We´d roll and fall in green

I have never paid much attention to Kate Bush. I don´t suppose she was ever that big in Sweden. The other day I read something somewhere about her song "Wuthering Heights" and I decided to go check it out. I recognize it, of course, but I always thought those chorus lyrics were just la-la-li-la-la-la or something. Now I realize she is singing Cathy´s ghost! It´s hard to hear, even when you know the lyrics.

Anyway, now it´s running non-stop in my head (in a very clingy, Cathy-sort-of-way). So I thought I´d share.

(from lyricsfreak)

Out On the wiley, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper, like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you, I loved you too

Bad dreams in the night
They told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in in-a-your-window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in in-a-your-window

Oh it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine alot, I find the lot
Falls through without you
I'm coming back love, cruel Heathcliff
My one dream, my only master

Too long I roam in the night
I'm coming back to his side to put it right
I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in in-a-your-window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in in-a-your-window

Ooh let me have it, let me grab your soul away
Ooh let me have it, let me grab your soul away
You know it's me, Cathy

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold, let me in in-a-your-window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold, let me in in-a-your-window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold

Legendary Poet - Bellman´s Epistles

"If Carl Michael Bellman, a unique figure in world literature, has been as unknown to the world at large as he has been perennially popular in Scandinavia, it has been due to the untranslatability of poetry. His great song-cycle Fredman´s Epistles, a genre 'which had no forerunners and cannot have any successors', is perhaps the only great work of poetic art to be concieved throughout to music. In Sweden it has been the means of preserving a whole treasure trove of lovely melodies which once delighted Europe.

A brilliant mimic and improviser, Bellman was chiefly appreciated by his contemporaries as an entertainer who conjured up for them a drastic picture of the low-life of Stockholm. Subsequent generations have found in him a poet of almost shakespearean dimensions."

The Swedish Academy is not just a bunch of old farts admiring each other, occasionally pulling themselves together to choose the next recipient of the Nobel Prize of Literature, even though some may think so. They actually do quite a lot of work for the preservation and promotion of Swedish literature. In their latest newsletter they have brought Bellman - in English! to the world. (You can read the whole thing right there on the website, page-turning arrows on the left side of the page.)

If Nationalmuseum presents the image of Sweden, then Bellman is surely providing the soundtrack. He lived in the 18th Century, and was patroned by king Gustav III (whose leisure ship the Amphion I blogged about a few weeks ago). 

On youtube I found several performances from two of our most legendary Bellman interpreters: Fred Åkerström and Cornelis Vreesvijk.

Epistle 82, Vila vid denna källa (= Come now, ourselves reposing)

Epistle 81, Märk hur vår skugga (= So to her rest)

The translations are really interpretations - some are quite far from the original text, I find. And I suppose this is how it often is with poetry. The interpretation becomes an artwork of itself, close perhaps, but not quite the same. I wonder how big Shakespeare really would have been if he hadn´t been lucky enough to write in a language that would become the dominant lingua franca of our time. And I wonder how many literary treasures have been forgotten as peoples and their languages have died out.

One song all Swedish children sing at graduation (or at least they used to, it would be a crime if they didn´t still), is "Fjäriln vingad syns på Haga" (= the butterfly is seen in Haga). Haga was one of the king´s favourite palaces, and is now the residence of the crown-princess Victoria and her family. While Bellman used a lot of traditional melodies for his songs, this is one that he did compose himself. I found this English version:

Another part of Swedish childhoods are the Bellman jokes, which are rather childish jokes with Bellman competing in some way - and coming out on top - with two other guys, often just named a German, a Dane, or a Frenchman. From the beginning Bellman jokes were obscene jokes about court life, and I found this one that may be as old as from the early 19th Century: 

Bellman went to the Queen and asked if she wanted to make a bet.
- I would, said the Queen. What bet would Bellman like to make?
- I bet fifty crowns that the Queen has a birthmark on her left buttocks.
- That was easy money, said the Queen, lifted her skirt and pulled down her underpants.
- Now you lost fifty crowns, Bellman, she said.
- That may be, said Bellman. But look out the window. The King is looking in and I bet him a thousand crowns that the Queen would show me her arse...

Vemod, after a long, dark and cold winter

Remember the graffiti poet I posted about in August? The one who wrote the word for melancholy on a poster? I took that picture Christmas 2008 and now it seems that he (or she? no...) or someone with the same mindset has surfaced again. I took these pictures last week:

At my bus stop

The house opposite my mother-in-law´s

But what´s with the smiley face? How melancholy is that?

Sad poems

I always say, I don´t understand poetry. But once and again, I stumble over something that grabs hold of me. This time, it´s "The Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy". I have not read them all, of course. It is one thick volume! But I have ordered it from a used book dealer in the UK, via amazon, for 1 pence. Yeah, you can buy books over the internet for 1 pence. Then you have to pay 3.78 in postage, but it´s still a steal, as far as I´m concerned.

I think I like Hardy´s poems for their sadness and gloom. Tragic love. Apparently, he never got over his first wife, even though they were estranged, and when she died he remarried. I can´t really relate to that myself, being someone who mourns passionately for a short time and then shakes it off and moves on, but these long fermented griefs sure make excellent soil for poetry.

And now, something completely different

Christmas Day 2008. The frost was sculptural, the landscape magical in a C S Lewis/Narnia-kind-of-way.


On an old poster advertising a summer party, someone has written the swedish word for melancholy, VEMOD. I love that. It´s so poetic.