Nina Nesbitt Breaks Down New Album Älskar Track by Track: Exclusive
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The post Nina Nesbitt Breaks Down New Album Älskar Track by Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.
For Nina Nesbitt‘s new record Älskar, available today, September 2nd, the singer-songwriter focused on getting to the core of everything. “Älskar,” the Swedish word the singer-songwriter chose to title the project, means “to love.”
“I feel like there’s always a few words or phrases you take with you into adulthood that carry such a sense of familiarity and comfort,” she tells Consequence. “‘Älskar dig’ was always something I heard my mother saying at the end of her long, melodic sounding phone conversations with my grandmother.”
This record, Nesbitt shares, is the result of introspection, fear, and loss. A first listen reveals her ability to jump between styles, with some tracks leaning more towards pop, others peeling back into acoustic ballad territory. A second, closer listen confirms that the thread that ties Älskar together is deeply honest songwriting.
“I wanted to look back, look around, look forward and write about it. It’s definitely my most vulnerable project yet,” Nesbitt explains. “It feels nerve-wracking to finally release it into the world, but I hope people will relate to the songs in whatever way they want and hopefully connect to them.”
Below, Nesbitt breaks down the stories behind her new album Älskar track by track.
“Gaol (intro)”:
I realize that calling an album something in a language that not everybody understands could be seen as a bit self-indulgent or isolating, so I really wanted to find a way to make people feel like it belonged to them too, no matter where they’re from. Gaol means “love” in Scottish Gaelic. I love how the two words with the same meaning bookend either side of the album.
I asked my followers on TikTok and Instagram to send me a voice note of them saying “I love you” in their native tongue. Whether [they were] saying it together with someone, to someone or simply just recording it into their voice recordings, I feel like each one tells a story. I absolutely love this intro, I think it has such a warm feeling to it. It really makes you remember how big the world is and how much love is out there (without sounding too hippie).
“Teenage Chemistry”:
This is the first track on the album and one of the first songs written. I wrote this with Swedish production duo Jack & Coke (Tove Lo, Charli XCX) and Shy Martin, who have all been a big part of this project. I really wanted to start at the beginning, when I met my boyfriend at 18, and write a song that captured the mad rush and thrill of falling in love when you’re younger. I wanted something that sonically felt like a song you would’ve heard on Skins back in the day. It feels like the perfect summary of the first time we were together.
“Pressure Makes Diamonds”:
This is probably the poppiest moment on the album. I wrote this the day after “Teenage Chemistry” with the same people. We just set up a mic and the whole top line came out almost in one go. It was very much a stream-of-consciousness. They’re always my favorite songs to write.
I’ve always been greatly inspired by Dolly Parton and her ability to write massive catchy pop songs that always have a slightly darker meaning when you read into the lyrics. For example, “9-5” makes so many points, yet sounds so fun and relatable. That was my intention with this song, not to sound bitter but to kind of tongue-in-cheek poke fun at being a woman in the music industry. Which isn’t always fun, by the way.
“No Time (For My Life to Suck)”:
This was such a fun song to write. It’s kind of ironic that we wrote it pre-Covid, it’s definitely taken on even greater meaning now. Obviously, it’s unrealistic that your life is never going to suck again, but it’s nice to imagine, isn’t it? It’s more of a mantra than a reality. Positive thinking, as simple as it sounds, is something that has changed my life.
I had the pleasure of writing this one in Max Martin’s studios in Stockholm with Elvira and Rickard Göransson. They’re some of my favorite collaborators, and I love what Elvira created with the production. She has a great way of making a song sound pop but also quirky. I’m most excited to play this one live on tour and hear everyone singing along, because we’ve added some guitars and it sounds even bigger.
“Dinner Table”:
This is one of my favorite songs I’ve written. It’s quite a niche concept but it seems like the people who do connect to it, connect to it in a really deep way. I think that’s my greatest wish as a songwriter. This song is about the three generations of women in my family, all growing up in different decades and eras, but still being able to relate to each other in such a magical way. There’s always been falling in love, coming of age, having your heart broken, etc., no matter what generation you grew up in. You might have just been wearing different clothes or soundtracking it with other songs.
My grandmother doesn’t speak much English, and while I’ve been learning Swedish, I’ve been able to understand more of her stories. My favorite line in the song is, “Still there’s magic in something as simple, as three women sitting round a dinner table.”. No matter how much the world progresses or evolves, there’s always going to be something special about people getting together and sharing their stories. Also, this was one of the few songs I wrote over Zoom and it wrote itself very quickly.
“When You Lose Someone”:
This song is another one of my favorites on the album. It’s a very personal song to me but I think it’s also relatable in many ways. After reading some of [fans’] messages, it’s been really comforting to know other people have gone through the same feeling, even if it’s a different situation. Grief can take on so many different forms. I just wanted to capture the feeling of loss. Whatever that means to the person listening. I don’t think it always has to necessarily mean someone has passed away. I wrote it on one of the Stockholm writing trips with one of my closest collaborators, Fanny Hultman, and the wonderful Simon Hassle.
“I Should Be A Bird”:
So, I’ve learned that I seem to be a huge “empath,” which has turned out to be a bit of an issue for me. I seem to absorb other people’s emotions too easily and take on their problems as my own. I feel such a great responsibility to fix things for everyone, and if I can’t, then I’m left with a horrible feeling of guilt. I was initially inspired by Dolly Parton’s “Eagle When She Flies” lyric — I just think it’s a really beautiful concept.
“Colours Of You”:
I’ve always been OBSESSED with ‘90s romcoms. Julia Roberts and Renée Zellweger are my queens. Moving down to London and falling in love in this city was such a magical experience. I genuinely felt like I was in a movie. Probably more Bridget Jones than Notting Hill, let’s be real. My boyfriend’s and my first date was to Winter Wonderland in 2012. I wrote a song called “Last December” about it on the last record [2019’s The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change], and it turned out to be a fan favorite, so I guess you could say this is the sequel.
The concept is basically “if someone is a painting, then this is the color palette that makes up the picture.” Falling in love is such a sensory experience. You can hear a song and be reminded of them, walk past someone with the same aftershave, cook a meal you both love, etc. It’s not until you get to know someone that these little memories start to form. After that I feel like they become like a luminous light in the middle of a crowd. “They might only see you in black and white, but I never do, I’m in love with the colors of you.”
“Limited Edition”:
This song is definitely the album’s wildcard. It’s the oldest song on there and I wrote it in Nashville in 2019. It’s about learning to accept yourself for exactly who you are. I feel like as you get older, you stop caring what people think about you as much and start embracing your weirdness. With the amount of slower songs on the album, I wanted another upbeat fun moment to break it up a bit. This song was a back and forth with lyrics for months, but I think we got there in the end! I reckon this one will be a great live track.
“Older Guys”:
This was one of the last songs I wrote for the album in my new home studio. I was sitting with a guitar, in my favorite open tuning, and it just kind of came out. It was a really easy song to write and I ended up producing it myself. I recorded live piano for the first time, which was pretty cool. It was originally just a voice note of me singing it in my living room so I wanted to keep the final version feeling lo-fi.
It’s lyrically quite a vulnerable song and I think the production reflects that. The song isn’t specifically about anyone, it’s more a story about something I’ve experienced and witnessed. It’s not until you’re older that you realize maybe some things feel weird looking back. I’ve had a lot of women relate to me on this subject and I’m glad it’s connected the way it has so far. I hope that younger people will listen to it and be reminded they shouldn’t feel pressure to grow up too fast or do things they aren’t comfortable with.
“Heirlooms”:
“Heirlooms” is by far the most mature song on the record, hence it being near the end. I think you can see there’s been years between some of the tracks on this album, but I like that. I think it’s a huge progression from [the lyric on] “Pressure Makes Diamonds” — “Everybody asks me when I’ll settle down and marry/ Have a baby, well I’m sorry” — to, “All the things I wanna give to you, I’ll pass them down like heirlooms.” It’s coming around to the idea of motherhood and becoming curious about what it might be like.
I wrote it with fellow Scot Dave Gibson — who I’ve never met in real life — over Zoom one evening. He’d just had his first child and as we got talking I said I had this concept in mind. It felt like the perfect meeting and the song just naturally flowed out. It’s one of my favorites on the album and makes me weirdly emotional.
“Älskar”:
And here we have the final track, “Älskar.” I wrote this with Jack & Coke and Shy Martin during that week when writing the first two tracks. I started a musical loop the night before from my hotel room, after listening to a lot of Sigur Ros, and brought it into the studio the next morning. Everyone seemed to like it, so we finished it together and it immediately felt like a closing track.
Svante [Halldin] is a secretly amazing trumpet player so he laid down some horns on the outro, which is one of my favorite production parts on the album. It feels so grand and final. I think the song really captures the theme of the album and everything going on at the time.
Nina Nesbitt Breaks Down New Album Älskar Track by Track: Exclusive
Mary Siroky
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