norsk – My Inner MishMash

Hirundo Maris – “Bendik og Årolilja” (Bendik and Årolilja”.

Hey people! 🙂

For today’s song of the day, I chose a beautiful and tragic medieval ballad. I guess every single country or culture has a similar famous tragic love story. I first heard Bendik og Årolilja back when I was just starting to acquaint myself with Scandinavian and Nordic folk music, and back then I happened to be quite a lot into folk metal, largely thanks to the influence of my late friend Jacek from Helsinki, so the first version of this song was by Gåte. In case you’re curious of Gåte I actually posted one song by them WAAY back in the beginnings of my blog, specifically, it was Inga Litimor.

But back when I heard their Bendik og Årolilja, and then a bit later Bukkene Bruse’s version, the only Norwegian I understood was through Swedish, and since this song is in quite archaic language, I didn’t really understand much at all, I just knew that it’s some sad medieval ballad and suspected that it had to do with tragic love and someone’s death or something like that, and not much more. I first heard Hirundo Maris’ version in December last year, so I’d already been learning Norwegian for a while by then, but still my understanding of it was very patchy. It was thanks to Balladspot, a blog about Scandinavian ballads, that I’ve finally learned what exactly the plot line of this song is and if you’re interested in Norwegian folk music as much as I am, I highly recommend reading that post because it includes a few different versions of this ballad, including this one and one by Kirsten Bråten Berg, whose one song I’ve even shared on here in the past, but hadn’t heard her version of Bendik og Årolilja before.

In the ballad, Bendik leaves home in search for a wife and subsequently falls deeply in love with Årolilja – daughter of a Danish king. – However, the king is not favourably inclined towards Bendik as his daughter’s future husband, or perhaps doesn’t want her to be married at all, because we are told that he built some sort of mysterious golden track, which is not to be treaded by anyone or else they will die. Supposedly, this track leads to where Årolilja lives and probably is a symbolic representation of Årolilja herself. Undeterred by that, Bendik embarks on this forbidden journey. He hunts during the day and visits Årolilja each night. Their happiness doesn’t last long though, because the king soon finds out about them through his young servant boy, which means death to Bendik. He is imprisoned and tied up with lots of ropes, which he breaks free from easily though. Thus, the same young boy who previously spied on young lovers, tells the king to tie him up with Årolilja’s hair. Those bonds indeed prove unbreakable for Bendik, as he says he’d rather remain inprisoned than break one of his beloved’s hair. Then we have all kinds of living creatures who ask the king to have mercy for Bendik, from birds and fish and trees to Årolilja herself and even her mother the queen who reminds him that he had promised to fulfil any request that she makes, but the king rejects all their pleas. Bendik is killed in the least appropriate place possible – beside the church – and soon after that Årolilja dies from sorrow. – It is only then, when the king finds out about his daughter’s death, that he finally regrets his actions. We are also told that on the graves of Bendik and Årolilja lilies started to bloom, which I think must be related to Årolilja’s name, because lilje and Lilja mean lily in modern Norwegian and Swedish respectively. As a name nerd I do have to add that I think the name Årolilja is really interesting and that it’s sad it’s not actually in use in Norway these days. 🙂

I’ve already shared a couple songs by Hirundo Maris in the last few months so I don’t think I need to introduce them much, but for those who are unfamiliar with them, this is an early music group founded by Catalan soprano and harpist Arianna Savall and Norwegian singer Peter Udland Johansen.

Anne Marie ALmedal – “Vi Har ei Tulle med Øyne Blå” (We Have a Little Girl With Blue Eyes).

Hey people! 🙂

Today I want to share a very popular Norwegian children’s song with you. It has been sung by a lot of different Norwegian artists, but I think my favourite version is that by Anne Marie Almedal, who is a pop singer from Kristiansand. The song was first published in a songbook by Norwegian teacher and children’s writer Margrethe Munthe. The below translation was written by Bibielz.

We have a little girl with blue eyes

With silky hair and with small ears

And in the middle of the face a small nose

As big as this

As soft as velvet are her cheeks

And she is lovely and plump and pudgy

With doll-like hands and two small teeth

In her mouth

And she can bite her own toes

And she can dance without clothes

And she can eat and stand and show

How big she is

And the little girl pulls on dad’s hair

And laughs and winks to whoever walks by

And bakes cakes and lets us taste

Everything she makes

She splashes in the tub, you can believe

We never hear her scream no

Well you really should see our little girl

How good she is.

Hirundo Maris – “Trollmors Vuggesang” & Helene Bøksle – “Trollmors Vuggevise” (Troll Mother’s Lullaby).

Hey dear people! 🙂

Today I have a funny little Scandinavian lullaby for you. I only know Norwegian versions, but apparently it’s also known in Sweden. The first version I want to share with you comes from Hirundo Maris, the early music and folk group founded by Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen. I’ve already featured two of their songs, including Tarantela from the same album. THe other version is by one of my favourite Norwegian folk singers, Helene Bøksle, who hails from Mandal in the south of the country. I have also featured some of her other songs before. Here’s Bibiel’s translation of this song:

When troll mother has put to bed her eleven little trolls

And wrapped them up tightly in her tail

Then she sings for her eleven little trolls

The most beautiful words she knows

Hirundo Maris:

Helene Bøksle:

Masåva – “Klem” (Hug).

Hey people! 🙂

Today I’d like to introduce you to a Norwegian band, whose music I’m actually quite new to as well, and it could be described as a blend of jazz with the Nordic folk song genre called vise/visa. It consists of Selma French Bolstad, who is the group’s lyricist as well as the vocalist and fiddler, Martin Morland, who plays bass, Martin Sternberg, who plays piano, and Øystein Aarnes Vik who plays drums. I like this song for its cosy vibe, and lyrics which can be very relatable if you’re an overthinker or a ruminator. Below is my translation, although it probably leaves a lot to be desired, and there’s even one line that is missing because I had no idea what it was actually supposed to mean.

You said you were coming home
I’m here but you haven’t arrived But I hope it was nice things that they said […?]
You said you were coming home  Maybe you have to help a friend Or maybe the tram isn’t moving again I’m here when you need a hug
And everything you think about It’s going to go well here now Don’t need to think this thought again I’ll take care of you when you get home
So can we say sorry? You said you were coming home So I think well to think well again Oh I’m trying not to get jealous
You said that she is just a friend And all I think about It’s going to go well here now No need to think this thought again
You’re going to take care of me when you get home So can we say sorry? Because you said you were coming home You said it after all , I say it again
When you get home you will get a hug And all you think about It’s going to go well here now No need to think this thought again
I’m going to take care of you when you get home And all you think about It’s going to go well, yes, this  You can get rid of everything you think about
No need to think that thought now anymore  So can we say sorry? Because you said you were coming home You said it after all, I say it again
When you get home you will get a hug So can we say sorry?

Daniel Kvammen – “Du Fortener Ein Som Meg” (You Reserve Someone Like Me).

Hey people! 🙂

Today, let’s listen to a song in Norwegian. I’ve known and liked it for a couple years now, definitely longer than I’ve been learning Norwegian. However, even now that I’m learning the language, whenever I’d listen to it I had a hard time understanding much. It’s generally a problem I have a lot in Norwegian – I feel pretty satisfied with the results of my learning overall and how it seems to progress quite quickly, but when it comes to listening, not even just music but also people speaking, anything other than your typical, posh-sounding Oslo Norwegian that most people think about when they think Norwegian, makes my brain lag and I really struggle to understand what people are saying, unless someone speaks REALLY slowly. – It frustrates me as shit because with the Oslo Norwegian I really don’t have much of a difficulty understanding it at all, unless I simply don’t know a word or phrase or something. – I comfort myself that natives experience this too to an extent with dialects that are a lot different than their own, but still, to me it happens quite a lot, and then if I am able to see the same thing in writing like a transcript or lyrics or something, I’m usually surprised how I could not understand it. 😀 And that sometimes makes me feel that perhaps I’m not making all that much progress at all, because even when I didn’t speak almost any Norwegian, only Swedish, I could still understand a decent amount of written Norwegian bokmål and people speaking “typical” Norwegian. So that’s what I decided to do with this song at some point – look up its lyrics to be able to see how much of it I’d be able to understand when reading. And I did, more or less, but it wasn’t as easy for me as it is most of the time, for some reason. I’m not even entirely sure why. So when I thought that I could share it with you, I was very happy to discover that there is a very decent-looking English translation of this song available here so I won’t have to write my own. 😀 Here it is:

It doesn’t bother me that you are the kind
That smiles while you’re crying
and that you always ask me why we two even exist at all
because you know I struggle
with the same thoughts as you
and more than that…

Because you deserve someone like me
someone stranger than you are
and if you don’t know where to go
then at least we two are together still

It doesn’t bother me that you get angry and crazy when you’re drunk
and that you scream that you will die before you get old and round
so long as we can run
till our feet fail, through all kinds of mess

Because you deserve someone like me
someone stranger than you are
and if you don’t know where to go
then at least we two are together still

It doesn’t bother me that we don’t make much money
or must live in a tiny room with a tiny bed
and if it all should come crashing down
I will partake in the absurdity that constitutes who we are

Because I can see how your head burns
How your hands shake
How your eyes water
but I know there is so much more to you
and you and I together we could lay a plan
and maybe we could make it work

Because you deserve someone like me
someone stranger than you are
and if you don’t know where to go
then at least we two are together

Because you deserve someone like me
someone stranger than you are
and if you don’t know where to go
then at least we two are together still

Eli Storbekken ft. Sigurd Hole – “Kjærringa Ho Sala Si Sugga Grå” (The WOman She Saddled Her Grey Som”.

Hey people! 🙂

Today I’d like to share with you all some Norwegian folk from a musician whom I only discovered last week – Eli Storbekken. – The first album from her that I came across has been Fabel (Fairytale) recorded together with bass player Sigurd Hole, who is actually a jazz musician himself so the album does have quite a jazzy feel to it as well. Both Eli Storbekken and Sigurd Hole come from the part of Norway that until recently was known as hedemark, and now is called Innlandet.

I don’t know fully well what this song even is about. It seems like kjærring means woman, in particular either a married or an old woman, I don’t know whether it’s still used like that in Norwegian or any of its dialects specifically or is it more of an obsolete thing. I’ve also come across a source claiming that it’s a slang word for a girl, and it also seems like kjærring is some sort of feminine character in the Norwegian folklore. I haven’t found any written lyrics of this song that could possibly help me understand more of it or maybe even translate it for you into English with a bit of luck, but mostly what I gather from it from little words and phrases that I understand or think I might understand correctly is that this woman rides on her sow from one place to another, seeking some sort of consolation. She went to a priest, but the priest told her that he can’t help her so she should go to the bishop, because he rules over him, then the bishop tells her that it’s the king who rules over him so she rides to the king and so on, but I have some gaps in what I understand from it, and I don’t really get what exactly the conclusion of all of that is other than it seems to involve some girl if I hear it right. I also didn’t know what exactly did she want comfort for, I originally thought she has beaten someone, but according to the description of this song on YouTube she killed a taylor, which after listening to it again I was really surprised that I couldn’t figure out before, especially that the Norwegian word is very similar to the Swedish one, so she must have shot him rather than beaten him. Anyway, I think it’s a really cool-sounding folk tune and with a very interesting arrangement.

Sondre Justad – “Ikkje Som de Andre” (Not Like the Others).

Hiya people! 🙂

Today I’d like to share with you a Norwegian pop song which I’ve been liking for a long time, so I’m actually kind of surprised that I haven’t already done it because it’s really cool, and I think it has a huge brainworm/earworm potential. It is a song by Sondre Justad who is a very popular Norwegian singer and who comes from northern Norway, which, as with most Norwegians, is easy to figure out from his dialect. He wrote the song together with Magnus Eliassen and it’s the closing track of his 2018 album Ingenting i Paradis (Nothing iin Paradise).

Below is an English translation written by Bibiel, it was quite easy to write, but there’s just one phrase that I absolutely wasn’t sure how to best translate into English, namely in the line “They never properly reached in”. There is the verb “nådde inn” and it does literally mean “reached in”, but I don’t think the verb “to reach in” is used in English in this context. But I just couldn’t think of an alternative that would sound good enough and convey that meaning, while it seems to me that even though “reach in” may not be used like that, it’s pretty understandable in English as for what it’s supposed to mean.

I’m pulled towards you
Into the light
Everything around us fades out
Have been searching
Have gone in blind
It feels as if the wind has turned around
Inexplicably I become brave
And vulnerable at the same time
We both have closed eyes
My hand finds yours

You are not like the others
You are not like the others
I want to be with someone like you
You are not like the others
You are not like the others
I need someone like you

Incessant like the wave
Life washed over me
You are new, you are something else
To think that we would meet here
This world is odd
But not as strange as you
Painted picture, new colours
And show me how I look

You are not like the others
You are not like the others
I want to be with someone like you
You are not like the others
You are not like the others
I need someone like you

So many layers I should have interpreted
It gave me nothing
Have travelled and met so many people
They never properly reached in
But you I can understand
You have no filter and are direct
They wanted to have something unattainable
You wanted something genuine
Is this genuine?

You are not like the others
you are not like the others
I want to be with someone like you
You are not like the others
You are not like the others
I need someone like you

Serlina – “Puste Under Vann” (Breathe Under Water).

Hiya people! 🙂

So, another Norwegian pop song this week, this time with quite a dance vibe to it. It comes from Serlina, about whom I don’t really know a lot as this is the only song by her that I’ve heard and as soon as I heard it I liked it, but I never really dug deeper into her music. I don’t know for sure where in Norway she’s from and I’m not all that very good yet at this guess game in the Norwegian edition haha so I won’t be guessing here, but she sings in nynorsk, and despite that I’ve managed to translate it for you with no significant problems along the way, although these lyrics aren’t really that complicated to begin with.

It is not easy to live
As if in a dance on roses
When everything we see seems better
I guess we all have felt it
Want to go away from clouds that shadow
Because I want out into the sun
But everything has taken a new turn
Now that you are gone I do not see anymore
The memories disappear, see them go far away
Can’t you see it?
There is something more
Can you hear me shout higher than the mountain?
Hold myself back, but my heart wants to say
I cannot find my way onto land
But can’t breathe under water
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under water
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under water
Can’t breathe under water
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under water
Have never heard it was easy
To let go of memories
Because everything that I thought was genuine
Has completely changed
You said those words to me
And I gave you a look
Who has suddenly become small?
Now that you are gone I do notsee anymore
The memories disappear, see them go far away
Can’t you see it?
There is something more
Can you hear me shout higher thann the mountain
Hold myself back but my heart wants to say
I cannot find my way onto land
But can’t breathe under water
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under water
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under water
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under
Can’t breathe under water

Folque – “Dans, Dans Olav Liljekrans” (Dance, Dance Olav Lily-wreath).

Hiya people! 🙂

Today I’d like to share with you a very old, Scandinavian folk song, which came to life in the Middle Ages. From what I see it’s most popular in Denmark, and it’s most commonly known as Elveskud or Elverskud (Elf-shot). However, the version I want to share with you, and the only one that I have actually heard really, is Norwegian. There are also Swedish and Icelandic versions of this.

A guy called Olav (or Olof or Ólafur, depends where in Scandinavia we are) is riding through the woods (or towards the mountains, as is the case in the version I am sharing with you today) when he sees elf-maids dancing, and one of them encourages him to join in. And from then on it seems like there’s a lot of variations between various versions of this song. As I said, I know only one, but I’ve read that the most common and traditional one is that he refuses, saying that tomorrow is his wedding day and then the elf-maid makes him gravely ill, so that he dies when he arrives home. There’s also one where he does dance with her and basically dances himself to death. And the Icelandic one is different yetbecause the elves ask him to drink with them, but he refuses saying that he believes in Christ. Then one of the elf-maids asks him for a kiss, and when he bends down to kiss her she wounds him with a sword, and he dies when he comes back home.

In the version that I am sharing with you, he also refuses to dance with her and says that tomorrow is his wedding day, but then the elf-maid tries to bribe him. I don’t understand the whole lyrics, because I don’t really know what sort of language it is, is it some sort of archaic Norwegian or is it some weird dialect, but to me it is really weird and while I get it overall, I don’t understand some words. But I think she tries to bribe him first with gold, or something golden, and then a silk shirt. Each time Olav says he’d happily have each of these things, but he wouldn’t dance with her anyway. ANd, for all we know, she may still be trying to get her way and convince him, because it doesn’t seem to have a proper ending like those other versions do.

As for Folque themselves, they’re a really cool Norwegian folk-rock band from Oslo, established in the 70’s, influenced by bands in the same field like the English Steeleyes Pan. Like I said, I don’t know any other arrangements of this Olav song, but I like how they made it sound very contemporary but in a way that feels natural and not at all obnoxious, which is sometimes difficult to achieve with folk music I would think.

Siri Nilsen – “Det Som Reparerer Alt” (What Fixes Everything).

Hi people! 🙂

Today I’d like to share with you a song from a really interesting Norwegian singer whom I have liked for many years now. Siri Nilsen’s definitely one of my most favourite Norwegian artists who are somewhere in between folk and pop, not quite fitting the “normal” pop box, but not the very rootsy folk either. Some people classify her as a visesanger (vise singer, with vise being the same thing as visa is in Sweden – it means song and is the name of a Scandinavian folky ballad genre) and I thhink that fits her music best.

Siri is the daughter of another Norwegian visesanger – Lillebjörn Nilsen – and American singer Shari Nilsen. Btw, as a name nerd, I like seeing all sorts of fun or interesting or weird patterns that people have in naming their children and I think it’s quite interesting that there’s Shari, Siri and Sara (Siri’s sister) in their family). And since I’m already talking about name nerd stuff anyway, I really like the name Lillebjörn because it essentially means the same thing that Misha means in Russian (“little bear”). 😀 But it doesn’t really sound like what it means, unlike Misha.

Aside from being a singer, an acclaimed songwriter, writing almost exclusively in Norwegian, a multi-instrumentalist, she is also a voice actress and ballet dancer.

I like her bright and clear vocals a lot, and also I think it’s very cool that she writes her music mostly in Norwegian. I read that she once said somewhere that, as a young girl, she felt the lack of Norwegian-language music that her generation would listen to, so that’s how she started writing her own songs. She said that even thoughh some people do not consider Norwegian a very musical language (I wonder what language IS musical for such people then, if Norwegian isn’t 😀 I guess only Swedish can compete) she thinks that every language is poetic in its own way. I totally agree with that, and so I think she must be my peep, I would only just add that each language is also musical in its own way, in that every language sounds kind of like a different piece of music with different qualities to it, but it’s still a piece of music even if it’s less melodic than a different piece of music might be. Think of Finnish, for example – it sounds fairly monotonous compared with the sing-songy Norwegian and a bit staccato but it still can be very musical in an absolutely beautiful way. –

Below is my translation of the lyrics:

Give me what everyone looks for
Give me what makes the fog lift
What makes everything become clear
Give me what fixes everything

What silences the voice
The one that says everything is wrong
Give me what fixes everything

Like dust over my days
Like a shadow of a wind I am chasing
Everything is like under water
Like looking for traces in the sand

For what silences the voice
The one that says everything is wrong
Give me what fixes everything

Give me what everyone looks for
What they whisper about during their nights
Everything is just almost here
Tell me what it is

What silences the voice
The one that says everything is wrong
Give me what fixes everything

Cezinando – “Håper Du Har Plass” (Hope You Have Space” & ISÁK “Sávan Dus Lea Sadji”.

Hiya people! 🙂

I’ve been familiar for years with the song I want to share with you today, and I’d known it’s a cover of something, but had no idea of what. You may recognise ISÁK if you’ve been reading my blog from the early days because I shared one song of hers – “Face The Truth” – back then. She’s still one of my favourite Sami pop artists, and Sávan Dus Lea Sadji was one of her earlier songs as far as I can recall.

So recently I was listening to some Norwegian music on Spotify and heard “Håper Du Har Plass” by Cezinando that sounded oddly familiar and for a while I couldn’t quite recall what it reminded me of, but eventually figured it out that it sounds just like the ISÁK song, except it was obviously in Norwegian rather than Sámi, and indeed, that is the song which ISÁK covered. Now I like both versions a lot.

Cezinando is Kristoffer Cezinando Karlsen, he is a rapper, singer and songwriter who’s music has been highly acclaimed in Norway, and he lives in Oslo and is of both Norwegian as well as Portuguese descent.

ISÁK is actually a band, but I believe its founder and frontwoman- Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen- also uses it as her own artist name. She won a Norwegian song competition Stjernekamp in 2018, and I believe she is now more recogniseable in the mainstreamy world (or at least the more mainstreamy Norwegian world) due to her collabing with Alan Walker.

I managed to do a translation of the Cezinando version, which I’ll share below. This time, since he’s from Oslo, it’s not nynorsk 😌 ) but some bits were still challenging for me for various reasons. Sometimes I knew what something meant in Norwegian but found it difficult to find the right English words that would work in something as concise as lyrics but also convey the sense as well as I’d like. Some bits I could understand literally but wasn’t sure what exactly they’re supposed to mean or whether they’re idioms or whether I was in fact understanding something wrong, to the point that in a few places it seemed rather nonsensical like that line with the cellar. :O

There’s nothing that interests me anymore

Or feel like a genuine feeling

And it has just started to pour down

So I hope you have space

I hope you have space for me, again

Could be just a matress that can lie in the toilet as far as I am concerned

I hope I get a pass into your palace

I can keep calm and sneak around as if I was walking on glass

I hope there is space somewhere inside the heart that you’ve inherited from your mother and me

I hope you have space, I hope you have space

I come all alone and with no pass

You can tell me when I need to pay attention and put me in my place if you find a window for me

Oh, catch me when I fall or lose myself, and the last flame or spark

I will let you cry yourself out for a life with me on my cost if you find a window for me

I’m coming back home

[…] was home again

I cannot go to her again

It is my fault that it has ended

So she has things that boil down in the cellar that burnt the home [???]

And I have things in the closet and in the folder [?]

I let it ring two times before I hung up so you can call me back up, and I will see your name on the screen – with a picture – of you

I hope you have space, I hope you have space

You can tell me when I need to pay attention and put me in my place if you find a window for me

Oh, catch me when I fall or lose myself and the last flame or spark

I will let you cry yourself out for a life with me on my cost if you find a window for me

I come all alone and with no pass

I have slept out before

Then I was closer to the real me

The one far from the perfect, little defective me

I thought it was Jesus when you woke me up, but I’m easily fooled

The whole life and the whole world has been on me

So I gave up trying to make them understand me

I can make dinner, its the same for me

What about frozen hash?

I hope you have space, I hope you have space

I come all alone and with no pass

You can tell me when I need to pay attention and put me in my place if you find a window for me

Oh, catch me when I fall or lose myself and the last flame or spark

I will let you cry yourself out for a life with me on my cost if you find a window for me

There’s nothing that interests me anymore

Or feel like a genuine feeling

And it has just started to pour down

So I hope you have space

I hope you have space for me

Again, again, again, again

Every time I’ve wanted to come back home to you

I wasn’t expecting to be able to find a translation of ISÁK’s version, but, surprisingly, I did, and as far as I can tell as a practical non-Sámi speaker (yet) it seems fairly decent. You can find it

here.

My nature has changed, crushed

And it feels no more

It is fitting that it has began to rain again now

I hope you have

Hope you have

Space for me

I don’t ask for much

I could even

Go sleep on the floor

Then I wish that I could

Get away from this pain because

Nothing feels okay

I wish you have space somewhere

In your heart that you got from your mother and me

I hope you have space

Space for me

I am all alone now

Nothing matters

I promise to obey and be good

If you would let me in

Oh, save me when I hurry

Or lose myself

When the last lights have died out

You can cry in my arms

Give me the burden

If you would let me in

I return home again now

Most unfair in the world

How they don’t find peace anymore

When they know who is guilty

And then look for ways that

Must kill the sorrow

But my ownership is in their house

Because of that I don’t have strength to quit

Knocking their door

Even though each wound shouts not to tease

I need you

I hope you have

Space for me

I am all alone now

Nothing matters

I promise to obey and be good

If you would let me in

Oh, save me when I hurry

Or lose myself

When the last lights have died out

You can cry in my arms

Give me the burden

If you would let me in

I hope you have

Space for me

I am all alone now

Nothing matters

I promise to obey and be good

If you would let me in

Oh, save me when I hurry

Or lose myself

When the last lights have died out

You can cry in my arms

Give me the burden

If you would let me in

I hope you have

Space for me

I am all alone now

Nothing matters

I promise to obey and be good

If you would let me in

Oh, save me when I hurry

Or lose myself

When the last lights have died out

You can cry in my arms

Give me the burden

If you would let me in

Cezinando:

ISÁK:

Silja Sol – “Stemning” (Mood).

Hey people! 🙂

Today I’d like to share with you another song in nynorsk this month, this time from a young pop singer from Bergen called Silja Sol Dyngeland, or simply Silja Sol which is her stage name currently. Silja grew up in a musical family and thus was surrounded by music from the start and learned to play various instruments from an early age, and then as a teenager she also started writing her own lyrics. I read that when the singer AURORA was looking for members of her accompanying band, Silja was asked if she could suggest someone who could play the keyboard, and she offered that she could join in, which I think was quite a brave and self-confident decision given that, of all the instruments she’d learned to play, she didn’t know how to play the keyboard, though she did play the piano already. Apart from that, Silja also does backing vocals for AURORA.

Like I said, this song is in nynorsk, but, unfortunately, unlike with the last song in nynorsk that I shared on here, by Sigrid Moldestad, for this one I wasn’t really able to make a translation at all. I can’t seem to make sense of too many words in here and, as a result, I’m not sure I fully get it as a whole. But I just think this song is really nice even without understanding the entire lyrics.

Sigrid Moldestad – “Eg Vil Vere Her” (I Want To Be Here).

And for today, I’d like to share with you a Norwegian folk song. I’ve shared quite a lot of Norwegian music on this blog, even before I’ve started kinda sorta learning Norwegian this year, but I feel it’s mostly been pop, and not so much folk. Sigrid Moldestad is one of the most recogniseable and awarded contemporary folk artists in her home country as it seems, and she blends folk music with more modern influences. Aside from being a singer, she is also a violinist and aside from playing your typical violin, she also plays Hardanger/Harding fiddle, which is a national instrument of Norway. She originates from Breim (I still haven’t really wrapped my brain around the geography of Norway but I believe it’s somewhere in the west) and she sings in nynorsk. I chose to share with you a song from her 2017 album Vere Her (Being Here). Something in it kind of spoke to me when I first heard it and understood more or less what it’s about, even though this song is a song about motherhood and I am not a mother. In this song, Sigrid ponders what it will be like when her daughter reaches adulthood, and how she, as a mother, can still be withh her, despite her child will be out of the nest and it may not be possible for her mother to always be close in a physical way. It spoke to me because sometimes when I think about motherhood, and being a mother in general, it seems to me like it must be extremely hard for mothers to let their children go when the time comes, despite having cared for them, bonded and being very close to them for many years. I think if I were a mother, I would find it really difficult to move on, so despite I am not and most likely will never be, I believe I understand her perspective in a way.

I tried to translate these lyrics, and I (sort of) did, despite having a lot of doubts, because I don’t really feel very confident yet when it comes to nynorsk and had to look up loads of words. This is by no means a reliable or complete translation, some bits may be totally incorrect or look kind of weird, but I thought I’d share it anyway, to give you a glimpse of what it’s about, and to give myself a bit of a challenge. Maybe someone who has a better idea about nynorsk/Norwegian in general will see this and help me fix it and I’ll learn something new, or I’ll look back at it in a year or two and be able to fix it myself.

I want to be here

I want to be here for long

So I can see how it goes

I want to follow you

I want to hold your hand

So that you find your way, my dear child

But life is not like that

We never get to wholely see

How it goes

How it goes

So I’m saying this now

I want to be a wind

That blows on your cheek

And a feather you find

[think? ] what you will be like

when you get old

Will you need me then, when you’ll have grey hair

We are light at night

Where you are, there I am

When the new path comes [?], you will become a great-grandmother

But life is not like that

We never get to wholely see

How it goes

How it goes

So I’m saying this now

I want to be a wind

That blows on your cheek

And a feather you find

No days shall come back

Everything is here and now

We breathe life and [stare? Believe? ] in a little [hope?]

That everything isn’t sleep and then it’s over [???]

But that there are other promises

So you (hear???) me

When you need me

And I sing for you

Then I shall send down a feather

Then I will cherish you as before

Because maybe life is like that

That we always get to see

How it goes

How it goes

Because sometimes I go and see

A feather that I find

Get a kiss from a wind

That blows on my cheek

Because maybe life is like that

That we always get to see

How it goes

How it goes

Because sometimes I go and see

A feather that I find

Get a kiss from a wind

That blows on my cheek

Sandra Lyng ft. Morgan Sulele – “Ta Me Dit” (Take Me There).

Hiya people! 🙂

For a bit of change, today let’s listen to some very normal, Norwegian pop. I heard this song for the first time some week ago and it seems to be quite sticky because it stuck to my brain for quite some time afterwards, and I think it’s cool so why not share it. Both Sandra Lyng and Morgan Sulele are very successful, and quite recogniseable in Norway as it seems, singers. Sandra’s fame started when she took part in the Norwegian Idol in 2004, she also lived in Los Angeles for a while during her career and collaborated with American artists. I have already featured one song by Morgan Sulele called “Noora” some three years ago.

Since as you may know I’ve been kinda sorta learning Norwegian lately, I decided to try and translate the lyrics. It turned out to be a bit challenging, but not too challenging, and interesting, because while Morgan appears to be from somewhere around Oslo, Sandra’s dialect is one that I haven’t had much exposure to before. She is from a town called Mosjoen, in the Vefsn municipality, and although I’m still not very well-oriented in the Norwegian geography and am learning things, basing on some bits from her dialect it must be somewhere in the north. I have had contact with nordnorsk (northern Norwegian) but mostly from like Finnmark or thereabouts, and some features of Sandra’s dialect were quite new to me. I found the verbs particularly puzzling ’cause when they’re in present tense sometimes they look more like infinitives to me, or something yet different, and sometimes they do look like what I’d consider proper Scandinavian verbs in present tense. 😀 I wonder if it’s the dialect thing or the music thing, like how sometimes things don’t necessarily have to be grammatically correct in songs. Then there’s the word “me”, which struck me immediately since it’s in the title, I’d always thought northerners pronounce this as ma. Yet she pronounces it mostly as me, and then once or twice I think I heard it as ma. That just confirms my initial belief that Norwegian is freakishly inconsistent. 😀 It’s interesting because I’ve heard quite a few ways to pronounce this word (which in standard Norwegian is spelled meg and pronounced MY) but I don’t think I’ve heard “me” before. Norwegian is so fascinating in its diversity. Anyways, I found another

English translation

which, while kind of clunky itself, helped me to clarify the thing with verbs so that I could make my own translation, which I hope isn’t too bad though since I’ve only been learning Norwegian for a few months there could be some huge mistakes that I don’t even realise.

Dark night

Hunting for dreams

Dry, cold

No one is speaking now

Tomorrow will come, but it isn’t coming now

Thinking she will escape again, but no place to go

For no one can take the hope from her

Take me there

Where the sun always shines

Take me there

Where the love wins

Take me there

To a place where there is no shadow

Take me there

Take me there

He doesn’t dare go

Though the day is over now

Because he knows that mother is home and he knows that she is crying now

And if he comes home too late again

A fully deserved punishment is waiting

So now he must go home because the day is over now

Take me there

Where the sun always shines

Take me there

Where the love wins

Take me there

To a place where there is no shadow

Take me there

Take me there

When it’s raining, can you take me with you

To another place where everything is good

When it’s raining, can you take me with you

To another place where everything is good

Take me there

Where the sun always shines

Take me there

Where the love wins

Take me there

To a place where there is no shadow

Take me there

Take me there

Trollguten – “Pell Deg Ut”.

Hiya people! 🙂

So last month I have already shared

one song

from this young and quite surprising Norwegian artist with you, and I was intending on sharing some more of his music, so that’s what I’d like to do today, as, in my humble opinion, the music that he’s made that is actually good is really underrated compared with how much attention his less ambitious stuff seems to be getting in Scandinavia.

This song, just like the previous one from him I shared with you, has interesting and kind of weird lyrics. I like weird, creative and genuine. As you may know, lately I’ve been playing around a little with Norwegian and I find it fascinating how this language has such a load of dialects and how cool it is that people don’t have this kind of shame about speaking them as some other nationalities with a lot of dialects often have. He wrote his lyrics under this particular stage name in what I believe is the Stavanger dialect or something similar from the southwestern Norway, and I was able to pick up bits and pieces of this song via my Swedish and some knowledge I’ve recently gained in Norwegian, so I had a basic idea of what it’s about, but I decided to sit with it before writing this post and try to figure out as much as I could from these lyrics when seeing them in writing so I could give y’all some idea. I didn’t understand everything, but here’s what I gather from it. He/the lyrical subject addresses some girl who lives in his house, presumably renting or something like that, who sounds like one huge disgusting nightmare to share your living space with. She eats and drinks like a pig, leaves crumbs of food on his sofa, doesn’t flush the loo, carelessly sits on his guitar, doesn’t pay rent and seems to be a real fart factory or potentially shitting herself ’cause that’s how bad it apparently smells, and it sounds like some default state for her to smell of sweat and poop. Ew! It sounds like a super weird arrangement if you ask me because she not only lives in his house essentially for free, but he also cleans up all her mess and even makes food for her! :O And she won’t even say thank you. It’s not surprising, given all that, that finally the lyrical subject had enough of it and decided it’s time to kick her out. So he told her to pack her bags and beat it. Except when she did pack her bags, he discovered that half of the tings she packed were actually his.

As an introvert who hates parasite people and considers my private space extremely important, this sounds like quite a hell for me to put up with, even though at least I don’t practically have much sense of smell.

Oddly enough, despite I think I understand quite a fair bit of it (which I consider great since it’s a dialect and not standard Norwegian and since I don’t actually speak Norwegian as such), I have no idea what the title means literally. I mean I can guess it’s something like get out of here or something, but I don’t know what the verb “pell” (which is probably pelle in the infinitive) means exactly.

Maria Mena – “Speil” (Mirror).

Hiya people! 🙂

Earlier this year, I shared with you one song from this singer already. This one is, from what I know, her first original song in her mother tongue, which is Norwegian. And just like that song I shared with you before (“Not Okay”) and like a lot of her music in general, I think we can also say that this one is very much a mental health song, dealing with the topic of low self-esteem and how it’s so strange that we often see ourselves so badly and want to have traits that we don’t have when other people, like our friends, see only good things in us and consider the things we don’t like in ourselves our good traits. This is a very happy, heartening song, encouraging you to use your friends, and all the positive opinions they have about you, as a mirror to see yourself in. I like it a lot, and as someone with AVPD, I can certainly relate to it, with my own view of myself and the good and bad things about me not seeming very congruent with what others think, but also I’ve always been wondering how it actually is, is it an individual herself or the people around her who get the clearer picture of what this individual is like? I’m inclined to say that it’s the person in question who knows it better, because you are with yourself 24/7 whereas your friends only see some bits of you that you share with the outside world so it’s impossible for them to know you as well as you do yourself. And obviously the bits you’ll want to share with others won’t be the worst bits of you, so quite naturally they’ll usually get to see the good things. On the other hand perhaps because they have an outside perspective they can be more objective in some way. Regardless though, whether it’s you or other people who are “right” about how good or bad you are, it’s always nice to think about the positive things that people have told you when you’re feeling yucky and self-loathing.

I guess I haven’t shared this on here before, but I’ve been playing around with Norwegian a little bit for the last couple months, trying to figure it out a bit more than simply by understanding some of it accidentally via my Swedish, learning about the grammar, vocabulary differences, all the dialects and stuff, mostly out of curiosity simply because it has never been on my most most favourite languages list, but who knows, maybe I’ll actually want to get fluent in it too. It’s certainly possible and since it’s so similar to Swedish I feel capable to learn it while still having Welsh as the language I’m learning primarily at the moment, because it’s not really like I didn’t have a clue at all about Norwegian to begin with and need to put as much work into it as I would into a totally brand new language. So today I decided I’ll try to do a translation of this song, and I actually did translate almost the entire song, but then figured it was sooo lame that I deleted it right away, even though I sat with it for like an hour. 😀 I constantly had a feeling that something was very wrong with it. I still don’t feel confident with Norwegian at all. Talk about low self-esteem. 😀 I generally don’t have this problem with my languages, but maybe I do with this one because it doesn’t really feel like one of “my” languages, or not yet. But I guess since this song has quite a clear topic and I’ve already told you what it’s about it doesn’t need a literal translation really to hit home.

Trollguten – “Skogen” (The Forest).

Hiya people! 🙂

For today I thought I’d share with you one of my recent discoveries when it comes to Norwegian music, which I’ve found very interesting. Even though I don’t speak or learn Norwegian as such, only Swedish, I do seem to feel some kind of affinity with Norwegian music, and a lot of that music happens to be somewhere on the electronic music spectrum. This also is the case with this artist.

Trollguten (which means the troll boy in English) is Norwegian producer and singer-songwriter Kristoffer Björntvedt (or maybe it’s with the Norwegian ø, I’m not sure as I’ve seen both spellings), who has also made music under quite a few other aliases, playing around with different kinds of electronic music, from electro pop to what they call russ music in Norway which is like a dance subgenre I guess we could say, often with easy-cheesy, cringey or downright obscene lyrics, particularly associated with russefeiring, or russ celebration, that is when high school pupils (russ) are in their last semester of school and celebrate the fact that they’re finishing high school and are now adults so they can drink and apparently often do a lot during that time, but from what I understand it’s also just generally party music, regardless whether you’re a russ or not.

I’m not going to mention all the different names/alter egos/whatchamacallit he’s known as, because with at least one of them (the one that’s most successful and under which he makes the aforementioned russ music) he’s anonymous and doesn’t want people to know who he is. Actually, I wonder if it isn’t a bit of a Pulcinella’s secret because, while I myself happened to come across his less well-known music projects first (which is very fortunate because otherwise I’d probably not be encouraged to delve deeper), there seem to be a lot of people in the interwebs who know only this russ music activity of his, and are wondering who he is, and it doesn’t require any special detective skills to figure that out, there’s even a thread about him on what seems to be a pretty popular Swedish forum. Still, I believe privacy is a crucially important thing so I’m not gonna reveal the secret. 😀 I suppose if any young Norwegian/Swedish folks, will be reading this, they’ll guess whom I’m talking about anyway. Also if I wrote the sort of lyrics he does under that particular pseudonym I think I’d also much prefer to stay anonymous, hahah, although for him it’s apparently not this that’s the reason.

Anyways, the first project of his that I’ve heard of, about a month ago, and that also took off quite well in his country as it seems, was Travelle, and I liked it a lot immediately. It’s maybe not what I’d typically listen to, even when it comes to electronic music, but something about it really spoke to me, and also I really like when people are raw and real with their music like that, expressive but without being overly exalted. And then I learned about his other musical activity, and even though definitely not all of his music spoke to me, I really liked his versatility, I always like that in people, whether it’s in music or whatever other area. And I like it when people who do music solo do everything themselves, as then you can get quite a consistent picture of the mind behind it. Another thing that I always appreciate in musicians that he also is is that he’s really prolific. Sadly, the project he’s most prolific in is that russ one, and he hasn’t done anything as Trollguten in ages, and nothing new as Travelle in couple years either, but I suppose he invests himself most in the russ stuff because it’s simply what people want the most, and so it pays off the most, as he hasn’t got quite as much attention with all the other stuff as with that.

And then I also happened to learn that not only does he make music in Norwegian, Swedish and English, but he also apparently loves languages and can speak German and Spanish. Somehow I would never have thought that this could be the case. Moreover, he tends to speak in quite a peculiar mix of Swedish, Norwegian and English from what I’ve noticed. Mixing languages is fun! And I think it must be all the more fun when you live in a country where people can actually understand you when you do so. 😀 I wish I could do that, but everyone around me is monoglot and they’d think I’ve gone even more crazy than ever. On the other hand, I always used to mix up languages spontaneously and involuntarily when I still used to drink alcohol, so maybe it has this sort of effect on him as well.

I think I might share some of his Travelle music in the future as well, but since Trollguten was an earlier thing and it’s also really really good, I thought we’d listen to this first. He’s originally from near Stavanger in the southwest of Norway, although is currently based in Oslo, and as Trollguten, he sang his lyrics in the Stavanger dialect.

I’m not good at understanding Norwegian by ear, and even looking at the lyrics I don’t get everything so wouldn’t be able to translate it for you, but from what I gather, he/the lyrical subject’s on some trip in the forest with a girl, that would have been nice, except she’s being in a quarrelsome mood or something like that, and wants to leave him, so he’s trying to convince her how bad an idea it is, because they’re deep in the forest and because she’s afraid of the dark, and allergic to birch, on top of that.