Tim: I went to see Magnus Carlsson performing a couple of weeks ago, but you weren’t able to; to be honest, you didn’t miss much.
Tom: I’d say “that’s a relief”, but I’ll be honest, it’s more of a “well, that’s okay then”.
Tim: He stuck mostly to his Alcazar stuff, which not only meant he didn’t play Glorious, but he didn’t even play Wrap Myself In Paper! DISGRACEFUL. However, the warm-up DJ did play this, one of the finest schlager songs of the past decade and one which I was astonished to discover we’d never covered.
Tom: Echoes of Mika’s Grace Kelly at the start there, but fortunately it goes down a… well, “original” isn’t the right word for a schlager track like this, but at least it goes down a different route.
Tim: It sailed through to the final Melodifestivalen final in 2008, as is correct, but lost out to, amongst others, the even better Hero by Charlotte Perrelli, so I’ve no problems there. Title translates to “How Hard Can That Be?”, song’s basically “I can be whatever you want, how hard can that be?” A curious message perhaps, with a mix of submission but also knowledge that he won’t want much anyway, but one I suppose works nonetheless. Particularly when you apply this sort of music to it – the big beats, the powerful voice, the key change accompanied by the screaming vocal.
Tom: It’s a bold choice to actually just do a shouted scream in the middle of your second verse, but somehow she pulls it off. And it’s a song that needs that key change — that’s not a bad thing, I’m just glad it was there.
Tim: This has been a favourite of mine for a long time, and I’m not sure it’ll ever stop being.