For three simple words ‘I’, ‘love’ and ‘you’ have a clever way of hiding th… Read Full Bio ↴For three simple words ‘I’, ‘love’ and ‘you’ have a clever way of hiding themselves, no more so than in The Alexandria Quartet’s debut album. Based in Bergen, Norway’s main student city and the country’s unofficial pop epicentre, the Quartet have been holed up in studios and rehearsal rooms for the last 18 months polishing a collection of beautiful songs bursting with love, loss and the kind of melodies that come along once in a blue moon.

‘Montauk’, inspired by the place in New York and its starring role as the place where love blooms in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, is a great introduction to the band’s songbook. “I find it interesting to write love songs,” says singer and songwriter Martin Skålnes, “but when you’re writing a love song you can’t simply say ‘I love you’. I just say ‘let me take you to Montauk, is that where we’re meant to be’.”

Born in Kopervik, a small city on the west of Norway most well known for, as Martin puts it, “its drunks and its Christians”, Martin soon found out how to set his own agenda and while his friends were at church his parents would be playing him music - he states without hesitation that the first song he heard was The Searchers’ ‘Needles & Pins’, though REM would usually be on the car stereo and it wasn’t long before he fell in love with Oasis. By six he was working out his first chords on the guitar and by seven he was playing the piano; his first song, ‘Maybe’, was written when he was 11.

“It started with a dream and a desire to get out there and show people I was something,” Martin remembers, “but after a while I started to realise it was more about expressing who I already was.” This idea of expression is a key ingredient of The Alexandria Quartet’s appeal. Now 21, Martin can seem shy and unassuming; he seems to live his life through his lyrics, and somewhere in the heart of The Alexandria Quarter’s band’s album is the voice of an 11-year-old unbothered by life, blended with his more hardened and world-weary older self as he looks off into the future. It’s a captivating mix of innocence, experience and unease at what’s happened, what’s happening and what’s still to come.

The band’s story when Martin’s friend Øystein – The Alexandria Quartet’s future guitarist – moved to Trondheim and met Kim, a drummer, on the gig circuit. When Martin called from Bergen one day to tell his friend about a label who were interested in his music Øystein and Kim were on the next train. Last to join was bassist Chris Holm, and ‘Into The Light’ - the first song the band wrote together and one which captures brilliantly Martin’s anxiety about moving to Bergen - became a key song for the band. “I was in a completely new environment,” Martin remembers, “and the lyrics are about a relationship whose communication problems are spelling the end”. These little snapshots are what bring The Alexandria Quartet’s songs to life: it’s like the collage effect in the booklet to the original release of the band’s debut album, whose sleevenotes were a cut-n-paste scrapbook of the band’s first year together.

Another of the band’s key songs, ‘Somewhere’, is a moody affair which offers the merest glimmer of hope. “There needs to be hope in music,” Martin explains. “The lyrics in ‘Somewhere’ are relentlessly negative but we’ve added positivity in the music itself.” So while the lyrics suggest that the world is going under, a hopeless lost cause, the music adds the idea that things might just turn a corner. It’s the scrapbook idea, again: something from here, something from there, something from the back of your head, and the band’s sound has been subject to a similar mix of influences. While some bands find who they are in the studio, others define themselves in front of an audience – but The Alexandria Quartet take a bit of both. “We develop a sound in the studio and find an energy on stage, then try and feed back that energy when we’re back in the studio,” Martin says. Blending the sounds together has pushed the band in a brand new direction, developing a sound which continues to blossom as they work on tracks for their first international release.

June 2008

Into the Light
The Alexandria Quartet Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Don't put a spell on me
you feel that you don't have a choice
even if you've only been gone
for one day

Don't put the blame on me
'cause you've pushed my lonely heart against your wall
and drenched my open wounds in your salt

well I'm okay

Into the light
and into the dark
into the light
and then into the dark
into the light
or into the dark

Don't put a spell on me
oh, I'll be walkin' barefoot in the snow
then I'll be chasin' rainbows 'stead of gold
day by day

We could not put ourselves at stake
while we sleep in the same bed fully clothed
we are two wheels only one is on the road
at least to her

Into the light
and into the dark
into the light
and then into the dark
into the light
or into the dark

when we wake up in the crossfire
maybe we can make it all
when we wake up in the crossfire
baby we can make it light
when we wake up in the spotlight
maybe we can make it light

when we wake up in the spotlight
baby we can make it light

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to The Alexandria Quartet's song "Into the Light" are a plea to a lover not to cast a spell on the singer. The lover may feel they don't have a choice, but the singer insists they should not put the blame on them. The lover has pushed the singer's lonely heart against a wall and poured salt on their open wounds. Despite this, the singer says they are "okay." The lyrics continue with a repetition of "into the light and into the dark" with a final decision of "into the light or into the dark."

The singer continues to challenge their lover not to put a spell on them. They would rather walk barefoot in the snow and chase rainbows than be led astray by the lover's manipulation. The singer acknowledges that they cannot put themselves at stake while they both sleep in the same bed fully clothed. They are two wheels, but only one of them is on the road - at least from the singer's perspective.

Overall, the song seems to be a complex back-and-forth between two lovers who are struggling to find their way. The repetition of "into the light and into the dark" suggests a cyclical pattern of light and dark, hope and despair, that the lovers can't quite escape.

Line by Line Meaning

Don't put a spell on me
Please don't try to manipulate or control me.

you feel that you don't have a choice
You believe you have no other options or alternatives.

even if you've only been gone for one day
Even if you have only been away from me for a short while.

Don't put the blame on me
Please don't hold me responsible for something that is not my fault.

'cause you've pushed my lonely heart against your wall and drenched my open wounds in your salt well I'm okay
You have hurt me emotionally and caused me pain, but I will survive and be fine.

Into the light and into the dark into the light and then into the dark into the light or into the dark
We are moving back and forth between positive and negative experiences and emotions.

oh, I'll be walkin' barefoot in the snow then I'll be chasin' rainbows 'stead of gold day by day
I will endure difficult and uncomfortable situations, but I will also find moments of beauty and joy in life.

We could not put ourselves at stake while we sleep in the same bed fully clothed we are two wheels only one is on the road at least to her
We are not fully committed or vulnerable in our relationship, and only one of us is truly invested in making it work.

when we wake up in the crossfire maybe we can make it all when we wake up in the crossfire baby we can make it light when we wake up in the spotlight maybe we can make it light when we wake up in the spotlight baby we can make it light
Despite the challenges we face, we can work together to find solutions and make things better. We have the ability to find positivity and hope even in difficult situations.

Contributed by Caleb O. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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