Variations on a theme
Jul. 5th, 2010 11:27 am1. Jag drömde om
en barndomsvän igår
som telenäten drömmer
om svalorna i vår
say Kent. (Cowboys.) I like this song in English, but it's clearly better in Swedish, which shouldn't surprise me at all - of course the lyrics are going to be more expressive in Jocke's native language, both in terms of writing and singing.
(The English version - as in the official release, not the actual translation of the above Swedish - goes, "The wires dream / about swallows in the spring / I dreamed about my childhood / surrounded by dead things". The above means more, I think, "I dreamed about / a childhood friend yesterday / like the telephone wires dream / of swallows in spring". Or it might be the telephone network dreaming about swallows, not the wires? - I'm not even sure why I use this as an example, given that there are tracks on Hagnesta Hill that I like more, but it happened to grab me at the right moment, I suppose.)
I haven't actually listened to Hagnesta Hill in Swedish very much - at least not to pay attention to the words - but apparently I really should. I got into Kent mostly via Hagnesta Hill in English, so I have affection for it (and would still recommend it to non-Swedish-speakers, actually, at least as a gateway). But I know the songs are going to be a lot better in Swedish.
I guess this goes for Isola as well, but I don't feel very motivated - it's not one of my favourite albums of theirs in English, and the only tracks I have a really strong sense of are 747 (which is a really spectacular song in either language & which stands up to their later work way better than the rest of the album) and Velvet (which was only released in English anyway).
2. (or possibly 1.b.) It's also interesting, when I try to translate songs from the Swedish versions of Hagnesta Hill and Isola, how much my word-choice and phrasing ends up influenced by the English versions - as well as the similarity-and-difference between the respective versions. There are quirks of expression unique to each version in every case but some of them are pretty similar overall and others feel, from brief examination, almost tenuously related. More on this another time when I have proper translations of the Swedish versions. I'd quite like to run through a comparison some time. I think there's probably stuff to be got from doing that.
3. I'm still trying to make up my mind on En plats i solen. I don't know what bits I like best, or how much I like it as a whole album. Val has been describing it as one of the happier ones, which seemed like a bit of a strong statement to me (I mean, it's an album which makes pretty heavy use of the word "disappear", for example, though in total fairness this is probably true of a number of Kent's albums - it's kind of one of their favourite words) until I got back to working on the lyrics for Du & Jag Döden, at which point it made perfect sense... everything is relative.
Right now I think that maybe Ensam lång väg hem is doing something for me; I have probably the strongest impression of what it's like of all the tracks on the album so far. But it's still a bit soon to say. It's completely possible I'm partly just sold on it because of the travel aspect. (See below.)
A bunch of other songs definitely have lines that strike me well, too. But I'll work through my thoughts a bit more before I try to pin bits down.
If there's something that I'm not really getting from the album as a whole, it's probably to do with the sort of forward momentum I felt with Röd. Röd is going somewhere, although it isn't sure if it'll get there, or that's how it registers in my mind. En plats i solen is, you know. Just kind of hanging out.
Which is fair enough. But I liked Röd's drive. (And bursts of desperation.)
(I think Du & jag döden also had some kind of drive, in a different direction, which is what makes it a really good listen as a whole album despite several tracks I don't like very much.)
4. Moving more firmly backwards to Röd, I don't know as Svarta linjer struck me very strongly at first - it was possibly overwhelmed between Vals för satan and Det finns inga ord, which were my instant favourites and which I still feel pretty strongly about - but I find myself going back to it quite a bit right now. I don't have particularly amazing things to offer as to why (though I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the "vita linjer / i en tunnel ser jag ljus..." section towards the end, because that gives me a really strong mental image; and the song as a whole practically plays a little film in my head, which a lot of the ones I like most do... I'm also coming to understand that a lot of my favourite Kent songs feel a lot like journeys), but will take this as a lesson about how long it can take for an album/individual songs to settle in one's mind.
5. Basically, I'm going to see Kent live at Långholmsparken later this month, and I'm presumably going to be completely insufferable until then. I apologise to everyone following along to whom I didn't advertise this as The Kent Obsession Journal. I apologise also to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
valborg, who is discovering that she's not the only one capable of obsessive monofocus. But I go ahead and post this anyway, because we've just had a conversation about how I need to worry a bit less about whether I'm saying exactly the right thing in exactly the right way, and just say things a bit more.
Actually saying anything at all is a well-established problem of mine. I think we've touched on this.
en barndomsvän igår
som telenäten drömmer
om svalorna i vår
say Kent. (Cowboys.) I like this song in English, but it's clearly better in Swedish, which shouldn't surprise me at all - of course the lyrics are going to be more expressive in Jocke's native language, both in terms of writing and singing.
(The English version - as in the official release, not the actual translation of the above Swedish - goes, "The wires dream / about swallows in the spring / I dreamed about my childhood / surrounded by dead things". The above means more, I think, "I dreamed about / a childhood friend yesterday / like the telephone wires dream / of swallows in spring". Or it might be the telephone network dreaming about swallows, not the wires? - I'm not even sure why I use this as an example, given that there are tracks on Hagnesta Hill that I like more, but it happened to grab me at the right moment, I suppose.)
I haven't actually listened to Hagnesta Hill in Swedish very much - at least not to pay attention to the words - but apparently I really should. I got into Kent mostly via Hagnesta Hill in English, so I have affection for it (and would still recommend it to non-Swedish-speakers, actually, at least as a gateway). But I know the songs are going to be a lot better in Swedish.
I guess this goes for Isola as well, but I don't feel very motivated - it's not one of my favourite albums of theirs in English, and the only tracks I have a really strong sense of are 747 (which is a really spectacular song in either language & which stands up to their later work way better than the rest of the album) and Velvet (which was only released in English anyway).
2. (or possibly 1.b.) It's also interesting, when I try to translate songs from the Swedish versions of Hagnesta Hill and Isola, how much my word-choice and phrasing ends up influenced by the English versions - as well as the similarity-and-difference between the respective versions. There are quirks of expression unique to each version in every case but some of them are pretty similar overall and others feel, from brief examination, almost tenuously related. More on this another time when I have proper translations of the Swedish versions. I'd quite like to run through a comparison some time. I think there's probably stuff to be got from doing that.
3. I'm still trying to make up my mind on En plats i solen. I don't know what bits I like best, or how much I like it as a whole album. Val has been describing it as one of the happier ones, which seemed like a bit of a strong statement to me (I mean, it's an album which makes pretty heavy use of the word "disappear", for example, though in total fairness this is probably true of a number of Kent's albums - it's kind of one of their favourite words) until I got back to working on the lyrics for Du & Jag Döden, at which point it made perfect sense... everything is relative.
Right now I think that maybe Ensam lång väg hem is doing something for me; I have probably the strongest impression of what it's like of all the tracks on the album so far. But it's still a bit soon to say. It's completely possible I'm partly just sold on it because of the travel aspect. (See below.)
A bunch of other songs definitely have lines that strike me well, too. But I'll work through my thoughts a bit more before I try to pin bits down.
If there's something that I'm not really getting from the album as a whole, it's probably to do with the sort of forward momentum I felt with Röd. Röd is going somewhere, although it isn't sure if it'll get there, or that's how it registers in my mind. En plats i solen is, you know. Just kind of hanging out.
Which is fair enough. But I liked Röd's drive. (And bursts of desperation.)
(I think Du & jag döden also had some kind of drive, in a different direction, which is what makes it a really good listen as a whole album despite several tracks I don't like very much.)
4. Moving more firmly backwards to Röd, I don't know as Svarta linjer struck me very strongly at first - it was possibly overwhelmed between Vals för satan and Det finns inga ord, which were my instant favourites and which I still feel pretty strongly about - but I find myself going back to it quite a bit right now. I don't have particularly amazing things to offer as to why (though I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the "vita linjer / i en tunnel ser jag ljus..." section towards the end, because that gives me a really strong mental image; and the song as a whole practically plays a little film in my head, which a lot of the ones I like most do... I'm also coming to understand that a lot of my favourite Kent songs feel a lot like journeys), but will take this as a lesson about how long it can take for an album/individual songs to settle in one's mind.
5. Basically, I'm going to see Kent live at Långholmsparken later this month, and I'm presumably going to be completely insufferable until then. I apologise to everyone following along to whom I didn't advertise this as The Kent Obsession Journal. I apologise also to
valborg, who is discovering that she's not the only one capable of obsessive monofocus. But I go ahead and post this anyway, because we've just had a conversation about how I need to worry a bit less about whether I'm saying exactly the right thing in exactly the right way, and just say things a bit more.Actually saying anything at all is a well-established problem of mine. I think we've touched on this.
