You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Herway.

This episode contains explicit language.

Likki Lee is a singer and songwriter from Sweden. She started releasing music in 2007, and for most of it

she's worked with producer Bjorn Yitling, who's also a member of the Swedish band Peter Bjorn and John.

Her second album, Wounded Rhymes, came out 10 years ago. It was named one of the best albums of 2011 by the New York Times,

Pitchfork, The Guardian, and more, and it won the Swedish Grammy for Best Album.

The song, I Follow Rivers, was the breakout hit from that album, and for this episode,

Likki and Bjorn break down how they made it with help from co-writer Rick Knowles. I spoke to the two of them while they were at Bjorn Studio,

Ingrid Studios, and Stockholm.

But before getting into the making of this song, I wanted to start a few years earlier and find out how the two of them first started working together.

My name is Likki Lee.

My name is Bjorn Yitling.

I think I met him when I was 20, and I had done some demos that I played for this record label guy,

and he told me that this is kind of bad. You would really need a producer.

And then he put me in touch with Bjorn, who was quite famous and sweet and at the time. It was a very big deal.

So I came to the studio, and we had a very proper meeting.

She played a worlister and sang a song.

And based on that, I guess. You thought I was weird enough to take the challenge.

I didn't really like the songs she brought, but she had something, I guess, star quality or something like that.

You know, she had something, maybe you had the most important thing, because you can always write a new song.

That's just something to work with. But that thing that you had is quite hard to achieve if you don't have it.

And also, I liked your tone, of course, in the voice.

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