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.