Your guides by the CD-player: Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson.

Crush on You

Marie Fredriksson: No changing in the weather…

Per Gessle: …no Elvis in the leather.

Marie: Says it all, doesn’t it?

Per: An obvious album opener.

Wish I Could Fly

Per: A lot of Roxette’s trademark is our voices and the way we produce our songs, so if you’ve followed us you’ll feel at home with a lot of the new stuff. But it should never sound like a copy of something you’ve already done. It has to be fresh. That’s why we chose “Wish I Could Fly” as the first single.

Marie: It’s very Roxette-ish, but also very much now.

Per: Well, it’s not exactly the production of “Listen to Your Heart”. As I said, we’ve tried to do something that’s 1999, without missing what’s our fundamental strength: Marie’s great capacity as a singer and simple songs.

Marie: My great capacity and your simple songs – hey, I liked that.

You Can’t Put Your Arms Around What’s Already Gone

Per: Christoffer Lundqvist brought his mini-moog to the studio. As you can hear on this track. There’s a lot of old synths buzzing around on the album.

Marie: Christoffer has been an extraordinary resource on this album – both as musician, inspirer and vocal arranger. A really fun guy to work with.

Per: Took the tram around the bay…

Marie: …everybody tells you to have a nice day!

Per: Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

Waiting for the Rain

Marie: I wrote eight or nine songs. We recorded three and then two made it on the album. One day I just had this title, “Waiting for the Rain”, and wrote the song in five minutes.

Per: I’ve been at you over the years for not writing enough uptempo-songs. But the first five songs you came up with was uptempo-songs – and that was before you wrote “Waiting for the Rain”. So I don’t think it’s five minutes of inspiration. It’s a process.

Marie: Yeah, I write my songs on the piano – and they tend to be ballads. But I got a kick when we were recording in Spain. At home, with the kids, I find it hard to get the peace to concentrate on songwriting.

Per: The more kids you get, the faster songs you write. They’re done quicker.

Marie: Probably.

Per: Beside that, there’s more “na-na-na’s” here than in “Na-Na-Na-Na (Kiss Him Goodbye)”. So that should qualify us to the Guinness Book of Records. If they accept that as a world record.

Anyone

Per: If you like Roxette, you’ll probably love this one.

Marie: Yeah, it’s very much us. Originally chosen to be the first single.

Per: Which is why we decided to let it wait a while. It’s a bit too predictable to serve as an appetizer for this… hrm… highly original album. But its time will come.

It Will Take a Long, Long Time

Per: More strings. Bring out the handkerchiefs.

Marie: What was it you said… “my great capacity and your simple songs…”

7Twenty7

Marie: Not my favourite, really.

Per: It was actually off the album at one point. But it made on again in the final stage. Talk about survival instinct. Has to mean something.

Marie: Maximum volume in the boy’s room.

Per: It’s a long, long journey to the other side…

I Was so Lucky

Per: If Robbie Williams had “Careless Whisper” on his album, he’d sell more albums than anybody else.

Marie: Excuse me, but what are you talking about?

Per: Nothing, really. But sometimes all that separates you from world domination is a sax solo.

Stars

Marie: Shameless pop. With a mini-moog and a children’s choir.

Per: Keith Emerson goes clubbing. And yeah, there’s probably nothing that threatens your credibility as much as bringing in a children’s choir. So obviously we had to have one. He who dares wins.

Marie: I haven’t heard a children’s choir since “Sing” with The Carpenters.

Per: The Carpenters? I thought you were listening to “Machine Head” with Deep Purple in those days. Finally the truth is creeping in.

Salvation

Per: Time to dust off the old Bic lighter.

Marie: This is good evidence that it pays to take your time and let the album mature in its own time.

Per: Well, this certainly is no filler. One of my favourites, really.

Marie: One of your fourteen favourites on the album, that is.

Pay the Price

Marie: The intro is Per pretending to be The Artist Formerly Knows As Prince, doing “Raspberry Beret”.

Per: The Artist Formerly Knows As… are you kidding? Eric Carmen and Raspberries would be more like it.

Marie: Let’s say it’s bubblegum with a raspberry flavour then.

Per: Check out the hand claps.

Cooper

Marie: Agent Cooper?

Per: Or Alice Cooper?

Marie: Don’t ask me, you wrote it.

Per: The idea came from the Cooper racing car, the kind that Jim Clark used to win the 60’s Indianapolis races with. But if you say “Cooper”, people will naturally assume that it’s a man. So I decided that Cooper was a woman. And it becomes something different. A little short story… just like that.

Marie: Just like that… that’s Tommy Cooper.

Per: Oh, stop it.

Staring at the Ground

Per: I think this lands in a very interesting middle ground, just between uptempo and ballad.

Marie: Nothing for the dance floor, but a good album track. A lot of interesting things going on in the background. I like it.

Per: What do you mean, nothing for the dance floor? I can dance to this. Give me a bottle of wine and I’ll show you.

Beautiful Things

Marie: This feels like the beginning of a new way to work. I got this very beautiful lyric from Per and wrote the music from that. It was very inspiring.

Per: I was stuck. And then Marie came back with this melody. What a wonderful chorus.

Marie: First time we’ve done it that way.

Per: But not the last.