Lykke Li Is Anything But “Happy Now”on Her Fourth Release from The Afterparty

Giving one more sample before the “real deal” comes out, Lykke Li has offered “Happy Now” as her fourth release from The Afterparty. And, like “Sick of Love,” it has some very accusatory tones toward an ex that has clearly done her wrong. But where “Sick of Love” commenced with the straightforward question, “Oh, what the hell?,” “Happy Now” leads with something more directly recriminatory when she describes, “You took me there, you took me there/Gave me a taste of Heaven’s gate/Your tangled fingers in my hair/Now I’m the fool, the fucking clown.” Singing this to the tune of producer Björn Yttling’s misleadingly “jaunty” backbeat, it only adds to the sense of bittersweetness that Li has become a master of conveying through her music and lyrics.

And so, as usual in the Lykke Li universe, she establishes a lovelorn, jilted sentiment almost immediately. What’s more, the song now marks two instances where she’ll use the word “clown” when referring to herself. For, on “Sick of Love,” she also alludes to being a clown as she sings, “Turn the lights off, light a cigarette/See how far you get/Play a slow song for the old clown/Buy you another round.” So she’s both a “fucking clown” and an “old clown,” these phrases meant to, as she told NME, “name a feeling,” thereby perhaps get close enough to it in order to overcome it (r at least get more comfortable with it).

More specifically, Li said, “They’ve done studies on how, if you’re able to name a feeling, then your nervous system will regulate. I mean, we all want to feel seen and understood, so when I’m able to use those words for what I’m feeling, then it all makes sense all of a sudden.” And what she’s naming throughout “Happy Now” is yet another sense of regret about getting attached to—addicted to, even—someone in the first place. That addiction comparison shining through when she sings, “Down on my knees/Felt like china white, I swear.” Hence, making the analogy between this breed of opioid and person’s ephemeral love/affections she can’t get enough of. Especially because its delightful effects only last for a short-lived amount of time—making her want them all the more when they suddenly disappear.

This, of course, leads her to ask the question, “Why’d you have to take me there, oh?” Something Li demands after she already painted the declarative picture of being “taken there” (to that place of becoming vulnerable by falling in love) at the beginning of the song. Then, Li leads into a chorus that also has parallels to the one in “Sick of Love” (i.e., “You’re gonna need me back, you’re gonna want me back/You’re gonna beg for it, I’ll make you beg for it”). In “Happy Now,” she expectantly inquires, “Is it dark yet?/Are you lonely?/Ah/Is it over?/Are you happy now?/Did your tears all go away?/Did the darkness ever fade?” The subtext being: is the person she’s still in love with/pining over feeling in any way as depressed as she still does? The likely answer, considering how it sounds like they were the one who chucked her, is: not really. Worse still, they’ve likely moved on entirely.

All while, as Li herself admits, “I’m still a fiend, it’s killing me/I’ll chase the high anywhere/Life on the line, borderline/Down on my knees/Can you even hear my prayer?” Again, the unwanted answer is a probable no. The tragedy of that further compounded by the earnest delivery she gives during one of her by now many “mini videos.” And this time, it’s one that actually features her in it, as opposed to some other “random European” in distress. Granted, she’s emulating what the wind-blown and -beaten vaping man in her mini “Knife in the Heart” visual is doing. Which is to say, simply trying to survive/overcome the conditions around him. As is Li when a massive piece of plastic pelts her face, covering it long enough to give her the same “suffocated aesthetic” as the one she has on her The Afterparty album cover.

After her barrage of questions in the form of a chorus, she then adds, “Gloria, are you there, oh?” That word seeming to intend the angel of the same name rather than Patti Smith, Umberto Tozzi and Laura Branigan intending a mortal woman’s name with it. Because perhaps, in her mind, only a divine entity is capable of saving her relationship, ergo saving her from total self-destruction due to the withdrawal-like symptoms of no longer being with the person who once made her feel so incredible.

Thus, when Li is directing the query of “is it over?” to her erstwhile lover, she’s ultimately only directing it at herself. Wondering if there might ever come a day when the agony will end. And simultaneously wondering if the joy of experiencing such a euphoric high was worth the intense pain of this seemingly never-ending comedown.