Looking For Jane // Jefferson

First and only double aa side imaginary single, with two standout tracks from ‘Room Service’

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“Where do I begin today…”

‘Looking For Jane‘ // ‘Jefferson‘ what a winning combo! Both single-worthy for sure.

‘Looking For Jane‘ is summery pop where you can’t help but smile when you hear it. It’s a simple song, but often those are the best. Equally, the demo, albeit slightly lighter and more acoustic is equally as joyous.

“We had a new little gadget in the studio called the Vocaliser, which means you can make fake vocals which sounded great. We used them a lot that kind of effect for that era for the Room Service. In fact you can hear it a lot on this song. I like the song a lot”.
Per Gessle, In Conversation with Sven Lindström, TPGA, 2014

‘Jefferson‘ on the other hand is heavier, and written about an imaginary person inspired by a chance song popping up on the radio…

“I’m kinda pleased with most of the songs on this album… I always thought ‘Jefferson‘ was a really cool song… I didn’t have a title for the song and I heard a ‘Jefferson Airplane‘ song on the radio, so I wrote a story about this person. August in 1999 was a pretty hectic month demo-wise, we recorded lots of demos. As you can hear from the demo its sounds almost the same as the final product”.
Per Gessle, In Conversation with Sven Lindström, TPGA, 2014

There’s a slightly curious footnote attached to ‘Jefferson‘ which happened in 2002.

“I do believe he didn’t do wrong, I say a prayer for someone I care for…”

In late 2002, a German Eurodance group called ‘Groove Coverage‘ released a song called ‘God Is A Girl‘ and it got them into a spot of bother. Their song’s central melody bore more than an uncanny resemblance to the melodic middle-eight in ‘Jefferson‘.

The similarity was first highlighted by fans within our own ‘The Daily Roxette‘ community, where fans quickly noticed that the vocal hook had effectively been lifted and repurposed as one of the defining parts of ‘God Is A Girl‘. With the song beginning to chart across Europe, Roxette’s Management, led by Marie Dimberg, stepped in.

“It’s something that the efficient ears on ‘The Daily Roxette‘ spotted some time ago,”
Marie Dimberg, 2002

The matter was ultimately settled out of court in January 2003, with Per receiving 50% of the song’s royalties and publishing income. He was also added retrospectively to the official songwriting credits, while later physical editions of the single included an acknowledgement that the track incorporated part of Roxette’s ‘Jefferson‘. Quite right too.

Both ‘Looking For Jane‘ and ‘Jefferson‘ were never performed live. However, interestingly ‘Looking For Jane‘ was performed as playback on a TV show (performance below). That does make you wonder whether it was considered to be a potential single?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t really imagine ‘Room Service‘ without these two songs.

They’d have been awesome singles separately, or as we have them here as a double aa release. The videos could have been awesome too. I can already picture a summery fun video for ‘Looking For Jane‘, but that’s another story!

Currently on Streaming

01 Looking For Jane (T&A Demo – Feb 15, 2000)
02 Looking For Jane (Album Version)
03 Jefferson (T&A Demo – Aug 11+16, 1999)
04 Jefferson (Album Version)

05 Looking For Jane (T&A Demo – Feb 15, 2000) – In Conversation with Sven Lindström
06 Jefferson (T&A Demo – Aug 11+16, 1999) – In Conversation with Sven Lindström