The Cardigans

Released: August 12, 1996

Songwriter: Peter Svensson Nina Persson

Producer: Tore Johansson

[Intro]
Close your eyes

[Verse 1]
Look at all these losers, you find them everywhere
They're fucked up and annoying but somehow you seem to care
It's easier to laugh but something makes you stick around
You can't watch from above and keep your ten toes in the sand

[Pre-Chorus]
You wish that you were special
I'm just like you

[Chorus]
Close your eyes
That'll be the day you'll find those lies
Fold your ears
That'll be the day that you will hear
Close your eyes
That'll be the day you'll find those lies
That'll be the day you get back home

[Verse 2]
It's lonely to be strange and you would never tell
That you're one of these itches you know it much too well
Losers are your weakness, they will always touch your heart
You are touching me as well 'cause I have always been a part

[Pre-Chorus]
You wish that you were special
I'm just like you
You're just like me
We're just like them
They're just like us

[Chorus]
Close your eyes
That'll be the day you'll find those lies
Fold your ears
That'll be the day that you will hear
Close your eyes
That'll be the day you'll find those lies
Fold your ears
That'll be the day that you will hear
That'll be the day you get back home

One of the most pleasing pop groups of the ‘90s, the Cardigans specialized in sugary confections that would grow annoying very quickly if they weren’t backed by solid musicianship and clever arrangements. The band’s 1995 breakout album, Life, reflected the Cardigans at their most saccharine – the sunny disposition of vocalist Nina Persson being the major argument in favor – and critics inserted the group into the space age pop revivalist camp. the Cardigans later proved that they were more difficult to pigeonhole, however.

Even the band’s origins showed that their later appearance was quite misleading; two heavy metal fanatics formed the group in October 1992 in Jonkoping, Sweden. Guitarist Peter Svensson met bassist Magnus Sveningsson in a hardcore group, though he had previously trained in music theory and jazz arranging. The two later grew tired of metal and decided to form a pop band with vocalist Nina Persson – an art-school friend who had never sung professionally – plus keyboard player Lars-Olof Johansson and drummer Bengt Lagerberg.

All five Cardigans moved into a small apartment in 1993 and began recording a demo tape that entered the hands of producer Tore Johansson later that year. He liked what he heard and invited the group to record at his Malmö studio. Signed to the dance-oriented Stockholm label, the Cardigans released Emmerdale in May 1994. The single “Rise & Shine” became a hit on Swedish radio soon after the release of the LP, and a readers poll in Sweden’s Slitz magazine voted Emmerdale the best album of 1994.

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