The brush of lips against a cheek, a few short phrases on a postcard-- pair these things with a plaintive melody, and you have the stuff that wet dreams about a young Mia Farrow are made of. Belle & Sebastian have made a tidy living at this kind of music, while types like Kings of Convenience prefer to put the kettle on and take the time to tell a quiet story. Jens Lekman offers a little bit of both approaches, as well as shared notches on the genealogical influence tree-- Morrissey, classic AM pop, self-examining folk, and the sardonic wit of Paul Heaton. But Lekman's real talent is remaining forever the optimist. He's Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock that's tearing from the wall, but still smiling at the ladies from beneath his snap brim. Let's have a hand for deadpan Swedish romantics-- they've got the grip to make the maudlin fun again.
Lekman can be lovelorn. He's also been known to write keening song arcs about terminal teenager Rocky Dennis (whom you may recall as the tragic figure of the 1985 Eric Stoltz film Mask). However, he usually tempers his melodramatic tendencies with screwy tangents and truckloads of self-deprecation. That's the name of the game on When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, his first full-length after a series of well-received EPs.
The Rocky Dennis EP holdover "If You Ever Need a Stranger [to sing at your wedding]" includes Lekman's Moz-like resolution to cut off his arm in the name of true love. But this is in the context of a concisely hopeful, piano-and-whistling ditty that ends with Jens the wedding singer looking forward to the blind possibility of meeting his true love at the reception buffet table. "Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa" is busier, its assembled scratch-pop lilt defined by skeletal bossa nova and Caribbean loops. They tickle Lekman's glowering vocal cheerily as Lisa blows out the candles and Jehovah's Witnesses knock on the door. He knows he can't kiss her, 'cause she's only a friend, but he knows God can't either, and that's a victory in his black book.
Lekman also vacillates between caddish selfishness (he dumps his girl during a riot; like breaking it off in an upscale restaurant, it's one place you know there won't be a scene) and hazy romantic encounters with no strings attached. He can't help wanting more from his bedmate in "Cold Swedish Winter", but she just "wants somebody to hold me through the night." (The accompanying female vocal is also one of the album's prettiest melodies.) These dynamics and When I Said's spare arrangements lessen Lekman's Cute Factor, that frustrating, well-appointed nattiness that frequently mars Belle, Sebastian, and most of the rest of the twee establishment.
His songs usually suggest some past melody or song (or at least Stephin Merritt), but their characters, situations, and Jens himself are represented with such casual seriousness that they're immediately endearing. Sleepy mandolins and love theme synthesizers team up for "Psychogirl", and the result is high comedy when Lekman imagines a meeting, budding romance, and ultimate breakup in the fleeting moments of a few half-thoughts. His grip is slipping on the clock, but he had to shift to get a better look at the filly in the office below.
In the end, Lekman's greatest victory might be rhyming "#2" with "coochie-coo" and not causing fingers to reach down throats. The song, album opener "Tram #7 to Heaven", is three minutes of driving a Citroën up a billowy cloud staircase, where the climax lists the various trams and routes. Fun, love, misery, opportunity, life, and the ultimate ascent: The trams are Lekman's options, lined up and harp-twiddled in bittersweet and blistered-- but ultimately still optimistic-- relief.
