Jens Lekman’s “Who Really Needs Who” Knows It’s Hard to Make Friends as an Adult
Jens Lekman’s “Who Really Needs Who” is a dispatch from the first day of the new year. “January first, 2018 / I’m writing you now, Annika Norlin,” he begins, and he means that: the song is the first missive in Correspondence, a monthly back-and-forth song exchange between Lekman and fellow Swedish indie-pop musician Annika Norlin (who’s recorded as Hello Saferide and Säkert!).
Lekman is the type of guy who really goes for ambitious projects: In the past, he’s written weekly singing “Postcards” and asked fans to give him real-life stories to be turned into songs. Following last year’s more traditional album Life Will See You Now, he’s back to unorthodox presentations. The lyrical dateline gives “Who Really Needs Who” the immediacy of breaking news, but Lekman finds room to meditate on the nature of friendship, and how difficult it can be to…