Lykke Li
Lykke Li
Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson, known as Lykke Li, is a Swedish singer, songwriter and model. Her music often blends elements of indie pop, dream pop and electronic; instruments in her songs include violins, synthesisers, tambourines, trumpets, saxophones, cellos, and African drums. Li possesses the vocal range of a soprano. Li's debut album, Youth Novels, was released in 2008. Her second album, Wounded Rhymes, was released in 2011, followed by her third album, I Never Learn, in 2014...
NationalitySwedish
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth18 March 1986
CityYstad, Sweden
CountrySweden
I always want to keep things unwritten. I'm inspired by Bob Dylan, who's kept evolving and changing his sound. I think that's what you should do as an artist. Why be comfortable?
It would be amazing if people listened to it when they needed shelter; it would be lovely if they didn't spit on it.
I can cry myself to sleep because I'm not as great as Leonard Cohen, but who cares? Maybe you can't be as great as some people, but it's a tragedy when you don't follow your dreams.
I was going on this desert adventure with some friends and we were like, "How amazing would it be to just drag all these mirrors out there?" A lot of times I do things as an impulse and find out my inspirations afterward. Even with songs and lyrics, it can take me years to find out what I was actually trying to do.
I probably thought that about most of the things I did. But you wind up in situations where you have to make decisions very quickly, and you just go for it a lot of the time.
I remember watching Romeo + Juliet when I was 14 and listening to the soundtrack. When I hear that soundtrack now, all those emotions come back. It's really beautiful when you're at a certain point in your life where most of the adventure lies ahead of you. And it's a sad thing when you feel like you've lost that. But you can get it back.
I do it live on tape with a band. It's not like I'm doing electronic music with a laptop.
I'm not so interested in being indie just for the sake of being indie.
It's not a very sane thing to try to be great all the time. You want to make something magical; you want to make something wonderful; you want to give to everybody; you want to heal people; you want to still be inspired. That's not easy.
I don't necessarily love all the collaborations that I've done; the more I work with other people, the more I realize that I want to work with myself.
Do you have to have emotional turmoil to create music? I'm not sure because I've never been without it
I was 21 and homeless - such a broken, lost woman.
I want people to have a good time. Its boring only to hear singer/songwriters spilling their guts.
Los Angeles is such a mysterious place because there's so much evil in that city, but there's also so much light. You can be totally alone on a hillside and I love that kind of secluded, deserted rawness.