annat nu

Words + Music: Uno Svenningsson + Per Gessle

Photo of Per & Uno by Pär Wickholm