When the melody for ‘Yesterday‘ first came to Paul McCartney in a dream, he spent a month taking it round the houses, playing it to anyone who’d listen. He was half-convinced he’d heard it somewhere before, long ago. Nobody yet has claimed Yesterday’ as theirs, but every once in a while, a song with that déjà vu factor comes along, and music lovers everywhere spend hours staring at Google result pages, looking for that one song that sounds like this other one.
It was about time ‘Sadness Is a Blessing‘ came along; it strikes the listener with that disarming quality of a long-forgotten feeling, somehow twice as powerful for having come to life again when you least expected it. ‘Wounded Rhymes’ is as apt a phrase as you’re ever going to find for this music, which is as just as well, since ‘Sadness Is a Blessing’ comes from that same album. Coincidence? Pshaw. No such thing.
Lykke Li’s lyrics go to dark, tender places, taking us from where Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien‘ left off; she’s purging her pent-up rage and unbearable grief, yet it never feels grim or funereal. Li sings of guarding, even treasuring these raw, painful emotions with every fibre of her being, as pearls and as lovers.
Piano, synth, echo-drenched drums and a guitar like distant chimes make for a powerful arrangement, led with Li’s brittle, joyful voice. Tarik Saleh’s rich, mournful video takes full advantage of this emotional shootout of a song, putting Li opposite legendary actor Stellan Skarsgård, surrounded by judging, prying eyes in a prim, exclusive restaurant.
Skarsgård fights off tears as he watches Li drink her dinner from a vodka bottle. Somewhere, something breaks in her and she gets up and dances with herself, swaying and bounding and breezing past waiters, intoxicated in her sorrows. Give this film a little of your time. No miming or dress-up antics here. This is a story of some six minutes and forty seconds in the lives of two shattered people. Let it happen.
(Simon Moore)