16/10/2010

Oslo



The song Oxford Street, based on adolescent memories of growing up in Hatfield, highlighted the genre of the song about small towns, typically about the homogeneity and stifling of creativity that such places can produce. Yet ‘small town’ can have a different meaning. Some capital cities are so big that you can only relate to a particular chosen district, whether it’s Stoke Newington, Cheetham Hill or Greenwich Village. Others manage to be big cities but still with a small town atmosphere, a term that in this context has a positive connotation. They are compact enough to be able to walk right across, they seem accessible and informal, more relaxed than places like London or New York. One writer said of Venice: ‘Venice is a small town with sweet, small town manners’ (Judith Martin in No Vulgar Hotel :the Desire and Pursuit of Venice).

The same could be said of several of the Scandinavian cities. In fact, just as it is said that visiting the Isle of Wight transports the visitor back in time to the 1950’s, so it easy to feel you have gone to the past in many parts of Norway, Sweden or Finland. It is not just the wooden houses and cobbled streets. In a conference venue in one of the smaller towns one might stumble upon not only a group such as Herman’s Hermits still on the road with original drummer Barry Whitwam and still doing I’m into Something Good – bringing to mind those Japanese soldiers who appeared from the jungle on Pacific islands in the 1970’s and 1980’s unaware that WW2 was over - but musical outfits that one might think only existed now in the pages of pop historical memorabilia: Johnny and the Hurricanes! (Big hit - Red River Rock 1959) The Spotnicks! (Big hit- Hava Nagila,1963)

So Copenhagen is one such place that has retained a small town atmosphere, with its gabled houses, narrow streets and churches. Another is Oslo, Norway’s biggest city with a population of half a million or so. Though it has a subway system, most of the centre is easily reached by walking and it isn’t hard to feel a sense of accessibility about the whole place, from the harbour to Vigeland Park. There is a novel called Hunger by the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun that is worth reading before visiting Oslo. It is set in the Oslo of 1890 (Kristiana) and can be read for what it is: a compelling account of a penniless writer wandering the streets of the city in an increasingly desperate state of hunger.(By page 108, readers are likely to be searching for a snack if they hadn’t eaten before starting the book). But is also worth reading because of the descriptions of some of the streets and squares and parks that haven’t changed that much in the last 100 years or so - the place that the author/writer calls "that strange city no one escapes from until it has left its mark on him”. Dating from about the same time is the famous painting, Munch’s The Scream, set on a road overlooking Oslo.

The song here is simply called Oslo, by the Oslo-based Little Hands of Asphalt, largely the musical project of singer-songwriter Sjur Lyseid. It came out on the Leap Years album in 2009 but is timeless enough to have come from almost any era. The harmonies and soft melody sound at times like Teenage Fan Club of the mid-1990’s.The harmonica that comes in towards the end could be Donovan circa 1965.The lyrics have some witty touches- ‘But your good intent was clear when you split and left me here, to my regret I left my high horse upstairs’ – and they revert to the double meaning of ‘small town’. The song is a slightly awkward, introspective account of an adolescent romance breaking up or a friendship that has ended –but ‘I’ll be seeing you around, because Oslo is a small, small town’. In that regard, it could be the personal statement from someone growing up in any number of towns and finding the horizons too limited. It does also, however, have strong echoes of Oslo - the swimming in the lake and the closeness to nature, the celebration of the sunny summer months before the winter darkness sets in, a bit self-effacing, a slight touch of melancholy,

I had a possibly unusual experience of Oslo. I was staying in a hotel/conference centre an hour or so away and for reasons I never really understood in a country where gender equality has been long entrenched, women travelling with their husbands on the country bus into Oslo got a reduced fare. I therefore trundled back and forward a few times as a pretend husband so conference attendees could travel cheaply to shop in Oslo. However, it did enable me to wander round the streets and parks like the character in Hunger, though obviously not reduced to eating my pencil. A small town still at heart, perhaps, but probably not as easy to understand as it might first seem to a visitor.
Link to song

33 comments:

  1. I knew nothing about this band before your column today Geoff, but it is definitely an act I will be checking out, delicate and beautiful songwriting!

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  2. I found an interview with the main artist of the ban online, where the journalist asks him about this particular song..... I'm posting the question and answer below:

    Listening to “Oslo”, one gets the feeling the song is about a ‘romantic break-up’. Is it? Or is it about a friendship falling apart?

    I’m not sure if it’s any one situation – I suppose it kind of comes from several situations that I’ve watched happening… I guess it’s the fragility of relationships in general.

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  3. This sound reminds me a little of Conor Oberst.... who I love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIBoEZOVLIE. Thanks Geoff!

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  4. Wow, all the subtle instruments in this makes it pure bliss to listen to! Really cool Geoff, thanks.

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  5. Check out this teaser, free 5-track download from the band, maybe useful for anyone reading the blog who doesn't know this music and wants to listen for the first time.....

    http://www.howisannierecords.com/article.php?id=137&p=

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  6. I'm impressed by this song, and by what I can tell of the band's style more generally, because it the way it presents every-day situations in easily approachable, poetic lyrics without losing sincerity and straightforwardness, it's kind of unusual, and incredibly cool. Thanks for the introduction to the band, Geoff!

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  7. Hmmmm, indiepop meets country, nice!

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  8. It's amazing that English is not Lyseid’s native language – but without knowing that information ahead of time, you would never have been able to tell!

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  9. I don't hear the indiepop/country sound, Pete - this feels like (great) folk to me.

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  10. Great band - they manage to have both panache and understatement!

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  11. I'm with Pete - this is definitely acoustic pop.

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  12. I love the pedal steel and gently plucked banjos - very nice, thanks Geoff, I'd never heard of them. I also had no sense at all about Norway or Oslo, so that was marvellous too - thank you!

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  13. I think it's tender folk rock. It is Americana-influenced music. It is obvious that this singer knows his Bruce Springsteen as well as his Paul Simon. Great column Geoff, makes me want to visit Oslo, which had never interested me until now!

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  14. This sounds more like Elliot Smith than Conor Oberst, although also different to either.

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  15. iTunes lists it as country, but I think of it more as a poppy folk, with a slight hint of country.

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  16. It's like Death Cab For Cutie but better:)

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  17. Geoff, this is a great meditation on a different meaning of 'small town'. So often it is only used to refer to American small towns - which was pointed out I think in one of your earlier columns. It was refreshing to think about the European notion of small town!

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  18. This is a great band - their music is unassuming, subtle and unobtrusive, yet magic.

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  19. I think what I like best here is the way that the band's intimate style works so well with the song's theme of the small town - and the lyrics about a geographical intimacy. There is something about the conversational style, the thoughtfulness, the measured nature of it, that works so well with the image it paints (and you paint in the column Geoff) of Oslo and a small town.

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  20. Yes, the sense of intimacy is powerful, I agree with Tiffanye - the song is like a series of anecdotes and the voice has a whispering feel, which works so well with the potentially claustrophobic subject matter.

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  21. Yes, I think that is what helps make it an interesting song-that what seems accessibility to a visitor can seem stifling to a resident

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  22. Geoff, that's very nice of you to go back and forth pretending to be people's husband:) Then only to wander alone round streets and parks!

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  23. I had no idea that The Scream was set in Oslo - it definitely wouldn't have been a city I'd associate with that painting, whereas a few of the places you've written about (Hatfield, for example) seem much more likely to elicit that kind of anguished response of the figure in the painting!

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  24. Is no one else amazed that Herman’s Hermits is still on the road with original drummer Barry Whitwam and still doing I’m into Something Good? I am (pleasantly) shocked by this!

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  25. Geoff, I thought you might find this interesting - clearly the American view of Norway, expressed through a skit about songs about Norway......

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyfBW9wk3a0

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  26. This is only slightly related I guess, but if you are keeping a list of songs about Norway, maybe the Beatles song Norwegian Wood would count (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Wood_%28This_Bird_Has_Flown%29), which is about an affair Lennon was having with a woman who had an apartment full of Norwegian Wood apparently!

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  27. Thanks for the links.
    You may be disappointed though, Kylie, that oddly enough Hermans Hermits dont have Herman any more!

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  28. Geoff, you may remember Hasse and Tage, the Swedish comedians, who did a song about Norway - it was satire though. It was called "Norgesvisan" and was in the 60s I think. Some of the lines went:

    We ought to give Norway a blow in the face
    because their ugly mountains and their old age without grace.
    They don't produce cars, and bad bikes are not for us,
    and their only big poet - his name was Peter Dass.

    (translated from the Swedish). I think the point was that while Sweden was making the Volvo, Norway was still making bikes. And the word "Dass" in Sweden means outhouse/primitive toilet, so there is a play on the Norwegian poet's name there!

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  29. Yes, that IS disappointing, Geoff:) (About Herman not being part of the Hermits anymore!:)

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  30. Geoff, here is the only other song I know of about Norway - definitely one of those undersung places I think! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHbtR8uO81M& - it's called Norway by Beach House.

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  31. There is also A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger by Of Montreal. Classic song. It opens "I spent the winter on the verge of a total breakdown / While living in Norway." - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aPupUX2s_A

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  32. There is a Darkthrone song about Norway that begins with the lyric "I come from a land of systematic erasure of optimism and positiveness, you don't want to encourage me." Which sort of evokes the dark forests of Norway.

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  33. They also have one called Norway in September that starts 'Those cold nights are back again'. Black metal bands seem popular in Norway!

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