Watch Lykke Li’s Aching Cover of Drake’s ‘Hold On, We’re Going Home’
During her European tour last fall, Lykke Li began incorporating a cover of Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home” into her live sets, even recording an intimate acoustic rendition with her band. While plenty of fan-shot videos have been floating around, the Swedish singer is now offering up a high quality performance clip, which arrives on Vogue just a few days before she — and Drake, for that matter — is scheduled to play Coachella.
Where Drake’s original was a sweet-toothed, post-disco devotional ode, Lykke Li flips “Hold On, We’re Going Home” into a sparse, slow-burning ballad. Anchored by steady cymbal crashes and a guitar riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on an XX record, Lykke Li’s strong vocals add a hefty amount of tension as the song aches to break into a danceable beat. It eventually does, for a brief moment at the end, before the singer and her band deftly taper back for a soft, final chorus.
“Hold On, We’re Going Home” is hardly Lykke Li’s first foray into the world of hip-hop. In the past, she’s mashed up her own tracks “Breaking It Up” and “Youth Knows No Pain” with Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” and Kanye West’s “Power,” respectively; and she’s also covered Rick Ross’ “Hustlin'” and A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” live. The singer even recruited A$AP Rocky for a remix to her mournful I Never Learn cut, “No Rest for the Wicked.”
Lykke Li’s Coachella performance this weekend will mark her first live date since canceling several international concerts at the top of the year so she could focus on her health. In anticipation of her return, the singer released a new music video for “Never Gonna Love Again,” which also appeared on I Never Learn.