Lekman had long corresponded with author David Levithan, who co-wrote the 2006 novel Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, before they collaborated on songs for a novel, also called Songs for Other People’s Weddings, about a fictional but familiar wedding singer. But then, rather than just recording the songs he wrote for the book, Lekman went further, delving into the characters’ POVs to create a Sinatra-inspired standalone musical. Appreciating the resulting album isn’t contingent on the book—it’s pure Lekmanalia. But it’s contingent on how much pleasure you can stand. If the record has a defect besides the preciousness that Lekman, to his devotees, turns into an indispensable virtue, it’s the whopping length. My nervous system just can’t endure 17 tracks of uncut Jens at once; it’s a giddy squee! sustained for 80 minutes. But it has variety and inspiration throughout, and it works great when taken in two chunks, one spinning a relationship together and the other gently tugging it apart.
The story traces the arc of the romance between J, the Lekman proxy, and V. They meet at a wedding where all the guests are dressed as songs (he’s “Raspberry Beret,” she’s “Crazy in Love”), and after taking a pill that tastes like hairspray, they fall into the playful connection that will define their intimacy. It’s about being in love while also being love’s outsider, both participant and observer, a split that blurs the line between life and music—as Lekman adores doing. When V moves overseas, seeking space, J starts booking gigs just to be near her. Throughout, V is powerfully sung by Matilda Sargren, whom Lekman recruited through a youth orchestra in his hometown. V has the last word on their relationship, and J learns that his music’s purpose is not to bottle permanence but to celebrate connection, however fleeting.
The music has as many moods as love does: now light and irrepressible, now crackling with an erotic charge, then turning tentative or questioning, cozy or desolate. Duets peel off into monologues; what was joyous returns as profound. Lekman’s storytelling is exceptionally detailed and funny, kind of like a Swedish David Sedaris, and his wedding-singer avatar gives him a chorus of toothsome characters and milieus to weave through J and V’s evolving dynamic. “GOT-JFK” kicks off an ingenious suite set at a performance-art wedding in Brooklyn; later J finds himself at a singles table in Leipzig with “two sisters who look like Patty and Selma from The Simpsons/An elderly man whose lungs sound like a broken whistle/And a man who’s the embodiment of a full blown incel.” We come to realize that Lekman’s side hustle, rather than taking away from his songwriting, must inestimably feed it.
