Here's a silly little personal story, about music and language. My two loves; things I react to strongly, too much so. The tears are fine, I suppose, but sometimes -
Me, I don't usually listen to audiobooks or the radio, because my attention wanders. And if I do manage to concentrate, I find audio tends to affect me disproportionately much. So I don't do it, but I sometimes make exceptions. Usually unwisely.
Now, this year has been difficult in many ways, but I've also felt like I've been bleeding bits of identity (and linguistic identity) all over the place. Specifically, there's been the realisation that being bilingual is an important part of me. Listening to and reading things in Swedish, speaking Swedish, apart from the everyday Finnish, it means a lot.
So. From that realisation, it was one short step to deciding (unwisely) to listen to a podcast, one made by the local broadcasting company, one in a series called Sommarpratare ("summer speakers"). All kinds of people participate, talking about the important things in their lives, and it's all interspersed with music they've picked to go with it. I knew it would be too much for me - but they had this episode with Jakob Norrgård.
Of course they had.
I'm not linking to the podcast itself because it's geoblocked. Maybe it exists somewhere else? 🤔
KAJ: Jakob Norrgård, Axel Åhman, Kevin Holmström
Lately, of course, KAJ has become one of the things keeping me going. For many reasons, but language is an important one. And I like Jakob's big smile and easy laugh, and his wonderful vocals.
So it wasn't even a question, really. I need to hear this, I thought, recklessly.
Thing is, Jakob had interesting things to say in the podcast, about performing, about the nature of ideas, about gender presentation... And there I was, unwise, tearing up. The honesty in his voice, and just listening to the cadence of it - it means warmth and home and all sorts of important things.
But then. There was the music.
See, there's this one older Swedish song that always makes me cry. Something about the feel of it and the words and - Lasse Berghagen's En kväll i juni. And, conversely, there's one KAJ song that keeps making me cry with laughter - I try not to and there, I'm wiping at my eyes again - Hej du människa.
... You can see where this is going, right? They were both included. Of all the songs in the world.
And it didn't end there. Today, I had an important meeting - and walking there, through town, I realised I was humming a third one of the songs in that same podcast. 🫣
It was all I could do not to serenade the whole meeting, the earworm was that bad.
Sjunger, sjunger min långa längtan
Sjunger ensam vid Roines strand 🥲
All The Feelings. Too many of them. Strange the things that turn your world upside down without warning, really. There's someone telling funny anecdotes from their childhood - and I'm in pieces.
... After that, I kind of shut down. Couldn't process. I know there was a Hamilton song in there too, because of course there was. Didn't get to dissecting that yet.
In conclusion, have Dehär e min by, just to underline - the power of music, the importance of music, the combination of language and music
It's vital
