In the end, it's a good thing Jens Lekman's stick-to-itiveness won out over his general sense of despair. After a brief abandonment of his musical career and some late-night muggings in his hometown, Lekman has rebounded with Night Falls Over Kortedala, a romantic and studied record that finally fulfills his considerable promise. His efforts were rewarded with the number-one spot on the album charts in his native Sweden, an achievement that the self-deprecating Lekman is all too eager to downplay.

"It's not that hard to get into the charts in Sweden," claims Lekman in a recent e-mail interview. "It's a small country that's embraced Internet and file-sharing since the very beginning. So I guess reaching the number one spot means you've sold about 500 albums. No one buys records here anymore. Still, I'm of course very flattered."

Kortedala continues Lekman's indelible ability to write revealing and direct first-person narratives, seemingly unafraid of the attached scrutiny. Even during his days under the Rocky Dennis alias, Lekman had a way of making the autobiographical seem natural, an ability that is even more prominent on "A Postcard to Nina" and "It Was a Strange Time in my Life" from his latest.

"Almost all my songs are written from me and with a very specific recipient in mind," clarifies Lekman. "But this thing with the first-person narrator has sometimes annoyed me a little bit, and when I was writing the song about Nina, I was more interested in dialogue and letting the other characters come alive. I often started a song in a very silly manner, writing it as the entertainer that I see myself as. But when I came to the last line, I always felt the need to end the story with a little tear in the eye, because otherwise the joke would be on the characters in the song. And I could never allow that no matter if they were fictional or real. In this case they're real and so it felt even more important to sign off with my own name and declare that the song is about something a little bigger than an awkward dinner."

However, when addressing personal matters in such a specific way, there is always the danger of becoming that which students of film noir would term "the untrustworthy narrator." "When it comes to what is fictional and what is not," continues Lekman, "I do think of my songs as 100 percent autobiographical, but lately I've been questioning the level of truth in my diary and especially the accuracy of my own memory. The truest stories I've written are those that I write before they happen."

Another of the record's superb first-person highlights is "Shirin," which recounts the relationship between Lekman and his Iraqi hair stylist (and gives Kortedala its cover subject). The song moves between the inherently intimate relationship between hairdresser and hairdressee to a deft combination of the personal and political.

"Shirin was the best hairdresser ever," explains Lekman. "She didn't speak Swedish or English but she knew exactly how I wanted it. She had her hair salon in her apartment and I would go there once a month. It was an almost religious experience for me. Then one day she was gone, her name was taken off the mailbox and the apartment was empty. I never found out what happened but her mom who spoke a little English had told me that they had fled from the war in Iraq and from what I understood they didn't have their papers in order. I don't know if they were in the country legally at all. I haven't been able to stop thinking about Shirin and her mom. I really hope they're OK."

Kortedala draws its name from Lekman's (former) neighborhood, a seemingly innocuous bed community that evidently takes on a far more sinister din at night. Lekman fell victim to some roving gangs, incidents that he is reticent to discuss. However, he was also able to find the beauty in the otherwise devilish area.

"There's a reason why I named my home and studio Kortedala Beauty Center," says Lekman. "That was the name of Shirin's hair salon, but when she disappeared I felt like the only place that produced any kind of beauty in Kortedala was my home. My flat felt like a little paradise island in an ocean of white suburban hell. From my flat I could pull down the curtains and imagine something prettier."

"Friday Night at the Drive-in Bingo," the record's out-of-time and timeless closing track, would seem to be a reference to his short-lived work in a bingo parlor (where he found himself during his brief abandonment of the music biz). Instead, the overlap is a mere coincidence.

"The bingo hall I worked in had nothing to do with the drive-in bingo," he explains. "When thinking about it, there's an awful lot of bingo going on in my life. But it's a Swedish thing. They love the game here. Yes, 'Friday Night' … that's also a true story. My family has this house in the country. It used to be my grandma's house. I was there alone one night and found myself horribly bored so I took my moped over to the drive-in bingo, which is a big field where people sit in cars and … play bingo. I bought a ticket and slowly started loving it, and all these thoughts started passing through my head. I started to re-evaluate the country life."

Like many continental Europeans on tour in the US, Lekman has had his share of confusing and confounding memories (including a humorous misinterpretation of Lekman's search for his scheduled venue upon his initial trip to Cleveland: "I remember rolling down the window and asking some girls if they could tell me where to find 'The Spot,' but they thought I was looking for something else."). An unnamed Southern town provided Lekman with his most harrowing yet simultaneously heartening US tour story.

"I've always found small towns the most enjoyable places to play," says Lekman. "People there are always the most appreciative or at least the most honest. I remember playing in a very small town somewhere in the South, where the crowd started chanting 'faggot.' I thought, 'OK, I'll finish the song and then I'll get the hell out of here.' But just before the song was over, a very short guy with a big sombrero came up and told the crowd to pay some respect and listen. And everyone shut up. I don't know who that guy was, maybe he was the mayor of that town, but afterwards everyone came up and bought my record and apologized for their behavior. They told me that only heavy metal and country bands ever came by and that they didn't really know how to react when they saw me."

At the close of his tour, Lekman will relocate again, this time taking up residence in Melbourne, Australia in his apparently never-ending search for a place to call home.

"I don't know, I've felt homeless for many years," he says. "I don't expect Melbourne will feel like a home but maybe it will send me in the right direction. I need to know what it's like to live in a place very, very far away. I need to get some perspective on things."

Jens Lekman, Dave Fischoff
9 p.m. Thursday, November 1
Beachland Ballroom
15711 Waterloo Rd.
216.383.1124
Tickets: $12