Music recs, Swedish folk edition
Jun. 28th, 2021 07:53 pmMy latest musical love is the 70s Swedish folk group Folk och Rackare (thanks to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
luzula for introducing me to them :D). From what I gather, they were doing the same sort of thing bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention were doing around the same time in English, reviving and reinventing old ballads and other traditional songs (of which Scandinavia has a rich tradition), though the one album I've listened to so far is not quite so rock-y as Steeleye get.
Here's one of my favourites from them so far—this has a very lovely, evocative tune, and according to this translation of the lyrics it's about the hard life of a servant, starving on an inadequate diet and enduring cruelty at the hands of the master and mistress:
And here's a Swedish version of the ballad I learnt in Scots as 'The Twa Sisters', which is a very international song—Child notes the existence of variants from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, the Faroes and Finland, as well as similar ballads from Estonia and Lithuania.
For a bit more fascinating comparative balladry, here is a Scottish version of the same ballad and here is Folk och Rackare's Swedish version translated into Scots!
luzula for introducing me to them :D). From what I gather, they were doing the same sort of thing bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention were doing around the same time in English, reviving and reinventing old ballads and other traditional songs (of which Scandinavia has a rich tradition), though the one album I've listened to so far is not quite so rock-y as Steeleye get.Here's one of my favourites from them so far—this has a very lovely, evocative tune, and according to this translation of the lyrics it's about the hard life of a servant, starving on an inadequate diet and enduring cruelty at the hands of the master and mistress:
And here's a Swedish version of the ballad I learnt in Scots as 'The Twa Sisters', which is a very international song—Child notes the existence of variants from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, the Faroes and Finland, as well as similar ballads from Estonia and Lithuania.
For a bit more fascinating comparative balladry, here is a Scottish version of the same ballad and here is Folk och Rackare's Swedish version translated into Scots!
