Possibility

Album: New Moon Soundtrack (2009)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Timotej Zachrisson, who records under the stage name of Lykke Li, is a Swedish indie singer, who released her debut album Youth Novels in 2008. She wrote this song for the soundtrack of the 2009 movie New Moon.
  • Li told MTV News that it took her a long time to come up with this haunting piece of Chamber Pop. She explained: "Everyone kept asking me if I wanted to do it, how [the song] was going, when would I have it finished, and I was like, 'Eh, I don't know, maybe I'll do it, maybe I won't.' I mean, I had heard of the 'Twilight' phenomenon, but I didn't read the books or watch the first movie or anything. I mean, I'm Swedish."
    She added that finally the inspiration came to her watching New Moon. "I stayed [in Los Angeles] and watched the movie, when it only had green screen on it. I had this hook in my mind, even before I saw the movie, and then I was watching it, and I was like, 'That's the hook!' " she said. "So it was very much like a discovery, inside myself and musically. I had this song growing inside of me that I had to get out, and [the film] was the trigger. Because I really connected with Bella and Edward's tortured love story."
  • Lykke Li blogged bout the writing of the song: "I got to see New Moon when I was in LA for a show and an idea immediately rose to my mind," said the singer. "It would take a few weeks before I even had a chance to sit down by a piano but then suddenly I wrote it while having a few days off in Sweden just coming out of a fever...I'm really proud of it and hope you will love it and need it."
  • Li told MTV News about the lyrical content of this maudlin song concerning love, pain and death: "I get very visual when I make the songs. It's really quite serious. It's almost like a fever haze. It's very repetitive, like a mood you go into. But it's really serious, because, if you're really, really in love, and somebody leaves you, that's a very serious thing," Li explained. "And so the lyrics are like, 'When you walk, you walk like a thief with blood on your hands, because I die when you leave me.' It's in this limbo that, when the song is done, you don't know if I've survived or not. It's very much like a fever, like, 'Oh, my God, it's hot, she's going to die, maybe she did die?' It lingers on, into the next life. It's dark."
  • Clocking in at 5 minutes and 4 seconds, this is the longest track on the New Moon Soundtrack.

Comments: 1

  • Megan from Stevenson, AlHoly Crap!! I freakin' love this song! I love how her voice gets really high and powerful and the piano...gorgeous!
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Muhammad Ali: His Musical Legacy and the Songs he Inspired

Muhammad Ali: His Musical Legacy and the Songs he InspiredSong Writing

Before he was the champ, Ali released an album called I Am The Greatest!, but his musical influence is best heard in the songs he inspired.

Michael Sweet of Stryper

Michael Sweet of StryperSongwriter Interviews

Find out how God and glam metal go together from the Stryper frontman.

Devo

DevoSongwriter Interviews

Devo founders Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale take us into their world of subversive performance art. They may be right about the De-Evoloution thing.

Dennis DeYoung

Dennis DeYoungSongwriter Interviews

Dennis DeYoung explains why "Mr. Roboto" is the defining Styx song, and what the "gathering of angels" represents in "Come Sail Away."

Tom Bailey of Thompson Twins

Tom Bailey of Thompson TwinsSongwriter Interviews

Tom stopped performing Thompson Twins songs in 1987, in part because of their personal nature: "Hold Me Now" came after an argument with his bandmate/girlfriend Alannah Currie.

Evolution Of The Prince Symbol

Evolution Of The Prince SymbolSong Writing

The evolution of the symbol that was Prince's name from 1993-2000.