“I’m here to play you some hopefully soothing songs for your morning, or your afternoon, or your evening, depending on where you are in the world,” says Siv Jakobsen in her April 20th Scenes Live Sessions performance. What makes the latter half of her statement especially relevant is the fact that Jakobsen is broadcasting live from Oslo, Norway. That being said, as one of the folks watching from a world away, it is of some subliminal comfort to see a living room not so different from the one I’m sitting in way over in Nashville, TN—adorned with similar house plants, tea lights, and a small, black picture frame on the window sill. Certainly, I am not so naive as to be genuinely surprised to see similarities across our cultures, but in them is a valuable representation of the effect Siv attempts to achieve—and very much succeeds at.
Tonally, Siv Jakobsen’s music is objectively gorgeous. Using alternate guitar tunings and harmonic arrangements that utilize drone notes and colorful chord extensions, she manages to create an impressionistic sonic landscape reminiscent of Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, or, more recently, Ben Howard and Keaton Henson. Her voice is gentle and airy, rich with an innate wistfulness, and in its lilting, introspective delivery, I’m again reminded of Joni, as well as, Laura Marling and Judy Collins. In other words, her voice and intimate arrangements pair to form a perfect vehicle for soothing. However, it is something far less tangible that proves to be at the center of what makes Siv a brilliant young artist and her performance both deeply moving and wholly comforting. As cliché as it might sound, it is her heart—the clearest evidence of which can be found in her lyrics.
Siv performs four original songs, speaking briefly in between as she switches out an acoustic for an electric guitar or alters a tuning. What can be said of all of her songs is that Jakobsen has a keen adeptness in navigating the complexity of what it means to be in relationship with ourselves and with another person, including all of the inherent doubt, fear, social pressure, and paralysis that exists in daring to love in a reality forged in frailty and temporality.
Her first song “Fight or Flight,” off of her new LP A Temporary Soothing, explores a relationship between two aged lovers who, after a lifelong commitment, find their mortality is upon them. In it, Jakobsen seems to ask a universal question: in the face of our limited lifespan, what does it mean to give one’s life to a long term partner? “I see you clear in flight, you are an all consuming light, I feel it all with fright, it is a never ending fight or flight—to lose, to love, to leave, to stay.” She offers no judgement, but rather juxtaposes the image of the older couple against the barrage of choices we all are faced with in love—to fight back against the inevitability of loss by loving, or to flee in the name of self preservation and independence.
She prefaces her second song, “Not Alone,” a reverb drenched electric guitar number, by pointing out its relevance to what has been a lonely lockdown experience for many people during the COVID pandemic. She tells us that it is a song she wrote many years ago “about being able to be on your own without being alone.” The delicate lyrics give a poignant and empowering message about the social pressure on women to find their worth and identity in romantic relationship. “Don’t you make me feel alone. Don’t you make me feel I’m wrong without a man to hold my arm, cause I’m not owned, but that’s nothing wrong.” Since much of the lyric is the recitation of “On my own, but I’m not alone,” the tune feels almost like a mantra, which, even as a historically codependent man, I desperately needed to hear.
She introduces her next song, “Only Life” as being one of her favorites. It paints an altogether heart wrenching and compassionate portrait of loving someone caught in the throes of self destruction, mental illness, and poor coping mechanisms that can only, at best, provide “a temporary soothing.” I’m certainly reminded of my own experiences with substance abuse—a horrific and near fatal attempt at circumventing my trauma in favor of “being a man and just dealing with it.” I’m grateful to have found recovery from my disease, and much of that came as a result of the very same empathy and selfless love, Siv Jakobsen beautifully showcases here.
She closes her set with a song entitled “Like I Used To,” which paints another harrowing picture of someone struggling to make sense of a partner’s infidelity, while still finding herself loving him “too much.” Prior to this tune, she reaches out once again to her audience with a simple, “I hope that you’re all okay. It’s a weird time.” I believe her. Siv Jakobsen in four masterful songs, and with a disarming, kind nature, offers her audience a brief respite from the universal trials of the world and the chaos of the mind—even while she sits on the other side of the world in a living room that looks like mine. She sets out to soothe us, and the way that she achieves it is not just in her musical abilities; it is in her vulnerability, compassion, lack of judgement, and yes, her heart—which seems to resound with the message of, “I see you. I hear you, and it’s all going to be okay.” It is this human connection and grace, which reaches far beyond geography or circumstance, that Siv Jakobsen clearly understands and utilizes to create something far greater than a temporary soothing.
