Cornelia’s full P3 session with short interview. Videos of Rise and Running Up That Hill (cover) below the transcript.
Samir Yosufi: Yeah, you’re listening to P3. It’s time for p3 Session Today we have a Mello winner who didn’t only take Sweden, but also Europe by storm, Cornelia Jakobs. It’s actually exactly 6 months ago that she stood on the Eurovision stage in Turin and sang her way into the Mello history, by coming 4th. A 4th place that felt like a victory. But, with this we’re turning the pages, because since the big success in Mello, Cornelia Jakobs has been traveling around the world, played live and also released new music, and you’re about to hear that now. She visited Morgonpasset earlier this morning and said that she’s never been this excited for anything, we have such beautiful arrangements. How does this sound? You’ll find out now. We’ll start with Fine.
[Fine]
S: You’re listening to P3 Session, this was Cornelia Jakobs with Fine. Cornelia who brought a big band to the Session today. I was thinking, can’t we have a rollcall? If I call all of your names, you can play a chord or a note, so that the listeners knows what we have to work with.
❖ Erik Paganelli, guitar
❖ Balthazar Samuelsson, guitar
❖ Daniel Nilsson, guitar
❖ Carl Bodell, trumpet and keys
❖ Matilda Gratte, keys
❖ Josef Alin, cello
❖ Lisa Vallgårda, harp
Wow! And Cornelia Jakobs in the middle of the circle. You’re standing in a ring. Nice positioning, right? You’re gonna play another song.
Cornelia: Yes!
S: Rise!
C: Exactly, the latest single.
[Rise]
S: You’re listening to P3 Session, this was Cornelia Jakobs with Rise. Strengthened by her powerful band. They also get the task to interpret a song.
C: YES!
S: And you’ve taken on Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill. A song with nine lives. It got on the top lists again earlier this year. A song that many other artists also have been taken on. It has some kind of magic quality.
C: Yeah, partly that, it’s one of the best songs throughout history, but then it’s always like that when something becomes a hit, like if became with Stranger Things. Then it’s always people that takes it on themselves, and that made it a bit more scary to chose this.
S: I can imagine.
C: Yeah, but it sits so well inside of me, so I felt hell, let’s do something new with it. The I’ve been sitting and arranged this so that it will feel as a new interpretation. I hope it won’t feel like something that’s been heard a thousands of times.
S: Exciting! Now you get to play it. Go ahead.
C: Thanks.
[Running Up That Hill]
S: You’re listening to P3 Session, this was Running Up That Hill in a way that you might never have heard it before. Geez, what a version you managed to do, wow.
C: Thank you.
S: Goosebumps from the first chord.
C: Really? That makes me so happy.
S: You just got home from a long-awaited vacation. And we got to hear pieces from this vacation in the music that we heard. Tell us.
C: Yeah, right. No but I – and it wasn’t only vacation, we worked as well. But the first week I travelled in advance, there was a business gig in Hawaii. And I thought, I hadn’t been alone since January. Kinda. It feels like I’ve been surrounded by people constantly. So I went by myself, terrified but also exciting for new adventures. And it was super exciting and scary and educational. I got a lot of feeling, and you can actually hear, I sampled the waves from Hawaii. You can hear that in the drone in the background. Yeah, so I sat there and tinkered and fiddled with the arrangement.
S: You said in an interview before this vacation that you looked forward to staring into a wall, but you ended up working a bit as well.
C: Right… stare into a computer.
S: You couldn’t stop yourself? And the inspiration flowed.
C: Yeah, it was cool to feel that there was inspiration there. I was a but unsure at first. I was stuffed by impressions.
S: Exactly. How was it to travel alone, that’s a very special thing to do. Like, how do you to that?
C: Yeah, how do you do..? I’m bad at it, but I’ve done it a few times. You have to be prepared that anything can happen. Especially when you’ve had a hectic period of time and pushed away a lot of things, or hasn’t had time to feel things. Then everything comes. A few years in I called my therapist in panic and was like “do you have time? I know it’s a 12 hour difference, but if you do it at 8pm, I’ll do it at…” you know. We managed to have a session and that was incredibly nice and necessary I was writing down all the thoughts and feelings and it was like overload and I got to empty out a bit with him.
S: How would you describe all of this, since January, that’s 11 months this year. What a journey.
C: Yeah, totally. I would describe it as throwing in euphoria, fear, stress, a lot of joy, relief – and pressure and stress, loneliness, and at the same time as you’re surrounded by a tornado and you’re throwing in all of that in a dryer and then you’re in for a ride. That’s how I would describe it.
S: Wow. Rollercoaster of life. But we’re so happy that you got here today.
C: I’m so happy, I’ve wanted to come for a really long time.
S: We’re so thankful. And P3 session with Cornelia will show up on our YouTube channel, Musiken i P3. Listeners will be able to see what all of this looked like, and listen to the songs again. P3 Sessions will be back in two weeks when we will wrap this season up with Simon Superti on November 28th at 11am. Many thanks once more.
C: Fun! Many thanks.