Favourite Thing #745

Frida Hyvönen

I am a big fan of a grown-up pop star.  A proper, proper pop star who is properly womanly and sexy and smart.  For this very reason, Deborah Harry, Cher, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Gwen Stefani can all pretty much do no wrong in my book.

This is also why I have developed such a fond love for Frida Hyvönen.  I happened upon her by chance when I first heard her song ‘Dirty Dancing’ on the radio – a pitch-perfect little tribute – and was thus inspired to rush out and buy her long-player ‘Silence Is Wild’.

I’m glad I did.  Frida writes songs that make me wish she was in my gang of best friends.  Piano- and voice-led, they are basically all like poppy show-tunes, with clever lyrics that veer from heart-wrenching to hilarious.

The aforementioned ‘Dirty Dancing’ will make you feel wistful and nostalgic, even if you didn’t grow up dancing “the afternoons away to Kylie, back when the 90s were dawning”.  ‘December’ is the catchiest and most sensible song about abortion that you will probably ever hear.

Frida, I adore you.

My absolute top-favourite of her songs is ‘London!’, which is the first thing to be played on my iPod when it's a depressing morning and I’m in need of a bit of cheering up.  It will also have  you nodding in recognition if you’ve ever been a newcomer to a city or tried to make someone fall in love with you.  It's even better complete with the jaunty music and soaring singing - which I implore you to investigate for yourself.  Here is why:

‘London!’ by Frida Hyvönen

Upside down to Italy
and then again England.
London, you're not my friend
but you can be…

Springtime, but no trace of it
here in London.
I wear my cloak like Sherlock Holmes,
if you remember him?

"Don't you worry, love"
"Let me have you, love"
"There you go, love!"

All this "Brilliant, love!"
"Will you excuse me, love?"
There you go again...

London!

The way you hate me is better than love
and I'm head over heels.

London!

The way you wanna get rid of me
makes me weak in the knees.

Do you think you don't care about me?
You're wrong!
If I disturb you what about it?
You keep me hanging on

to life...

You showed me a book
about the new British dandy.
Beautiful boys
in exquisite fabrics
Oh-oh-oh!
I ate it like candy
and brushed my teeth
in whitening bleach.

Oh, I wanna be like them,
I don't care if they are men!
I wanna be rich, I wanna be
fine and dandy!
In a townhouse in London
with art on the walls
and memberships in clubs
for gentlemen.

Listen to the pipes
They're singing in the night
It's raining all the time
Listen to, listen to,
listen to the pipes
(in...)

London!

The way you hate me is better than love
and I'm head over heels.

London!

The way you wanna get rid of me
makes me weak in the knees.