Catching Up With… I’m From Barcelona

Paste: Back to your new album, how did you choose “Paper Planes” as the single? Did you anticipate getting a lot of flak about it sharing its name with the M.I.A. song?
Lundgren: Well, when I made the song, and I made it almost 2-3 years ago, I didn’t even know about the M.I.A. song. It was a relief that I loved that song. And it was shock when I heard there’s this new song called “Paper Planes.” And I changed the name of our song 2-3 times, maybe 5 times—a lot of times. But then when it was time to decide, when I had to decide because we were doing the album cover, I thought, you know, what the hell, it’s pop music… I thought about calling the song “Fingernails” but the imagery kind of became a bit disgusting, so it became “Paper Planes” instead. I guess it’s a nice thing to do as a meditation. I did it a lot as a kid, but It would be fun to do now from a tall building.

Paste: I was also curious about that last song, “Rufus”, which not only brings together lines from other songs, but also melodies from “Paper Planes” and wraps together the album with that “escape” theme.  You are, after all, singing about a ten-foot Labrador named Rufus coming to take you away.
Lundgren: The scenario is very dream-like. I’ve been thinking for a long time about writing a children’s book. And in a way it’s a children’s book in musical form. Also it’s a celebration for me of what I listened to when I was a teenager. I listened to a lot of ’70s stuff. Now it’s only eight minutes, but I listened to Yes and stuff who made 20-minute songs. And I’ve always wanted to do my own “Bohemian Rhapsody “or “Stairway to Heaven”. And I guess hopefully, with a glimmer in the eye, it’s our own “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

It’s also, as you mentioned, you can find small pieces of the album in there. And that’s almost connecting to the way we work with the album cover, almost hiding things. If you look carefully you can find hidden things. I thought that was very exciting as a kid, looking at album covers and listening to albums and finding clues and stuff. That’s always been fascinating to me. You know, all the tales of Polish dead and stuff, on the Beatles albums. If you held Magical Mystery Tour to the mirror, you could find phone numbers and stuff. I like those things. They’re very fun.