Lina Tullgren is from Southern Maine just over the border of the northernmo… Read Full Bio ↴Lina Tullgren is from Southern Maine just over the border of the northernmost seacoast of New Hampshire. It’s an unexpected location for artistic incubation, but if you grow up anywhere surrounded by family and friends and weirdos interacting at all times with their own interpretations of creative output, osmosis is bound to occur. Shifting in trainings and traditions, the 23 year old eventually found themself a voice with the electric guitar, uniquely flavored and shaped from the many years of fiddle lessons and classical technique. The shifts in genre and in instrumentation are stark, but important. Lina’s morphing interaction with music has mirrored a growing determination to harness their ability to melodically and lyrically express complex emotions.

With 2016’s Wishlist EP – recorded to tape at the apartment of band mate Ty Ueda – Lina proved an ability to craft simple, introspective and succinct songs, each one a pulsing glow leaving you both hollow and whole, alone but never lonely. It is on Lina’s debut album Won that we reap the full rewards of this newfound confidence in expression and rejection of internal hesitation. “The writing doesn’t necessarily get easier, but I feel more comfortable tapping into emotions and going to those places that need to be written about. Won, as it turned out, is the product that I have been hearing and picturing in my head as I write and listen to music.” It is the product of what happens when you push past the fear of what it means to think out loud – to become accountable for your internal struggles by way of manifesting your ideas into songs that are then free to grow apart from you, to exist on their own while always remaining specifically implicative of you. Now backed by a full band, each track manages to remain piercingly intimate, sometimes brief, and always honest, while gaining a wholly new sense of gestation both sonically and lyrically.

“I am all the wiser now that I accept my fate”.

It’s clear throughout that Lina’s awareness of their internal shift is folded into every corner of these songs. The move towards working with a full band, the deliberate force with which their often quaveringly raw vocals are delivered, and the lyrics themselves are all constantly functioning to process and take stock of an updated self. Which is not to say this is an album of concise reflections or black-and-white conclusions. The darkly punctuated “Summer Sleeper” rolls in with one of the more concrete claims Lina presents us with. "On letting go: it's only as good as you want it to be, only as bad as you make it." This is an album insistent on the consideration of perspective above all else.

The album art, a reference to the historical practice of photographing ectoplasm expulsion, acts as a visual representation of the internal changes and newly gained perspectives precipitated by the writing and recording of this debut album. “Writing this record was a lot of looking inward at myself with close eyes. Figuring out what I had to get rid of and what I had to keep. I like the idea of an ectoplasm being something you’re expelling. That you’re getting rid of because it shouldn’t be inside you anymore.”

And at a certain point, growth is not just a process of replacing old selves with new, but often simply an act of expansion. Won in many ways continues to dig through Lina’s preoccupation with the search for home. It’s a deceptively loaded search sewn gracefully into the haunting and sparse track “Face Off." Whatever "home" means - a relationship, a physical space, a mentality, or an emotion - that’s up to the listener. As Lina puts it, “It’s a record for me, but it’s also for everyone else. I don’t claim to be totally emotionally stable, or smart in relationships, or always very conscientious of others, but this record is me reaching out and trying and maybe sometimes I lose but sometimes I win.”

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Lina Tullgren Lyrics

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Swing low
When you speak, speak low
Sing low
When you swing, swing low
I wonder how you found now that you're older again

Give me
And scare me with your fears

Tell me
'Cause I can't say what I don't hear
And I told you when I left this that I'm older now

But I wish I didn't have to grow up so fast

Leave me
Usually I'm better alone
Take me
Away and leave me at home

But I wish I didn't have to grow up so fast
Still feel like such a kid
Monsters in the closet, they know who I am
they know who I am
they know who I am

Prettiest horses they scream out your name
Prettiest horses they scream out your name

Tell me what you wanted for christmas
Tell me what you wanted for christmas

Overall Meaning

The first verse, "Swing low, when you speak, speak low, sing low, when you swing, swing low," seems to be referring to the idea of keeping things close to the chest, not letting too much out, and approaching everything with caution. The swinging part could be a metaphor for taking things slow and steady, not rushing into anything. The second half of the verse, "I wonder how you found now that you're older again," could be a reference to how people become more guarded and careful as they get older, and how that can change the way they approach life and relationships.

The second verse, "Give me and scare me with your fears, tell me 'cause I can't say what I don't hear, and I told you when I left this that I'm older now," seems to be about the dynamics of a relationship, where one person is looking to the other for guidance and support. The line "And I told you when I left this that I'm older now" suggests that the singer is trying to establish some sort of authority or seniority, but the sentiment is undercut by the admission that they still have fears and anxieties.

The chorus, "But I wish I didn't have to grow up so fast, still feel like such a kid, monsters in the closet, they know who I am," speaks to the idea of wanting to stay youthful and carefree, but feeling like the weight of responsibility and adulthood is bearing down on the singer. The line "they know who I am" could be interpreted as a reference to the idea that our childhood traumas and fears follow us into adulthood.

The final verse, "Prettiest horses they scream out your name, tell me what you wanted for Christmas," seems to be a bit of a non-sequitur, but it could be interpreted as a call for escape from the pressures of adulthood. The reference to Christmas could be seen as an attempt to recapture the magic and joy of childhood, and to reconnect with a simpler, more innocent time.

Line by Line Meaning

Swing low
Begin with a reference to a traditional African-American spiritual, which dictates that the listener should lower their voice or tone when they speak.

When you speak, speak low
Encourages the listener to be soft-spoken.

Sing low
Directs the listener to sing in a low tone.

When you swing, swing low
Directs the listener to swing in a low motion or manner.

I wonder how you found now that you're older again
Reflecting upon the fact that age brings upon its own challenges, and physical or mental changes.

Give me
Asking the listener to give something.

And scare me with your fears
Exploring the idea of sharing one's fears, and how it can be a terrifying thing to do.

Tell me
Indicating a desire to hear something.

'Cause I can't say what I don't hear
Acknowledging a difficulty communicating when one is not sure what the other person wants to say.

And I told you when I left this that I'm older now
Referencing an earlier conversation, in which the artist announced that they had grown older over time.

But I wish I didn't have to grow up so fast
Expressing a desire to remain young and free from responsibilities and hardship.

Leave me
Asking the listener to go away.

Usually I'm better alone
Expressing a preference for solitude.

Take me
Asking the listener to take the singer somewhere.

Away and leave me at home
Asking to be taken to a place that is preferable to the singer.

Still feel like such a kid
Alluding to the fact that, despite growing older, one can still feel young mentally.

Monsters in the closet, they know who I am
Referencing the childhood fear of monsters, and how they can follow us into adulthood.

Prettiest horses they scream out your name
A non-sequitur line that may be interpreted as being symbolic in nature and unclear in its meaning.

Prettiest horses they scream out your name
Repeating the previous line.

Tell me what you wanted for christmas
Asking the listener what they want for Christmas.

Contributed by Abigail Y. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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