THE TALES OF LIVING

"Music is the soundtrack of my life"

This is why, I thought I should post a entry telling you about one of Gothenburgs most famous bands. They embody what in the rest of Sweden is know as "The Gothenburg Sound" which refers to a pop sound mainly because Gothenburg has been the hometown of many of our greatest indiepop acts. This band has meant so much to so many of us, it's your typcial growing up from teenager to a young adult type of band. They are named Broder Daniel (Brother Daniel). What, I assume, have given them so much love and fans are their straight forward "tell it like it is" attitude. They are the perfect mixture of good tunes and easy lyrics. The lyrics can come across as to easy or repetitive but the beauty in their lyrics is the way they tell so much by singing so little. A perfect example of less is more.

For me, Broder Daniel has meant a lot. They were the band played in the crazy house party days while jumping on couches, dancing and having fun with my friends. They were the band played walking to school or just walking around town. They were the band played late at night, while I was in my room, thinking, with a wide open window letting the November wind and night air in.

For me, they are the essence of Gothenbrug as much as Håkan Hellström(who used to be in the band but now got a wonderful solo career). Broder Daniel and their songs, is filled with memories.
They are all those carzy house parties and they are all the meltdowns locked into a strange bathroom where two best friends are sitting in an empty bathtub crying. They are the smaller get-togethers before a night out on the town, they are both the night bus and the morning train home. They are the music played on the tram rides to illegal nightclubs (when we were to young to go to the proper ones), they are the teenage rebellion, they are the ache of the first broken heart, they are the first kiss, they are the streets of Gothenburg at night walking home with my shoes in my hand. They are standing at the front of the scene, screaming along in all the lyrics. They are the first ever music festival. They are the parks of Gothenburg, at summer nights, filling up with with youngsters carrying bottles of wine and tape recorders playing.
They are my youth
They are the pain of growing up
They are the love of Gothenburg

The songs that meant the most

Out of this town - When you grow up you love Gothenburg, but we all need to realize that we at some point need to leave it completely to grow up. The tune of the song combines the feeling of love for the town as well as the sadness and longing to leave it. I wish I could fly away from here/Out of this town/I'd leave them all behind,/Where they are stuck/Waiting for life

Lovesick - is about being young and being in love or longing for love. Age is a big conncetion to how you look at love, how you see the future and your possibilities. In the song they sing It takes two, it takes two/to tango to tango/and I'm only 18 only 18/I'm moving on 19
Which refers to how it feels to be young and in love

When we were winning - is also about age and love, it's a bit about the sadness of looking back at the past. How sweet life was when they were 17 and a couple. Refering to the title is the time when they were young and carefree. The fact that when you grow up the world easily gets more gray and harder to handle in terms of thinking about the future, work and so on. Oh when we were seventeen/Oh life was like a film /When we were seventeen /The sky was always tangerine /We ran through streets at night /Under starlight /We ran through streets at night /When we were winning

Both Lovesick and When we were winning are song that tie in with the solo work of Håkan Hellström as the songs Vi två, 17 år (Us two, 17 years old) and Rock 'n' roll, blå ögon - igen (Rock 'n' roll, blue eyes - again). Where he also sings about, age, growing up and love.
In Vi två, 17 år he sings
Skyll dig själv, för folk vill gärna lära känna dig/Men nej, för jag har inte sett nån som dig än.../.../Vi är förlorade, vi två, sen vi var 17 år/Sen vi var 17 år
Which translates to You only got yourself to blame, because people would love to get to know you/ But Oh No, I haven't seen someone like you before.../.../We are lost, the two of us, since we turned 17 years old/Since we turned 17 years old
In Rock 'n' Roll, blå ögon - waiting for the perfect time to reveal his love and about looking back at his youth, feeling that like Broder Daniel sang "the sky was always tangerine" (in When we were winning) När tiden är rätt/ska jag plocka upp dig /och ta dig långt härifrån/Och jag var 18 år/18 år, för 10 år sen
Which translates to When the time is right/I'm going to pick you up/and take you far away from here/and I was 18 years old/18 years old, 10 years ago

Cruel Town - from the record with the same title is about the cruel town, which would be refering to Stockholm (Sweden´s capital) and is a perfect portrait of the younger brother-older brother complex that is and always has been between Stockholm, the biggest city, and Gothenburg, the second biggest city of Sweden. What makes people who come from Gothenburg like their hometown more that Stockholm (beside the pride of where you were born and raised) is that fact that Stockholm is so much more of a big city and the chock between the two, can create the impression of Stockholm being big, cruel or a place where no one cares(everyone just becomes a big gray mass of people). In the crowd of people/On the subway trains/No one looks into your eyes/In the park a junkie dies/.../Cruel town, it’s a cruel town/Cold people, cruel town/Cruel town, it’s a cruel town/If you fall, you stay down

Only life I know - Is about the town (Gothenburg) and about an ordinary life. Connections can be made to their song Work, but Only life I know is about all the things you do because you know nothing else. It's the only life I know/To wear the streets of this town/I wear down the sidewalks home/It's the only life I've learned/To wear down the sidewalks/Home of this old town

Work - Is about the feeling that life is just an endless circle of an ordinary boring life, it's the sort of song you listen to when you get ready for work. It makes you want to achieve more. I wake up every day feeling the same way/wake up every day feeling the same way/.../wake up every day/.../I gotta go to work, then hurry home/got to go to work, then hurry home/.../I gotta go to work/then hurry home/.../oh every day is just the same/oh every day is just the same

Burn heart burn - ties in with Work and Only life I know, it's about someone how is stuck in a routine and in desperation tries to forget and escape on the weekends. It's about how you get captured and may lose yourself to the routine of an ordinary life.You spend your days/At a dead end job/Where you just do/What you are told/And you come home/To an empty place/Fall asleep by the TV set/And on the weekend/You get all drunk/Try to escape/Till Monday comes/.../Why is it so we die just as copies/If it's so we're born originals

Sorrow - Broder Daniel, with their "tell it like it is" attitude, do sing a lot about love and love that's not recipient on the other persons end. This song is just about a misery of a love with no respond. there is a place I call sorrow/and there is a place I call sorrow/.../loneliness is so hard to me/and loneliness is so hard to me/it's so hard to me/and it's so hard to me/.../I carry a weight on my back/I carry a weight on my back/I have to carry all the weight/and how I need a helping hand/cause I carry all the weight

Superstar - Is a love song, about how you put the one you love on a pedestal and how that enhances your sadness when you realize that you'll never be a couple. the only one i loved, she was a superstar/.../I dream a dream that cant come true/I can never be with her/I dream a dream that cant come true

What clowns are we - It ties in to love as well as their thought about age and is just a straight forward song. What clowns are we/What clowns are we/Try to pretend do we/What clowns are we/.../What a game is love/What a game is love/What a game that brakes hearts/We`re made to play/.../And where do tears go/When they don`t show/Where do years go/We waste them so

Harden heart - Is a song about a bitter broken heart and the feeling, after gotten your heart broken, when your sadness turns into anger. I thought I was weak/But now I'm all steel/I thank no one/And no one thanks me/The more you pressure me/The stronger I get/Behind every cynic/Lies a bitter dreamer /.../Hardened heart, my heart is hard/Hardened heart, my heart is hard/Hardened heart can take no harm/Hardened heart, my heart is hard/Oh, my love/My heart is hard

I'll be gone - For me this is one of the best songs. When they sang it at their last performance ever (The music festival Way Out West, 2008) I thought about Anders Göthberg, from the band, who committed suicide that same spring. I also thought about the people I've lost and the once I've lost touch with. I thought about the pain of growing up, the love of Gothenburg and my past youth. This song has been played so many times, at so many different occasions sad as well as happy ones. I won't last long/soon I'll be gone/I won't last long/soon I'll be gone/../it's all the same to me/there's nothing to see it's all the same to me/.../there's nothing for me to be/what will happen to me/what will happen to me/although I'll soon be gone/I'll still think of you/oh I'll think of you/and I will soon be gone

The kids are alright - This is the typical Broder Daniel song, it's about age, the pain of growing about and are the essence of when you where 15 and went to the parks on summer nights to listen to music and hang out with the cool kids on the lawns. the kids are alright/the kids are alright/the kids are alright/I wanna feel brand new/.../I wanna be fifteen/I wanna be fifteen/I wanna be fifteen/'cause I'm sick inside/.../growing up is hard/growing up is hard/growing up is hard/the hardest thing

I'll end this off with three of the songs I just love, they are the ones we used to scream while jumping in a couches at a crazy house parties just an hour or so before the police came and shut the parties down (that always happen at the best parties).

Happy people never fantasize - Is all about the fact that if you are completely happy you have nothing to dream of or strive after. The song is a bit comforting, by meaning that it's ok to not feel perfectly happy all the time. you get so used to being sad/you never try to be glad/you get so used to being sad/oooh/.../but happy people never fantasize/happy people never fantasize/happy people never fantasize/.../oh I want to be a part/I look for love in a hollow heart/I want to be a part of something

Luke Skywalker - This was the first song I ever heard by Broder Daniel, so therefor it's special to me. It's in many ways their best party song, since you can scream at the top of your lungs to it. A lot of people don't like the way he sings in this song, but I think that it's a part of the song´s charm. The way he sings creates a greater meaning to the lyrics. I went to a dance/but I didn't get any friends/makes me a little sad inside/but I'm Luke Skywalker/oh yeah/oh yeah/I fell in love with a girl/but she had a boyfriend/I tried to get her for a while/but now I can't stand her anymore/'cause I'm Luke Skywalker/oh yes I am/I wanna be Luke Skywalker tonight

The name is Brother Daniel - This song is made for playing live, it's also the sort of song you sing really loudly with all your friends a summer night on the tram on the way home from a long night out on the town. our name is Brother Daniel/and we're alright, we're alright/we're alright yeah yeah yeah/.../we'd rather be gone/than nothing at all/we'd rather be messed up/than be nothing at all

To really get all of this I suggest that you download (I did not just write that) the songs and listen to them and check out the lyrics. After that, while listening to them ready all my descriptions of the songs and the parts of their lyrics which I've chosen. Then I guess it might all make a bit more sence to you.

If anyone would get stuck on Håkan Hellström, just post a comment with the title of your favourite Håkan Hellström song. That way I can discuss the meaning of the song and do a translation. Håkan Hellström has meant even more for me and Gothenburg than Broder Daniel. If a city could be a person, Håkan Hellström would be Gothenburg. I remeber a while back when one of my friends posted a picture on her blog showing the insanely large crowed going to Liseberg(our amusement park) to watch Håkan play live (he usually does that in September every year). She wrote this description to the picture "Today it was Gothenburg´s national day a.k.a. Håkan Hellström played at Liseberg"
That really gives you an idea of what he means around here...