Lena Philipsson about her new book “In the event of my death”

Why does Lena Philipsson not have a cat?

She likes cats very much. A cat could bring her joy. There are really no obstacles to having one, except for Lena Philipsson herself. “The responsibility would feel like a tangled ball that I would not sort out until the cat was dead,” she writes in a passage in her new autobiographical book.

Lena Philipsson can not stand the unfinished. Counts down until she can tick off the list: Small things like cleaning and cooking, big things like an ongoing tour or a show. Put an end, stow away, be done. A cat would not be able to tick off the list for many years.

– I see everything in several steps forward all the time to avoid surprises. It applies to my whole existence, I have it drawn: I want to be finished sometime. But you never really get ready, life does not work that way! Still, I try to structure my life all the time. I count down, and count down, until it’s done. Why? Is it only when I stop thinking? On to the next thing.

Lena Philipsson is 56 years old and has had a long, successful artist career since she was twenty. The big breakthrough came in 1986 when she came second in the Melodifestivalen and got a Swedish top hit with “Love is eternal”.

Then everything took off. Record contract with Bert Karlsson’s Marianne Records, a long-standing collaboration with songwriter Torgny Söderberg. The rock train, pub shows, more Melodifestivaler and finally a victory with “It hurts” 2004. Big concerts. About twenty Swedish top songs and about the same number of track hits. Program manager jobs, musical roles, actor jobs. A total of 14 albums; the latest was “Mary Magdalene” 2020.

Still, no one really knows that much about Lena Philipsson. “Special”, she can be described as by people who met her. “Determined.” Vague words, but they still say a lot.

Her book is called “In case of my death”. She begins it with a fictional conversation with the Margaretha Krook statue outside Dramaten in Stockholm.

– I suddenly came to think of her, and that not much was known about her. I have always liked her, she was fun, good at drama. But her private life was never in public, not even after she passed away. She wanted it that way.

– And so I thought that will be the case with me too. I’m secret. Private.

Why was that a difficult thought?

– It was not difficult, I just understood that it would be so. And I wanted to give a complete picture of myself. Of course, I’ve been wondering if this is really necessary. Who should read this? But it is well for those who are interested in who I am, what my language looks like. And so it was fun to write. Fun to formulate myself, fun to open the door to topics I do not touch on in regular interviews.

The book consists of personal small essays on different themes. Family and upbringing are discussed, the relationship to creation and artistry, thoughts about getting older and about change. An image of a person with strong integrity emerges. Need for control, if you will.

The work with the book was a liberation process, she says. A breakaway attempt. Mainly from herself and her own personality.

– I have been public all my adult life, and I have thought about what it has done to me. I am introverted, low-key, have crouched down and hid and looked down at the ground as soon as I moved outside my home. If someone shouts my name in town, I can be flushed by a feeling of embarrassment, it feels embarrassing. I’m thinking of it, so that there will be no strange headlines. But should a few newspapers control my life? I have gotten a little older and can not hide as much anymore, can not keep up the guard.

– Now I’m ready to write it. I had never done it ten years ago, but it’s less charged now. It is suddenly possible.

Getting older is that become someone else. Lena Philipsson describes it as if she has “switched her synapses” – become safer and less sensitive.

On a few occasions in the book, she writes about something else that has emerged in the last decade – health problems. Heart palpitations and double beats. ECG and blood pressure measurements. I ask if that crisis is part of the reason why she wrote the book – but for the first time during our conversation, she answers short and to the point.

– No, it had nothing to do with it, absolutely not. It was a period of prolonged stress that ended that way.

How are you today?

– Good. Just great. Those were stressful years that apparently came to me. I was surprised myself, but that was it.

One may wonder where from Lena Philipsson’s need for control is coming. Personally, I think it might be about that incident in “Jacob’s ladder”.

As a 21-year-old, after the breakthrough with “Love is eternal”, Lena Philipsson was named Sweden’s sexiest woman. The male equivalent was Sven Wollter. They were both invited to Jacob Dahlin’s popular talk show. In the clip from the program, Sven Wollter – at the time as old as Lena Philipsson’s father – sits in a suit in a leather armchair and sucks on a pipe. Lena Philipsson lies on a tiger trap on the floor and sings “Teach me tiger”, snuggling around Wollter like a cat. In retrospect, she has said, perhaps not that she regrets it, but that it was beyond her control.

I ask about that moment, if that was when she decided to always think three steps ahead. She defends herself against the, perhaps simplified, explanation. But she learned something from it.

– I did not know about it in advance. No one had said anything. And I wanted to remember it for next time: Best to ask what’s going to happen, no more surprises. If you look at the clip now, you see that I was not really that lightly dressed, I had a shirt and tie. But I was 21, shy and shitty and embarrassed, and would seduce Sven Wollter. I liked Jacob Dahlin very much, and I knew he had humorous elements in the program. But that scenario had not happened today. Because of metoo and much more.

– But it happened then. And I can well bid on it. It’s a clip everyone can laugh at.

In his performance “I’m not a darling” Lena Philipsson used herself for that particular scene, but turned the roles around. She was sitting in the armchair with a pipe. A guy was lying in small glittery underwear on a trap.

– It was very much appreciated. I think I have usually taken control of my place as a woman on a stage. It was probably right at the beginning that I followed the current and thought that the adults know how to do it, I did not question much.

She started writing songs and singing when she was very young. She grew up in a creative home, her father played drums and her mother sang, both painted. But it was not a home where you had big dreams. Nor was it a home where you showed your feelings.

– Not with words. It was loving in such a way that there was never any doubt or uncertainty that it was a stable home. But the nice emotional words were not used that much. I have developed during my journey in the music industry – where you hug, the emotions should be on the table when you are on stage. I have started to explore that side more, getting used to being emotional.

She says she never really had any vision of artistry. That she could not imagine what it would look like. That she only took the chance when she got it. That the contradiction that followed her throughout her life – being a deeply public person and at the same time shying away from the public – still works, because there was no other alternative.

– The reason I do what I do is that I have a talent and a talent. I can sing, I can write songs and scripts, I’m good on stage. I got an opportunity and a chance – not everyone gets it, so I have to take it and try, even though it’s scary.

– All the creative, music, color, image, form, humor, clothes – I think it’s great fun. That is the work itself. Then other things on the purchase, interviews, will be judged, the public, will be recognized on the beach. But it has been worth it.

In a passage in the book, you write about the cliché where all famous people should share their trauma. And then you play with the idea that “think about my whole career is a big abuse”. It’s written in a rallied way – but I have the feeling that there is a grain of seriousness there anyway?

– It is meant exactly as you describe it – with humor, but there is also a sincere wonder before that question. It has taken some effort on my part to be able to stand there and look right into the camera, with all that it has meant to me. But … I have no answer to that. The only thing I know is that I would not want to be without all the years in the industry. There is so much that has been wonderful, to develop as a human being, to play and be creative and create music, the meeting with the audience. So it’s probably not an abuse. I can only state that I have my personality type. It has cost a little, it has.

I ask what there is for the disadvantages of living the way she does, so aware of the effort / reward equation, so focused on ticking off the list.

– The downside is that I do not have a cat.

– I might miss fun things if I give up something because it feels tangled. I am always fascinated by others, who have cats, dogs, do lots of things. Then I feel: How nice to escape.

Fascinated and satisfied at the same time?

– Yes, it’s not for me. But what great to be like that, and still be able to laugh. I would be busy getting everything together.

The book ends with the words “someday I will come”. Will you know when you arrive?

– Good question. I really feel very good where I am today. But I do have a dream that I should just … that it should stop feeling like a mess that needs to be sorted out. But we’ll see. Maybe I’m already there? Maybe that’s just the way I am.

Siw Malmkvist: “As an artist, I have been a really cowardly devil”