Cinematic and breathtaking, Mercedes is Sarah Klang’s emotionally-charged coming of age: The Swedish artist is at her most vulnerable and her most vivid as, inspired by pregnancy and the birth of her first child, she dives headfirst into what it means to be human and what it means to be alive, here, today.
Stream: “Magic Stone” – Sarah Klang
How could a sun be born out of a moon? How could she shine when my colour is blue? Is there a word bigger than love? Is this the place where I’m finally feel enough? How could she shine so bright that it hurts?
Sarah Klang’s fourth album opens with a soul-stirring bevy of intimate questions – some rhetorical, some existential, all of them poetic and profound. It’s a moment of pure beauty, raw connection, and overwhelming love, capturing the moment a mother, Klang, meets her daughter, Mercedes, for the very first time. What ensues over the following half hour is a truly cathartic and deeply human journey, all soundtracked by some of the sweetest, most soulful music we’ve heard this century. Cinematic and breathtaking, Mercedes is Sarah Klang’s emotionally-charged coming-of-age: The Swedish artist is at her most vulnerable and her most vivid as, inspired by pregnancy and the birth of her first child, she dives headfirst into what it means to be human and what it means to be alive, here, today.
And I’ve been on this journey all along my life
I’ve been up, but now I feel so high
And it’s not like them bad drugs
No, this feels divine
I wanna scream it, shout it all the time
How could she shinе so bright that it hurts?
She’s like a fire out in thе summer woods
Deep down in the forest, I find her in a cave
Glowing like a magic stone
I pick her up and take her home
I couldn’t love you more
Something would break if I did
And my heart is in overload over this
I couldn’t love you more
Something would break if I did (Ooh)
Now my heart is in overload over this
Released October 20, 2023 via Pangur Records / Nettwerk Music Group, Mercedes is the triumphant fourth album from critically acclaimed Swedish singer and songwriter Sarah Klang. The follow-up to her 2021 Swedish Grammy-winning album VIRGO sees Klang singing as much to herself as to her newborn daughter, Mercedes – whose very conception inspired the album that ultimately bears her name.
“When I got pregnant, I decided to document the experience and write an album about it,” Klang tells Atwood Magazine. “I thought it would just be about being pregnant and having a baby, but everything brought many other feelings and thoughts that I was not prepared for. It’s a coming of age record you could say. I hope I have described in a simple and not so complicated way how I experienced my 20s, I have always wanted to mix funny with serious, sad with something nice.”
“I had an open mind, I knew I wanted to open up even more from VIRGO, and dare the text to take place even more. We named our daughter Mercedes and it felt natural to name the album after her.”
From the phenomenal warmth of album opener “Magic Stone” to early fan favorites like the heated, heavy “Halloween Costume” and the visceral “Belly Shots,” all the way to the striking, brutally honest closer “Worst Mom,” Klang turns Mercedes into something of a tell-all that not only tracks her experiences through pregnancy and childbirth, but also dives into her past, her traumas, her sense of self, and more. Klang’s intimate, candid songwriting makes the album feel like we’re peeking at her diary, and yet at the same time we know this is all just scratching at the surface; the layers surely reveal themselves over time.
“I’m proud of all of them,” the artist says of her new songs, “but I’ve come to like ‘Halloween Costume’ even more as I understand that many people can relate and actually understand what it’s about. I had no such thought that it would be so when I wrote it. I’ve tried not to listen to the album for a long time now before the release, so I won’t analyze it or start hating it too much. But ‘Bridge’ is a song I never get tired of.”
Breathtakingly beautiful and achingly soulful, this album is sure to resonate with all who, like Klang, are on their own spiritual journeys.
And by that, we mean this music is for everybody.
“I hope some will recognize themselves. Not just as a new parent, but as someone who has just been young and been through shit,” Klang shares. “And by shit, I don’t mean just bad things, but just been THROUGH stuff. As is the case when you are 20 something. You mess up, you make mistakes, you hurt yourself, you hurt someone else, but you move on.”
“For me, this record has been probably my most important record so far to have written. It forced me to go through a lot of things that I’ve been putting off and see myself for real. Try to understand why I am the way I am, and why things have been and become as they were. It has been very hard, of course, but I hope that it will mean good things in the end. I think I like myself more today when I am 31, than when I was 29 and started working on it.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Sarah Klang’s Mercedes with Atwood Magazine as she goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her fourth album!
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:: stream/purchase Mercedes here ::
:: connect with Sarah Klang here ::
Stream: ‘Mercedes’ – Sarah Klang
:: Inside Mercedes ::
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Magic Stone
“To meet my child for the first time, and see myself in her and her as a person of her own. The inexplicably great love.”
Burger
“Burger is about the first tour I went on, leaving my baby at home with her daddy. It was tough and made me doubt this dream of music I had for so long. And if it’s even worth it?”
Halloween Costume
“It’s about an abuse I suffered as a teenager at the hands of other teenage boys. I lived in a number of places with very limited vision and you had to fit in or you became a victim of the other kids. I had a burning feeling in my chest throughout my teenage years to get away from there, but that there was a good chance I would have time to go mad first.”
Belly Shots
“A farewell to my messy 20s, and the longing I always had for a family of my own.”
It’s a Beautiful Dream
“About 9 sweaty nightmarish months of pregnancy. From week one until I gave birth to my baby, I felt incredibly bad. Dreaming nightmares, starting to get flashbacks of things I repressed from when I was little, itching, insomnia. But also the feeling of someone growing inside you, the fear of going crazy and not being able to cope with what you are facing.”
Mercedes
“A letter to my daughter, which I wrote when I was expecting her. A promise of eternal love. And that I will do my best.”
Bridge
“About the feeling of hopelessness of feeling stuck in old habits, and in the same city, Gothenburg. Everyone in your gang turns 30, but you get nowhere. You’re stuck in the destructive.”
Sunny Philadelphia
“About wanting it all. Love, the child, the man, the career, the music, the money. But that I might have blown a lot of my chances as a 20 somethin’. The fear of becoming a mother.”
Hospital Window
“When I gave birth to our daughter at Östra Sjukhuset in Gothenburg. How you give birth to yourself when you give birth to your child.”
Worst Mom
“About the first year of being a mom. How you at times feel like the the worst. How hard you try, how wrong everything goes. How you feel like everyone else is doing better. But also how I don’t know where I end and my baby begins.”
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:: stream/purchase Mercedes here ::
:: connect with Sarah Klang here ::
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© Fredrika Eriksson
© Fredrika Eriksson:: Stream Sarah Klang ::
