Gunshot

Album: I Never Learn (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This breakup ballad finds an anguished Lykke Li longing to get her lover back. Speaking with NME, the Swedish songstress explained how the ending of a relationship had a major impact on the writing of her I Never Learn album. "It's always about me and the guilt and the shame and the hurt and the pride and the confusion of being a woman," she said.
  • Lykke Li: "I wrote 'Gunshot' straight after a meditation and the lyrics just came out of violent words, 'I'm longing for your poison like a cancer for its prey, I shot an arrow in your heart where you waited in the rain'. So this is also the moment in a relationship where you've f--ked up and some things you can never take back. I think that a lot of people can relate to that moment where it's just gone forever."
  • The song's music video was directed by Fleur & Manu (M83's "Midnight City") and filmed in Paris. It finds Lykke Li dancing as if convulsing from the song's titular gunshot wound.
  • The song soundtracked an international TV commercial for the Peugeot 108, which starred Li. Many were prompted to find out more about the track – it was the most Shazamed tune to feature in a UK advert in 2014.

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