Name: Sofia Härdig
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer
Nationality: Swedish
Current release: Sofia Härdig's new album Lighthouse of Glass is out via Bark at your owner.
Recommendations for Sweden:
Stockholm: The archipelago. It’s was out on the islands I grew up. Forget about he royal castle and the tourist attraction. There is no similar place on earth. Thousands of islands.
Malmö: The beach in any season but the Summer.

If you enjoyed this Sofia Härdig interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and bandcamp.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

I started writing so early that I don’t even remember it. I always wrote. I started composing to car engines, vacuum cleaners, hairdryers, boat motors basically anything that made a sound. I thought that no one could hear me when I did that. Like I was safe within the sound. That’s the way I still feel. But I completely drove my parents insane …

I also played our LPs to pieces. My parents bought me headphones to get rid of the constant noise but that didn’t work out to well for them since I kept on singing. Also I hammered on my grandmother's out of tune piano that I had inherited. I was very frustrated with the notes that were out of tune and taught myself different tricks to play around those notes or use them in different ways. I also, like any other baby, dragged out everything that could make a sound in the kitchen and banged away on it, though just to a bit further extent then normal.

I also always wrote words down. I was addicted to reading. My dad used to read to me a lot, then I thought myself to read at a young age, digging into my parents' library and, of course, the forbidden sections were the most interesting. And I soon discovered that the library was filled with forbidden secrets that expanded my mind in all kinds of ways. I remember my teacher telling me in first grade that I would become a writer since I, when the other kids wrote a page, filled the whole note book; I just couldn’t stop writing.

I did start playing in bands when I was nine. When I was 14, I sort of completely moved into our rehearsal space and at a point played in nine bands at the same time. Since I left home early I supported myself though highschool by playing for food and drinks. (since I spent all my money on vinyl and going to see gigs, I was underage but the doormen in the local clubs supported my music obsession, and it was hard not letting me in one night and then see me on stage the next)

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

I find that when you listen to music or read, you enter another mind and follow that mind's thoughts in a unique way. So I would say connection, and expanding your mind and world view. It’s like a peak into someone else’s trail of thoughts.

You also enter worlds and situations you might never have experienced otherwise. I am also a very curios person. I can’t leave those books alone. I want to know what’s hiding within the pages.

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?
 
I remember Kate Bush moving me in a special way. The images and stories she conjures up, Also Nick Cave.

The feeling of understanding but not getting the full picture or understand completely. Something that keeps drawing me in and back to the song again and again. Lyrics that just don’t  leave you alone. Tom Waits also had the same impact on me. But I can not really separate the lyrics from the music - they're is so closely intertwined.

I was very happy when the critics, in their reviews of "PALE FIRE," focused on that aspect.

Have there been song lyrics which actually made you change (aspects of) your life? If so, what do you think, leant them that power?

Yes I think that has happened in both a larger perspective and a smaller one. Maybe not always right away but certainly long-term.

And maybe I was drawn to those lyrics because something within me was willing or on it’s way to change and that drew me to those songs.

It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

Yes there is a lot more you can say through music than words alone. Together they're unbeatable.

Words are music, music are words.

I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

Yes I also see those similarities. Music can change the mood of a whole room without using words. You can also work with the contrast between the words and the music in a unique way.

For instance, I play with that aspect in “In Silence” where I sing “We rise in silence” and the song is nothing but silence.



The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it? In how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?

Sometimes the simplest of words can do it all in a piece of music. You can go places you would never have on just a piece of paper with a simple phrase repeated over and over again. You rediscover the words in the music.

In my own music think that “Kingdom Come” is an example of that. How I play with the biblical aspects, horns and some of the lyrics; though my take on it is very different.



What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

I seem to be obsessed with silences and different shades of it. Which is quite interesting since what I do is noise.

My previous album was called this big hush. It has a song called SILENCE and this album has one song called "IN SILENCE" so …

On the basis of a piece off your most recent release, tell me about how the lyrics grew into their final form and what points of consideration were.

For instance the song “Lighthouse of glass” which I see as the centerpiece of the album.



I kept writing a story on this theme that is hidden beneath it. It was as special feeling I kept scribbling down. I had these clear images in my head that we tried also to incorporate into the photoshoot of the album. A lit lighthouse of glass. A woman pressing herself towards the glass to get out. I was also inspired by Pipilotti Rist intallation ”Open my glade.”

So I had written a long song cycle / short stories on this centerpiece. I had bits of pieces of different stories happening on this album all over my walls at home. It filled up my note books, and notes and voice messages on my phone. I read extensively.

I wrote a song daily for the whole album and 100 of other songs still waiting to be finished. I picked up the guitar or sat down by the piano or both. For the song “Lighthouse of glass” I picked up the guitar and improvised over a part of the lyrics and more or less recorded the song in its finished form in one take.

Do you tend to start writing with what will be the first line of the finished lyrics? The chorus? At a random point? What are the words that set the process in motion?

I think I don’t know what the part will be when I start. I let me be led by intuition to where and what the song will be. There is a lot written that never enters the song or the lyrics.

Hemingway  said of his writing that you have to write a lot before the story begins. I can only agree.

I'd love to know how you think the meaning or effect of an individual song is enhanced, clarified or possibly contradicted by the EPs, or albums it is part of. Does the song, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

I think the songs both can enhance and contradict each other. A song's meaning can be changed by where it is placed on an album. That storytelling of the order of the songs is very interesting.

You are in a specific phase of your songwriting when you're working on a bunch of songs for an album which does make them consistent or belonging together although they can contrast each other.

It’s also common that songs are born as twins though the listener might not experience the similarities between them. Just like twins can look very different. Examples of that are “Kingdom Come” and “Crown.” They stem from the same root.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

Yes it does have to feel or sound right. That is the difference of writing poetry or lyrics as I was referring to earlier. It’s not enough that it looks right on paper.

Although sometimes it can take a while to get a phrase to sound right. And some phrases that you’ve been banging your head against, thinking it is not a good phrase, can end up being one of the most interesting of the song. It just took a bit longer for them to find their way to do it. Or the way that it stands out can bring something important to the song in the fact that it stands out and doesn’t sound like it fits.

The beginning of “Collision” was like that to me. In the first verse I sing:  ”And I could see your face so close to me.” It’s wrong in the phrasing and length to the melody. But that is the way it should be and I find that it is the irregularities that makes the verse interesting.



About singing someone else’s song. When I do I really need to get to know the words and make them my own. Discover them and get them inside my body. It’s like a door you need to find to enter into someone else’s lyrics. That journey can be very interesting.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

You never know a song. It keeps on telling you through the years and listeners and critics what it is about. As soon as songs are out in the world they are not mine anymore and I actually find it really interesting to get feedback on what they are about. It often surprises me and I can be like ”yeah actually that is a really interesting listening of the song”.

Also sometimes people have misheard words which makes the listen new. On my song “Collision” I have had a lot of feedback and messages from fans that gained a lot of support from the song. One listener even told me that it always came on her listening platform as soon as she was close to one of the places that could have been but never actually became her home. Like the song knew when she needed it.

To me that is one of the most exciting experiences. When I’ve been able to channel something that I haven’t been able to really connect to or talk about with others, but through the music that connection is made.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I bypass my brain and rely on my subconsciousness. It’s a great relief of letting go of control. Maybe I should try that though when making coffee …

Do you have things that you are passionate about rarely get to talk about?  

Oh since I am a super nerd there are lots of those things so you might regret getting me started. I am, as said, a bookworm and could talk about books for ages, both poetry and prose.

I am really passionate about the production process and how to go about the instrumentation, the distillation of ideas and the enhancing of them. I am obsessed with finding good reverb. It is very sensitive on vocals and I love diving into talks on the subject. Delay is a different matter and I am into that too.

I can go mad on autobiographies about artist, especially performance artist like Laurie Andersson, Marina Abramovic and Yoko Ono. And their instructions on performances. Anything old, clothes furnitures, teacups, plates, guitars. I live in a house from 1642 and all my stuff is old.

I also have an obsession with fish. I have to go to the fish counter in a good shop and look at all the fish I find them utterly beautiful

And most people don’t know this but I was once, as a kid, the Swedish female in-sailing champion and raced for Sweden a couple of years as a minor on the grown-up team. But when I came of proper age I quit since the music started to take up all of my time

As a teenager I had a lamb in my bathtub since I worked extra during my studies at a sheep farm and had rescued a motherless one. I am also really into traveling by train which is great for a touring musician.

I also spent a large part of the time during the production of Lighthouse of glass doing the method by Maria Abramovic. I actually did every single exercise of the card in that deck in order, not skipping a single day. People I have spoken with are really taken aback. DId you do them!!! People have that deck of performance cards but very few actually do them. They say they are just to be read and inspired by. I don´t get that. I am a too curious. I can’t just let them be there I have to try.

I also have an obsession with Yoko Ono's performance instruction books Grapefruit and Acorn. They are a challenge to me.