Theinimitable Slagger Lund returns with his third and final single, ‘Flixbus ud’ (FlixBus out’), prior to the release of his album ‘Noias Ark’ on 24thSeptember.
For the uninitiated FlixBus is a German cheap travel long distance bus company with services throughout Europe and indeed across the world. Just like Megabus in the UK which was better known until it was usurped by FlixBus. I used to know musicians that made regular Megabus journeys up from London to Manchester every Friday night to play gigs or rehearse, burying forever the idea of ‘rock music gods’ showing up in Lamborghinis or chauffeur driven Bentley Turbos, with groupies hanging on to the rear bumper.
I’m starting to sound like a bus anorak here and I’ve got the observation logs, photos and timetables to prove it! – So let’s move on.
The title suggests travel as a metaphor for something more profound, like Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Homeward Bound’, written on a desolate, deserted railway station platform between Manchester and Liverpool, or Chris Rea’s ‘Driving home for Christmas’ (sadly he never made it).
But Slagger’s take is even more philosophical, albeit in his traditionally whimsical manner.
He confirms that ‘Flixbus ud’ is a humourous song but only in a polarising way. Humour and pain reinforcing one another (as they do). Yin and Yang. Lines propelling themselves forward, like a bus making its way home across the country. Time’s arrow and all that. But at the same time ‘out and back’—a central theme with no actual arrival. The pause is half the movement he says, adding “The pause is a joke.”
What I’ve discovered about Slagger over the last few years is that he’s either a philosopher at par with the likes of compatriot Søren Kierkegaard or just a bloke who jots stuff on the back of an envelope at the pub and turns them into song and text before the next morning.
Somehow I reckon he falls somewhere between the two.
In this case the song lyrics were written – well, here’s a surprise – on a Flixbus between Copenhagen and Aarhus. The night before, he had enjoyed a “lovely yet surprisingly melancholic—celebration with some of the key people involved in his then recently released album, ‘Nygade & Væk’.
The emptiness he’d heard so much about regarding the release of a work—the act of “setting it free”—suddenly felt overwhelming as he sat in his seat on the bus home. The loneliness. The sense of existence as the bus dragged itself across the country, moving toward the unknown.
You know, that’s pretty deep stuff but once again I offer my evidence, M’lud, that Slagger can rarely been taken at face value. Check these lyrics for example (translated by Slagger, I’m just the messenger):
“Take me to IKEA
If that’s the place where you don’t just have to put yourself back together
If that’s the place where it makes sense to be sad about… it
Where is there a rapper when you need one?”
It sounds (as with the rest of the lyrics) like it means something profound existentially but he’s merely referring to Danish pop culture artists.
He concludes that he is, “Just one songwriter among many, with the feeling that I might just as well be selling used cars or bikinis.”
That he is like an absurd, resigned jukebox skipping through various songs in a forgotten bar and the lines wrote themselves, just for him.
But that’s where I have to disagree with Slagger. I often wish we had someone, anyone, remotely like him in the UK. We used to have. But that was long ago, before Spotify killed the jukebox star.
He is at once wholly original and a regurgitated Hamlet, freed from Elsinore Castle to travel the world on a FlixBus, writing his songs with the freedom of a Yorick, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
‘Flixbus ud’ features Nikolaj Paakjaer (solo, Hymns from Nineveh etc).
Oh, and there’s a bonus – a ‘B-side’ even – a “hazy living room love song”, ‘Rumtosset’ (a play with the Danish word ‘Rundtosset’ which means dizzy … while RUM means Room).
It’s a sweet, neat little piece of Nordicana, verging on bluegrass in places, and quite unexpected.
(Continues after the YouTube and Spotify links)
The album (LP, CD, stream and ‘home videos’) all land on 24th September via the Melodika label).
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slaggerlund
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slagger_lund/
