Listen: Jens Lekman – Regarding A Package

Jens Lekman was recently commissioned by New York based Esopus Magazine to write a song based on the theme of “customer service” which is set to be included on the magazine’s cover mounted CD (issue 19).

In addition to Lekman’s ode to international customs, the disc also contains contributions from Richard Swift and Dirty Beaches.

In Lekman’s own words:

When I was living in Melbourne I used to get some really weird (but occasionally really fun) packages from some fans who had been able to track down my new address. There were packages with food, dust, wooden sculptures, fluids, bottled air from Ohio and on at least one occassion – a dead bird. Sealed in a plastic bag apparently but still a dead bird.

I say apparently because Australia has some of the strictest quarantine rules in the world and I only heard about it from the customs. Most of this stuff never reached me, sometimes the package would show up with a note notifying me what was missing and why it had been removed. Most times I had to call the customs and talk to them, this started taking up a lot of time.

That’s not really a story worth a song I thought to myself. Until Esopus magazine asked me to write something on the theme ‘customer service’.