Drawing us in with a rising, meditative frequency and a dimensional guitar soundscape featuring soft 80s-adjacent drums, Emerald Park opens Lovers In Reverse with the situational, conceptual lyrics, “And just like a Monday with a glow of the dead, we saw the first day of June, the rain came down, sound on sound, flooded us with hope, we were looking for something, and it gave us a high, and it gave us a blow, we were downside up, face down first, lovers in reverse…”
The opus expands with sublime instrumentation and paints a picture of a relationship unfolding during a difficult, emotionally disorienting time. There is a clever juxtaposition of moments of hope and exhilaration, mixed with loss, loneliness, and a sense of things being upside down.
The repeated line “they will never know” suggests that the depth of the couple’s shared experience. It highlights their inner struggles, intimacy, and emotional lows as is something that outsiders can never fully understand.
The track holds a cinematic allure, perfect for a film like Over Your Dead Body, or even an episode of Euphoria on HBO. Speaking on the release, Emerald Park confesses, “Lovers In Reverse originated as the Swedish song Tidigt i Maj. While the seasonal reference has shifted to the “first day of June, the atmosphere remains intact. It offers a beautiful vignette of Malmö in its early summer splendor, capturing a love story that is either just beginning, or perhaps quietly unraveling.”
Now that we know that the concept of the song is rooted in “a vignette of Malmö”, it adds a multitude of layers, in part to the political climate and societal turmoil of the city. The contrast of beauty and darkness resonates on a much wider level.
Emerald Park is the music project of Malmö songwriter Tobias Borelius. What began as a full band has gradually developed into a more personal solo project, while still embracing collaboration with other artists. Among the first Swedish acts to distribute music under a Creative Commons license, Emerald Park was offering free downloads as early as 2010. Since then, the project has accumulated more than 13 million streams and 2.5 million downloads worldwide.
Needless to say, we are in awe, and could imagine that fans of MGMT and The Postal Service would also be able to connect with what Tobias and Emerald Park are creating. We have added Lovers In Reverse to our New Music Spotlight playlist, and our TIMELESS playlist, whilst we continue to stream the wider discography of Emerald Park, including For Tomorrow, and Reality Bites, and await the release of his upcoming album on August 21st.