After a period of silence, Loreen has been seen in TV4’s ”Så mycket bättre”, where she interpreted Eldkvarn and Helen Sjöholm. Soon she will release new music in Swedish where she wants to give a more undressed and honest picture of herself. DN meets the artist and actress in her studio in south of Stockholm.
Text: Moa Malmqvist / Foto: Anette Nantell
The clock begins to approach midnight when a military green Mustang rolls up to the guest house Grå Gåsen on southern Gotland. ”Så mycket bättre” has been going on for six weeks, at least for the TV viewers at home on the couch. One of the participants guesses that it is Mikael Persbrandt in the car, or maybe some other “fucking celebrity”.
But it is not a Drama actress who steps out, but an Eurovision winner wearing an overall in the same green color as the roar. “Normal and bizarre,” says Markus Krunegård when Loreen literally dances into the program.
A moment later she performs Eldkvarn’s song “Alice” from 1987. In a twenty-year-old clip from a concert in Helsinki, Plura Jonsson tells the audience that he had been commissioned to write his memoirs of Elvis Presley in a program sheet for a play in Norrköping . He was a little too young to remember the “king’s” heyday, so he wrote instead about how he sat at the window and looked out at raggers “who swore and screamed … and they also had beautiful girls”.
When Loreen read the lyrics “there is a way and a place in the sun” something clicked. However, she did not link the meaning to Norrköping raggers and good-looking girls, but to exclusion and the feeling of not belonging.
– Growing up with a single mother who lives on a subsistence level and being the oldest of five siblings … it does something to one. I grew up early and had an important role in the home, so that everyday life goes together at all, you help each other.
– But it also meant that I did not recognize myself in other children. And that feeling, not belonging, is very massive, says Loreen. In her music, she has never really told about her upbringing and the exclusion she experienced. Her biggest songs “Euphoria” and “My heart is refusing me” are instead about happy and unhappy love, but each thing has its time. Loreen has gained new insights over the years and the desire to tell her story has become increasingly important when she writes music.
– I can in a way feel that I do not belong anywhere, that I am without land and laws. But if I look at it constructively, I can jump and mediate between different perspectives and there is a knowledge in it – the more understanding we have for each other, the less problems we have.
She often mentions her mother during the interview, describing her almost as a symbol, an embodiment of a femininity and strength that Loreen admires. The mother fled Morocco to Europe as a 14-year-old to escape forced marriage, two years before giving birth to her first daughter, named Lorine Zineb Noka Talhaoui.
To escape marriage, perhaps, she got from her grandmother who dressed up as a man and left the city because her partner’s death meant another forced marriage. I ask Loreen if she feels guilty for having a different freedom than her role models in the family.
– I know about poverty, many of my relatives live in it. I probably do not directly feel a guilt towards them but a responsibility to manage what I have, and as a woman I feel a special responsibility towards the women in my family.
The 37-year-old singer is sitting upright at the edge of a sturdy sofa trying to swallow her. In the room, which she calls the pink room, mixes heavy scents of musk, vanilla and patchouli from light scented candles. The pink room does not have much to do with the color more than a rug, she has just come to call it that. Loreen does not live here, but she spends sometimes as much time in the studio it can feel so.
During the intense weeks on ”Så mycket bättre” she came especially close to Helen Sjöholm. There is something about the pulse and the view of music at Sjöholm that she recognizes herself in, she already knew that before the program.
– She is very grounded and she has such integrity. Even if she does not dive into sound frequencies quite like I do, we have a bit of the same view of music. I like when you have respect for what you do, and she has a great respect for her and others’ creativity.
What do you mean by frequencies?
– There are so many layers in a song. If you look at where I come from – I am Berber, the indigenous people of North Africa. We have a completely different way of looking at music, everything is energy. We use music to heal, open up or celebrate. We have a different respect for sound, and it does not necessarily have to be music.
In the program, Loreen interprets Helen Sjöholm’s “Du är min man”, the Swedish top hit that remained on the list for 278 weeks, ie five years. But even though Loreen felt close to Sjöholm spiritually, she experienced a great distance to the lyrics, at least at first.
– Here we are talking prejudice. I got frustrated with the storyboard, I judged it by what I come from and the women in my family have escaped. Like what? Is a woman submissive to her husband here? But it was interesting that I had to examine myself. Like why do I get pissed?
Yes, why did you get pissed?
– No, but I had this conversation in my own head. What does the song really say? Is it wrong to tell a man, or a woman, that I love you? Like giving such a naked, pants down-kind of declaration of love? We have had the metoo movement and like woman, woman, woman, but does that mean that a woman can not tell her partner that I love you and that I am here for you?
– Like “fuck you all, I do not need a man”, but I need a man, or a partner or whatever, to love me. It is not a weakness to express love, you are not a victim of it. That was what I wanted to explore in the song, like what’s going on inside me?
Something that definitely happened during ”Så mycket bättre” was that she got a taste for Swedish lyrics. The new music, which can be heard mixed in the room next door, is entirely in Swedish and will be released in February.
– I think you can see more and more that people listen to their mother tongue. Why is it like that? I think we have a great need to connect with people and understand. As soon as it is in English it is distanced, we throw ourselves with “I love you”, but we do not say “jag älskar dig”, why? Because it has a completely different effect.
The new project is “smaller than an album but larger than an EP”. She wants to treat each song as a single, because album tracks are often forgotten. The music is about her background and history, she has come to a place where she is in need of pulling down her pants on herself and “call a hammer for a hammer”.
– I have been able to play with the words in a completely new way and what I say becomes so much more precise and accurate. And it’s not harder to write in Swedish, it flows like hell. Sometimes it sneaks in a little Arabic but it follows naturally when I introduce my background. In the new music, Loreen moves in a landscape where attitude and heart cross. The lyrics are constructive and honest, she says.
Your latest album “Ride” was released in 2017, does it feel like you are making a comeback?
– It has been a search process for me. I have worked all the time … Today we feed out songs in a completely different way as well and I am Skalman (“Shellman”). But no, no comeback, I’ve always been here.
It feels pretty atypical Skalman to win Eurovision though?
– Yes, but I advocate for authenticity in the commercial. Take Adele, super-commercial but she is authentic and she speaks her truth and sings from the heart. Amy Winehouse as well. World stars who stay all have in common that they speak their truth. What they said then was that the Melodifestivalen is crap, that it is just bad music and nothing for real music connoisseurs. But I said no.
– I’m not a hipster, I do not want to belong to any elite group that sees themselves as more. I’m an artist, I’m the people’s artist. If someone says I’m something different, I’m just getting mad.
During the autumn, Loreen has had a role in the remake of the film “Vinterviken” where she makes the main character John-John’s mother. She works in parallel with an international film project where she is a co-producer and actress, but she does not want to say more than that.
– Or yes, I can say that the film has some musical elements and that you will like it.
LOREEN
Name: Lorine Zineb Noka Talhaoui
Born: 1983 in Åkerberga
Lives: in Stockholm and Gotland
Currently: participates in ”Så mycket bättre” where she interprets Eldkvarn’s “Alice” and Helen Sjöholm and Benny Andersson’s Orchestra’s “Du är min man”. She releases new music in February and also appears in the upcoming film “Vinterviken”.
Breakthrough: in “Idol” 2004 where she ended up in fourth place. In 2011 she participated in the Melodifestivalen with the song “My heart is refusing me”. The following year she competed with “Euphoria”, which won both in the Swedish competition and the entire Eurovision song contest which then took place in Baku, Azerbaijan.
• Source/Original interview: https://www.dn.se/kultur/loreen-jag-ar-ingen-hipster-jag-ar-folkets-konstnar/
• Photoshoot: http://gallery.lovely-loreen.com/thumbnails.php?album=689
• Translation: via Google Translate, the translation may not be completely accurate
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