Song Titles 20 Questions

A few words about the last song. It’s about a funeral in Stockholm in the 18th century. Imperiet skip the second stanza, and Thåström messes up some of the words (probably because he learned the song by listening to a recording Cornelis Vreeswijk did while he was drunk), but I still think this version (and the video) captures the atmosphere perfectly.

I’ve found an English translation with notes by the translator (not me). I disagree on the comment about "long-necked and thin", I’ve always thought it referred to the quarrelsome Löfberg (I’m still convinced that I’m right):

Note How Our Shadow
Note how our shadow, note Movitz mon frére,
[how] it’s being enveloped by darkness.
How the gold and Tyrian cloth, in that shovel there
are transformed into gravel and tatters.
Charon waves from his roaring river
and then, three times, the gravedigger himself [waves],
never again will you squeeze your grape.
Therefore, Movitz, come help me arch
a gravestone over our sister.

“Shadow” might also be translated as guise or shape; it probably refers to the body itself. Movitz was a good friend of Fredmans. “Mon frere” is French for “my brother”. “Purpur” refers to cloth dyed Tyrian Purple, i.e. the most expensive type of cloth imaginable. The “shovel” is the gravedigger’s shovel. Charon is, of course, the Greek mythological ferryman of the dead. The gravedigger “waves” three times, i.e. puts three shovelfuls of dirt on the grave – that’s traditionally a part of the burial ceremony. Squeezing the grape refers to the process of making wine. To “välv” means to build an arch shape, but can also be translated as pondering/thinking about.

Oh, [you] worthy-of-yearning and concealed hovel
under the sighing branches
where Time and Death beauty and ugly alike
are united into one raw material.
To you jealousy has searched no path,
Happiness, otherwise so lithe while fleeing,
will never hurry along among the gravestones.
[Your] enemy is armed there, how does it appear to you?
is piously breaking his arrows.

This was a tough one, and I’m not sure I got it right. The grave is the hovel that is both longed for and hidden, where no matter what your station in life, you arrive as equals. I think the second part means that when you are dead, jealously, happiness, and enmity doesn’t matter any more. “Vad synes väl dig” also has the connotation of “what do you care” – when you are dead, enemies mean little.

The little bell chimes with the big bell’s knell
the bedecked cantor stands in the portal
and among the prayers of the bellowing choirboys
[he] sanctifies this place.
The road up to the temples’ gravestone-adorned city
treads among the yellowing petals of roses
[among] rotting grave tablets and stretchers.
Until the long and black-clothed row
bows deeply in tears.

A cantor is a musician working in a church with responsibilities for the choir. “Lövad” generally means bedecked by leaves, so possibly the cantor is holding a funeral wreath. It’s also possible that it refers to him being drunk. The “temple” probably refers to Mary Magdalene Church in Stockholm, and the “city” is the graveyard.

She went to her final rest from both brawls and balls
quarrelsome Löfberg, your wife
There, towards the grass, long-necked and thin
yet you glare ever backwards.
She was parted from Dantobommen today
And with her all the jovial gatherings
Who shall now command the bottle?
She was thirsty and I am parched,
we are all thirsty.

“sl*g.mål och bal” i.e. “fights and dances” is another set of extremes within the human experience – several sets of opposing forces are included in the song*. His wife is buried under the grass – it’s not clear if “long-necked and thin” refers to the wife herself or to the grass – and yet he continues to look backwards, i.e. to the past. Presumably, he is thinking of their past together. She left the Dantobommen tavern behind when she died. “Lustiga lag” would refer to a jovial party or gathering, but “lag” can also have a connotation of being pickled in alcohol, which would make sense for this drunken bunch! The song ends with a bittersweet line that indicates the end of their fun times together, and yet then concludes with an exhortation to go on with the drinking. The part about ending is especially apt, as this is the next to last of the Songs of Fredman.

* – lots of opposing forces in the song. Gold and Tyrian Cloth vs. gravel and tatters, ugly vs. beautiful, small bell vs. big bell, etc.