What I did on my summer vacation: Sommartider

I don’t know where summer goes. Perhaps because it came late to Seattle this year, or perhaps because I have had a new job and other changes to incorporate into my life, this summer seems to slipped through my fingers especially quickly. It’s hard to be disciplined about sitting in front of a computer when the precious few warm evenings with late sunsets are mine to savor. 

The rain returned to Seattle this week in what felt like mere moments after local news reports said we were setting records with the first September in who-knows-how-long without a drop of measurable precipitation. Way to go guys. But before this happened, there were a few glorious weeks, and for me, they were not without music.

In the first two weeks of summer weather, I had, as I always do, Gyllene Tider’s classic summer anthem “Sommartider” stuck in my head and on my playlist. Friend and colleague K, when I mentioned this, said (and I paraphrase):

“’Sommartider’ is the one song that you can play anywhere, at any time–a hip-hop club, a discotheque, a grocery store–and Swedes will go wild.” Well, they don’t go wild outwardly in the grocery stores, and they probably maintain a level of cool in the hip-hop clubs, but K is right. Sommartider is one of the most important and beloved songs in Swedish rock.

In 2004, 22 years after Sommartider was released, Gyllene Tider reunited for the insanely popular summer concert series “Allsång på Skansen” (Sing-a-long at Skansen). The video captures the essence of Swedish summers: light skies evenings, full canopies of leaves on the birch trees, faint sun on the islands of Stockholm in the background. It also captures what K said about the song, with the crowd jumping up and down and fairly screaming along. Skant few things can make me both so happy and homesick as a reminder of Swedish summers.

Gyllene Tider (Golden Ages, literally) was a bunch of kids with funny haircuts when they released “Sommartider” in 1982. (Lead singer Per Gessle went on to form Roxette with Marie Fredriksson, start a successful solo carrier in Sweden, and get a haircut, as evidenced in the video below.)

First, the 2004 concert at Skansen, “Sommartider”:

 

 

And now, the music video for my other favorite Gyllene Tider song, “Flickorna på TV2” (The Girls On Channel 2) from their 1980 self-titled debut album. Note Per Gessle’s sexy hair:

 

 

Now go back and watch the first video one more time. I’m hoping that next summer I will get to listen to “Sommartider” in Sweden when it will yet again be in heavy rotation on Swedish airwaves.

Three Right Now: Ane Brun, The Tallest Man on Earth and Tingsek

On Friday last week I participated in a business pitching event in Seattle where I was asked: “Who are three Swedish musicians you are listening to right now.” I was flustered, and didn’t want to admit on video that I am going through yet another Bad Swedish 80s Phase, so I answered: Ane Brun, The Tallest Man on Earth and Tingsek.

Ane Brun is actually Norwegian, but she’s been living in Stockholm, Sweden since 2000. My favorite song right now is “Song No. 6” (which is actually the second track) from her 2006 release A Temporary Dive. Her voice has a quality I can’t quite describe but find mesmerizing and heartbreakingly beautiful. Something about it conjures jazz vocals from the 1920s for me, but I could be making that up.

She also does vocals on another favorite song of mine by Swedish electrojazz band Koop, called “Koop Island Blues.” Go listen to it on Koop’s MySpace page. When I hear it I go on vacation for 4 minutes and 35 seconds.

I remember where I was the first time I ever heard The Tallest Man on Earth. Hubs and I were carpooling to work, headed down 10th on the North end of Capitol Hill, close to the Boston intersection. We were listening to John in the Morning on KEXP and he played “Walk The Line.” It is still my favorite TTMOE song, from the 2005 EP. He has a new album out this year called Shallow Grave.

I found Tingsek through a favorite hiphop artist, Timbuktu. They do a live version of Timbuktu’s “Strö lite socker på mig” that blows my mind. Tingsek is Magnus Tingsek: bluesy rock from Southern Sweden, yet to be promoted in the US. I’m not always a fan of videos, but I like the relationship between the visuals and song in this, my first and also still favorite song, “World of Its Own.”

Lisa Ekdahl: How it all started

My passion for Swedish music started in 1994 with Lisa Ekdahl. I was a senior in high school, an exchange student in Northern Sweden trying to escape the drama American high school. I had been invited to the weekly family dinner with my classmate. Niklas, a year older than me, baked an apple pie–in case I was homesick–in a sauce pan, so the sides were perpendicular to the bottom. He put on a CD he’d bought earlier in the week: Lisa Ekdahl’s eponymous debut album.

I spoke hardly any Swedish when I bought my own copy, just enough to explain I didn’t: Jag talar bara lite svenska. I listened to the album over and over during my year there. Six months later I suddenly realized I understood the gist of the lyrics. Nine months later, I could sing along to all the songs. The album was a smashing success, going quadruple platinum in Sweden. My Swedish was a success, with vocabulary, syntax and verb conjugations reinforced by memorizing lyrics.

The biggest hit of the album was Vem vet, a song about the fate of meeting someone:

 

Lisa has gone on to record 10 albums–four in English–and win three Swedish Grammy awards.

I went on to undergraduate and graduate studies in Swedish language and literature at the University of Washington, and to teach advanced Swedish courses at the Swedish Cultural Center, where I used Lisa’s music in my lessons.

Sweden has gone on to gain the reputation as the third largest exporter of music in the world, after the US and the UK.