Hello and welcome back to another blog post! For this week’s New Girls post I will be discussing the Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit, which is made up of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg. Their mother teaches cinematography and their father was a member of the Swedish rock band Loilita Pop, but decided to go into teaching history and religion once his daughters were born. Both Johanna and Klara took an interest in music when they were young, singing all the time, learning guitar, and even songwriting. Klara chose their band name by looking in the dictionary, finding: “first aid kit”; she wanted their music to be that for those who listened. In 2007 the girls started uploading their songs to MySpace and sending their music to radio stations. The girls then began to perform, however, they were limited to weekend performances only since Klara was only 14 at the time. With their music getting out to the world the girls signed with the label Rabid Records, under the conditions that the girls would have total control over their music and album art, which is really awesome! This is so important because many record companies don’t let artists have that kind of control, especially artists as young as Johanna and Klara. They changed their record labels twice, going from Wichita to Columbia. The duo has had a ton of success with their music, making five albums and four EPs. If you are not familiar with Swedish artists, definitely take a look at their music. The Swedes know what they are doing with music. I have a friend who went to MTSU with me who was from Sweden and we wrote some songs together. I am very impressed with Sweden’s musical talents.
Alright, moving on to the song review. Today I will be discussing First Aid Kit’s hit song Silver Lining, which is featured on their 2014 album: Stay Gold. In the beginning of the song you can hear violins, drums, and guitar. I definitely get a western vibe from it, which I feel does a great job of symbolizing the message of the song: life can be rough but there is always a silver lining. I also love the way in which the lyrics are being sung; I get a Bob Dylan kind of style from it. This song has such encouraging lyrics, especially during these hard times. “Gotta keep on going, looking straight out on the road. Can’t worry ‘bout what’s behind you or what’s coming for you further up the road.” I don’t know how everyone’s life is going right now, but I personally needed to hear this. Sometimes in life you have to take everything one step at a time and just have faith that everything will work out. Throughout the verses the rhythm of the lyrics is pretty fast, and during the chorus you get a nice break from that as there are longer notes being held out. I also enjoy the added harmony in the vocals. In the second verse we finally hear the title of the song: “Something good comes with the bad. A song’s never just sad. There’s hope, there’s a silver lining. Show me my silver lining.” I really like how the title isn’t in it’s usual spot, which is the chorus. It’s not a good “commercial” move but I always thought it artsy when artists did this.
I hope you all enjoyed this week’s post. As always please like and leave comments. Let me know if there is an artist you would like to see on here! I love to write about up and coming artists!
Author: Lydia MacDavid
Chief Editor: Jacob Tomeny