Songs in Swedish

One of the best things about living in Sweden, are the long, light summer nights. A song that perfectly captures this is Sakta vi gå genom stan (Slowly strolling through town), a free translation by Swedish entertainer Beppe Wolgers of the jazz song "Walkin' My Baby Back Home". The Swedish version is about taking a stroll home through Stockholm on a warm summer night.

It was recorded by one of Swedens most famous jazz singers of all time, Monica Zetterlund, in 1961. Zetterlund was a vaudeville performer, a jazz performer, a stage and movie actress. She also performed with a range of world-famous jazz musicians such as Bill Evans, Louis Armstrong and Stan Getz. Together with Bill Evans, she released the album Waltz for Debbie in 1964.

Sakta vi gå genom stan became a huge hit in Sweden when it was released and has been ever since. Radio Stockholm dubbed it the no.1 song about Stockholm. I found a video of "Amerikanen reacts to svenska klassiker", a Youtube series where youtuber Jonathan Rollins reacts to Swedish hits. The song has been played so many times it almost feels cliché at this point, but watching someone else hear it for the first time made it feel brand new to me!

A sommarplåga (literally a summer plague, or a summer torment) is a Swedish word describing a summer hit - a song getting released in spring and then played all summer. In 2004 "Hej Monica" (sometimes Hej hej Monica - Hi, hi, Monica) was released by Nic and the Family.

They are mainly a one hit wonder. The song reached #1 on the Swedish radio chart and stayed there for three weeks. In 2006, the newspaper Aftonbladet dubbed it the worst summer hit of the decade. The song mostly consists of the lyrics "Hej Monica" (Hi, Monica) repeated over and over again. Songwriter Nic Schröder wrote it about being fifteen years old and in love with a girl named Monica.

The hit got a resurgence in 2017 when Youtuber Pewdiepie made a remix of the song. The original music video from 2004 captures being a teen hanging around the kiosk, mustering up the courage to talk to your crush:

The Sámi people are a group of people indigenous to Sápmi, an area covering the northern parts of todays Norway, Sweden, Finland and nort-western Russia. Maxida Märak is a rapper and singer born and raised in Stockholm, but now residing in Jokkmokk in the Swedish part of Sápmi.

She is a human rights activist as well as a musician, and has touched on important subjects such as climate change and the treatment of the Sámi people in both her activism and her music. The song Nu brinner ängarna (The meadows are burning) touches on climate change and the uncertainty around being able to promise her daughter a future.

In december 2022 she performed the song together with her daughter NikeSunna at Musikhjälpen, a yearly Swedish charity event hosted by the Swedish public service radio and television:

This week, most Swedish school children finish school to go on their summer break. The last day of school is usually celebrated together with your classmates and families showing up to attend the end of schoolyear celebrations, skolavslutning. Traditionally, the children perform some summer songs, mixed in with speeches from headmasters and handing out of grades and saying goodbye to the students leaving for higher education. Skolavslutning has traditionally been celebrated in churches in Sweden, and over 50 % of schools still report having them in churches. Any overtly christian rituals are no longer condoned, however.

Some traditions linger, though, such as singing a few hymns from the Swedish hymnal. Some of these are by now so associated with skolavslutning that they have lost a bit of their religious impression. The far most popular and common of these is Den blomstertid nu kommer (Now the time of blossoming arrives). It was first printed in 1693, and the melody is probably an even older folk melody.

The lyrics welcome summer, with the rebirth of grass and flowers. God is not mentioned until the end of the second verse. In Swedish school, only the two first verses are usually sung.

Zarah Leander, (1907-1981) was a Swedish singer, known for her deep, contralto voice and confident manner, earning her the informal title "the last diva". Between 1936 and 1943 she worked as a singer an actress in Nazi Germany. This was highly controversial, and several of the filmes she starred are regarded as nazi propaganda. She's been reluctant to talk about her past, but strongly denounced any nazi sympaties and has stated that she was "politically naive".

Her deep voice and diction worked well with the phonographs of the day. "Vill ni se en stjärna" (Do you want to see a star), which became her signature song, however, wasn't recorded by Leander until the 50's, though she had been singing it on stage as early as in 1929.

Leander kept performing well into into a venerable age, with her intact, exceptional singing voice as well as stage presence. I couldn't find a year for the performance below, but it showcases her grip on the audience and her great humour. Her husband is playing the piano, explaining her pointed glance after singing the lyrics "Ingen man ska göra brud av mig" (no man will ever make me a bride):

Illustration of the Swedish nursery rhyme Blåsippor by Elsa Beskow.

Alice Tegnér is one of the most productive and well-known composers in Swedish musical history, especially for her nursery rhymes and music for children. She was a pioneer in writing songs from children's perspectives, with melodies that suit children's voices. She was said to have perfect pitch.

Blåsippor (Hepatica) is one of her most well-known songs. The lyrics are written by poet Anna Maria Roos, and the music was written and published by Tegnér in 1895. The lyrics are sung from children's perspective, asking their mother to be allowed to go barefoot, since they've noticed hepaticas outside, not wearing socks and shoes. Mother tells them that hepaticas, unlike children, can't get colds, and tells the children they'll have to wear their socks and shoes for a while more until spring truly arrives.

The spotify version I've linked here is from an album "sung as by the bedside", which I found very sweet. This is the way I think most Swedes have grown up hearing it sung. Below, a version with lyrics attached: