With her new single ‘Panther’, Elis Floreen explores nostalgia as both a refuge and a risk. The song was written in Copenhagen, in the house that later lent its name to her upcoming album, a place that slowly transformed into a living time capsule.
The owner of the house was an elderly man who had lost his wife forty years earlier. In response to his grief, he refused to change anything: every object reminded him of the time they had shared. Over the years, belongings piled up in cupboards, hallways and staircases, until the staircase turned into a wall and the garden became inaccessible, overtaken by thorny bushes and dense greenery. Something fairytale-like, almost Sleeping Beauty. New tenants, often artists, left objects behind, which remained for future generations. The house became a cabinet of curiosities, a kind of time machine.
Elis never met the man himself, but signs of his presence appeared on the floor she was officially not allowed to enter: a burning candle, a radio playing through the night. Among the residents, a myth grew that a ghost lived in the house, a spirit unable to let go of the past.
The panther in the song is a metaphor for inevitable change. For times that are coming whether you want them to or not. Change can feel like being hunted, but resisting it often has heavier consequences than accepting it. Sometimes letting go is the only way forward, before memories consume the present and turn it bitter. ‘Panther’ reflects on romanticizing the past and on how dangerous nostalgia can become when it keeps us stuck.