We have a myriad of 13th June releases to get through in the next few days, all of them in advance of the Nordic summer holiday shutdown which should give us some respite but tonight I wanted to focus on this one.
I always look forward to reviewing, or trying to review, something by Patrick El-Hag, who is one of those real characters in the business along with others like Denmark’s Slagger Lund, that really know how to push the envelope.
Just to put you in the picture, in autumn he will release a Swedish version of one of Julio Iglesias’s greatest hits. I rest my case.
This isn’t a new song, it is in fact a new version of an old one “in a deluxe wrapper”, namely ‘Stockholm i juli’, originally released in 2014. It was re-released last year as a 10th anniversary EP featuring a remix subtitled ‘Epic Euphoria’ – which, unlike the other tracks, was never released as a single, and never got its own subtitled YouTube clip either.
Unlike now.
The original is one of his most streamed and radio-played songs, hence his attachment to it.
Indeed, in 2022, readers of the Stockholm’s largest local newspaper Mitt i Stockholm voted it one of the best songs ever written about the city. A gospel about love and lust – with the city as its backdrop, as he says.
There’s a job always waiting for you at the Tourist Bureau if this songwriting lark ever goes tits-up, Patrick.
Nothing to do at all with the British comic character Ali G’s “me Julie” but couched in the same slightly crackpot tradition.
Now, another year on and we’re almost in July again and ‘Stockholm i juli (Epic Euphoria)’ reappears, this time in the form of a lyric video featuring as a still backdrop Viktor Flumé’s iconic cover photo of the couple embracing at the water’s edge, originally from 2014, and which was inverted for last year’s anniversary EP ‘Stockholm i juli (10th Anniversary Celebration).’
Or, to put it more poetically: a fuck at the edge of the world.
I tried to categorise Patrick’s style last time he was here and failed and I can’t do it again easily here. It seems to lie somewhere between chamber pop/rock, modern prog rock and Gregorian chants as rap.
But I’ll tell you what. It’s bloody catchy, too. And the second half is definitely epic.
I can imagine it becoming a support song for a female footballer.
“She can dribble, shoot and pass/
She’ll nutmeg you with a kick in the grass/
Leave you sprawling on your ass/ they call her Julie”.
I think that just about scans.
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickelhag/
