A higher power
Jens Lekman live in Bologna, Il Covo, 23/04/2005

Dear Jens,
I don't remember the last time I cried. Usually I don't remember many things: my dreams when I wake up in the morning, or the name of the girl I met yesterday, or my nephews' birthday.
But tonight in Bologna, in the front row at your concert, I realized that I don't remember the last time I cried. And it seemed to me a strange kind of lack.
Then I was crying. For such a long time.

It was not for the things you were singing about. Even if tonight we discovered we still know the lyrics.
It was not for the smile of the cellist to us dancing and shouting, or the fleeting one that appeared on your face when you heard us singing the chorus.
It was not for the lovely unplugged encore of Sweet summernight on Hammer Hill, with the microphone leaned on your chest on the verse "can you hear the beat of my heart".
Maybe it was merely the fact that you were here, in our old place, with Higher power and then Black cab just at the beginning of the setlist, and that I couldn't stop thinking about the far away person who teached me these songs.
Or maybe it was for those pictures we took when we saw you for the first time, last year in Sweden, and the music I can still hear when I look at them. It's a music that talks about the time we spent listening to it. About loneliness and its opposite at the same time. About not forgetting the last time you cried, and a music that reminds you how to smile.
Thank you.

Jens Lekman, crying autograph