9 songs Per Gessle wishes he had written

As we already informed you about it, Per has his own podcast on Swedish radio together with Sven Lindström. The first part was made available this morning. Listen to the 57-minute-long show HERE!

It’s about 9 songs Mr. G wishes he had written. Earlier on Nordic Rox there was a Twelve Peaks show where Per listed 12 songs he wished he had written and discussed his choice with Sven. The list from today is completely different, which shows there are many awesome so well written songs mainly from the ’60s.

It’s always very entertaining to listen to these 2 pop nerds who know everything about music. They know when the songs came out, if those hits were on the charts and at which position, who the songwriter is, etc. While they are talking about the songs on the list, of course Per’s songwriting is a topic as well. This way they relate to Roxette and Gyllene Tider. Per and Sven also discuss what songs they were listening to in the ’60s and ’70s and how those songs effected them.

Here are the Top 9 songs Mr. G came up with during the show:

9. Petula Clark: Downtown (1963)
8. The Byrds: Goin’ Back (1967)
7. The Carpenters: Yesterday Once More (1973)
6. B.J. Thomas: Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head (1969)
5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Something Big (1981)
4. The Young Rascals: How Can I Be Sure (1967)
3. The Kinks: Waterloo Sunset (1967)
2. Astrud Gilberto: Never My Love (first released by The Association in 1967; Astrud G. in 1968)
1. The Beach Boys: God Only Knows (1966)

Per says he remembers he was listening to her sister’s singles when he was 8-9 years old. Besides Presley’s Jailhouse Rock and The Beatles, Petula Clark was also among those singles. He says he was never a real fan of The Carpenters, because it’s a bit too nice music for him, but Yesterday Once More is a well-produced song, it has a feel-good feeling and he loves the sha-la-la-la in it. He mentions that one of the songwriters he likes the most is Burt Bacharach. They also talk about B.J. Thomas and they have no clue what his real name was (Billy Joe Thomas). Per says Tom Petty always had an important place in his heart, he likes his lyrics and his storytelling style. How Can I Be Sure charmed him with its damn good lyrics and the waltz tempo. Terry and Julie from Waterloo Sunset appear in the Roxette song Me & You & Terry & Julie. All in all, these 9 songs are either catchy pop songs or wonderful love ballads, they are easy to listening to and all of them are masterpieces. One can’t stop listening to them.

The show is an awesome listening even if you don’t speak Swedish. Hearing 2 friends chatting, having much fun while talking about their favourite topic, laughing a lot, kidding each other. Fab start into the day! Is it next Thursday yet?

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Video to the new Roxette single

As you could read in our article this morning, Per starts a radio podcast on 24th March. A great chance to practice your Swedish by listening to 2 nerds chatting about music.

Today Per visited Swedish Radio P4 Halland and talked about the podcast. In the short interview he also mentioned that he is busy with other things as well. Besides that he started his own record label Space Station 12, there are also a lot of things happening around Roxette. The new album is out in summer, the single is out in April and he confirmed there will be a video to the single which they are shooting next week. Too cool!

Another interesting thing Mr. G mentioned is that they are playing 18 shows in Europe this summer. We know about 14 dates so far, so there are at least 4 more to come. Sounds promising!

Listen to Per HERE!

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Per Gessle’s podcast on Swedish Radio

According to today’s news, Per Gessle will have a podcast on Swedish Radio P4 together with Sven Lindström. The title of the program is Gessles nio i topp (Gessle’s Top 9).

It will premiere on 24th March and will have 10 parts:

  • 24 March: Nio låtar jag önskar att jag skrivit (Nine songs I wish I had written)
  • 31 March: Nio svenska hjältar (Nine Swedish heroes)
  • 7 April: Nio bästa sångerskorna (Nine best female singers)
  • 14 April: 60-tal – de nio just nu bästa (’60s – the nine best right now)
  • 21 April: 70-tal – de nio just nu bästa (’70s – the nine best right now)
  • 28 April: 80-tal – de nio just nu bästa (’80s – the nine best right now)
  • 5 May: Nio new wave från England (Nine new wave songs from England)
  • 12 May: Nio bästa producenterna i rockhistorien (Nine best producers in rock history)
  • 19 May: Nio bästa Beatleslåtarna sjungna av John Winston Lennon (Nine best Beatles songs sung by John Winston Lennon)
  • 26 May: Nio bästa gitarriffen i rockhistorien (Nine best guitar riffs in rock history)

How exciting! Listening to Per and Sven talking about music is one of the best things in life. And now we will have some ear candy each Thursday!

When Per was asked about the idea by Per Scholander from P4, he never hesitated. He says it was obvious to say yes.

Sven and I like to talk at once and have no respect for each other’s opinions. Perfect breeding ground for a podcast.

The podcast will be available HERE!

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Per Gessle’s deep song title analysis

PG_Gradvall_podcastPer had been interviewed by Jan Gradvall for his Swedish Radio podcast and the program was made available last Saturday. You can listen to it or even download it from HERE. Per’s part starts at 7:18 and ends at 21:50. The second half of the program is an interview with Kajsa Grytt.

The topic was “I Want You”, a song title that you can find among The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello classic songs, but Jan and Per also went into a deep analysis of song titles in general.

Per’s opinion about Bob Dylan’s “I Want You” is that it’s an awesome song on Dylan’s fantastic Blonde on Blonde album. It was released in 1966 when Per was 7 years old, so he says he didn’t know what the song “I Want You” was about, but he remembers he listened to it a lot of times.

According to Per, “I Want You” is a very good, simple and direct title. It makes you curious. Gradvall asked him what makes a song title a good song title. Per says, even if today’s generation doesn’t really look at album covers, actually it’s usually the title of the song you see first. It has to raise curiosity about what the song is about. He thinks a good title is very important, but it’s also a matter of taste. He likes simple titles, but he also likes strange titles, e.g. of his GT songs ”Allt jag lärt mig i livet har jag lärt mig av Vera” or ”(Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän”. Per thinks many artists have boring song titles.

Jan asked Mr. G what he thinks, which his best song titles are. Per says “Dressed For Succes” is really good, “Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly” is very good, “Sleeping In My Car”, “How Do You Do!”, because it makes you curious what the song is about, “Queen Of Rain” is an exciting title, “Crash! Boom! Bang!” which is coming from Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock [here he is singing the tunes 🙂 ], “Flickorna på TV2” is a superb title.

They talk about Elvis Costello as well. Per likes him and liked his first album and the song “Watching the Detectives”. He thinks he became a little bit too clever with a little bit too many chords for Per, but he is a fantastic musician and singer. He listened more to Costello’s producer, Nick Lowe. Per prefers simplicity and beautiful, simple melodies.

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by The Beatles is very simple and direct. Per thinks it’s a fantastic mix and it’s an odd, but a damn good song on “Abbey Road”. The album came out when Per was 10 and it was an important one for him. “Come Together” is also an outstanding song on it. George Harrison’s “Something” and “Here Comes The Sun” are masterpieces on “Abbey Road”. “Octopus’s Garden” and Paul’s medley on side two are also fantastic. Per explains he did a medley on his “Son of a Plumber” album, the “Junior Suite” and it was inspired by the “Abbey Road” medley. It was real fun doing it.

Gradvall asked Per about his thoughts on The Beatles song titles. The early songs had more simple titles (“I Should Have Known Better”, “I’ll Cry Instead”, “Love Me Do”, “Please Please Me”), but later the titles became more nonsense and abstract, e.g. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”, “Tomorrow Never Knows”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. If he looks back at Lennon titles, they were rather simple, e.g. “It’s So Hard”, “Jealous Guy”, “Imagine”, “God”.

Jan asked Per about his own “I Want You”. Mr. G clarifies it’s not his own song, he did it together with Marie Fredriksson, Eva Dahlgren and the Ratata guys in 1987, during their joint tour Rock runt riket. The producer was Anders Glenmark and it does sound like a Glenmarkish song.

To the question how many words are optimal in a song title Per replied sometimes he thinks as many as possible. For example, for the latest Gyllene Tider album he wrote a song with a long title “Jag tänker åka på en lång lång lång lång lång resa”. It could have been “Jag tänker åka på en lång resa”, but with 5 långs it sounds better and it is to emphasize how long the journey is. It’s that “The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill” is much better than “Bungalow Bill”. Or as an album title, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” is much better than “Ziggy Stardust”. But a song title can be short or long, the important thing is to raise curiosity. It can be a question that might not be answered in the song or e.g. he has the title “I Never Quite Got Over The Fact That The Beatles Broke Up” which is not in the lyrics, but the content reflects that he didn’t get over the fact.

 

Consequential Lyrics – a podcast about Roxette lyrics

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk is a music blog and podcast series that examines the passionate antics of the mod revivalists, lovers of synth and mad devotees of British pop.” Missy El (Eleanor Gray), who is running C&CM since 10 years, is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Her new podcast series, Consequential Lyrics consists of 40-minute-long episodes (including the songs). Besides analyzing the lyrics of Queen, The Beatles, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths and Erasure, she analyzed some Roxette lyrics as a bonus.

It sounded so familiar, when I heard her starting the show like this:

This episode looks at the lyricism of Roxette. Now I can almost hear you cry: ”But El, surely there is no real depth or meaning in Roxette lyrics!” Well, that’s where you’re wrong!

God, how many times I heard it from my non-Roxer friends. And when I asked them to tell me a Roxette song without any meaning, they all came up with ”Sleeping In My Car”. Maybe they just never had any back seat affair in their car… Whatever. I gave up convincing them. Now I could suggest them listening to this podcast at least.

Roxette_2012_liveBy the way, listening to Missy El, you can clearly hear she’s a fan of Per Gessle lyrics. I can totally understand her. 😉 Songs analyzed (not a typical list of Roxette songs / demos): Sleeping Single, Come Back (Before You Leave), I Do Believe, (I Could Never) Give You Up, Love Spins, Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave) and Always Breaking My Heart. You can listen to this episode by clicking here.