This album could have been the most pathetic and pompous album of the year. And in a way it probably is.
Magnus Carlson writes honest and wide-open lyrics about loneliness and fills them with standard sayings and everyday motifs: walking home drunk and alone, driving the car when someone left you. And it is brave, maybe foolhardy, to write a song about a scratched 7" single that will help you through the night. But while inviting scorn,
Carlson receives little. The strength of this album is the combination of modern indie pop with sentimental '60s lyrics and, as has been said before, the total lack of irony.
Magnus Carlson has written this kind of music for years, but when singing with
Weeping Willows he sometimes seemed to hide behind a retro image and standard pop phrases. (The band could even be mistaken for being ironic, but nothing could have been more wrong.) The time with
Weeping Willows also made
Magnus Carlson a big star in Sweden, and on this album a number of other well-known indie names are participating, like
Håkan Hellström and
Joakim Thåström. Being a big fan of
the Clash,
Magnus Carlson also managed to get Mick Jones to co-write "Vacker Värld" and even sing in Swedish in the choruses. ~ Lars Lovén