It is said that I made my first appearance on Köpmannagatan in Kalix when I was 5 years old, at the place where the ELON store is today. In my young years there was a hot dog kiosk, and my grandmother worked in that kiosk. I played the accordion for the customers standing in the sausage line. But, I have no recollection of it, but it is certainly true. Here is a picture that shows that there was actually a hot dog kiosk at that location. Look under the Tobacco sign on the far left.
When I was little
It is said that I made my first appearance on Köpmannagatan in Kalix when I was 5 years old, at the place where the ELON store is today. In my young years there was a hot dog kiosk, and my grandmother worked in that kiosk. I played the accordion for the customers standing in the sausage line. But, I have no recollection of it, but it is certainly true. Here is a picture that shows that there was actually a hot dog kiosk at that location. Look under the Tobacco sign on the far left
I probably had the music in my DNA. I had probably inherited it from my mother’s grandfather, Eduard Norgren, who formed Karlsborg’s Horn Music Choir
Eduard together with his children had an orchestra which achieved great popularity in Norrbotten. So big that he managed to have a street named after him.
How it started
Did not experience the music lessons at school as particularly stimulating or enticing. It wasn’t until I got a guitar and started exploring what I could do with it that I stepped into a wonderful new world.
The fact that I bought a guitar was because my neighbor, Lena Andersson, ordered me to buy a guitar. She wanted to form a band, and I would then have the role of guitarist. Interesting choice by her considering I had never played guitar. We were four friends who, without being able to play, formed the band – EKIPAGE. Read about the band here
We learned over time to play our instruments. When we finally managed to make something resembling a coherent song, we called it the “Swedish set”, because it was so good!
How it continued
During my last year at school, I noticed a student in the school corridors who stood out from the crowd. He was from Töre and he looked like a rock star. He would soon make me make life-changing decisions and take me on grand adventures. Probably none of what I write below would have happened if I hadn’t met him. I don’t remember how we met and started talking, but suddenly I had stopped playing in EKIPAGE and was now often in Töre with this charismatic Thomas Jakobsson.
Thomas had a glow and enthusiasm that rubbed off on me. He played guitar in a band and wanted me there. …and so it happened. But then I could no longer dress in my favorite cardigan! Thomas immediately started scolding me about the way I was dressed, and immediately asked me to shave off my silly moustache. To this day, he is good at criticizing my choice of clothes. Once I was accepted into the band, Thomas wanted the group to have a cheeky name. He thought WILDLIW sounded good. Read about the band here.
What happened then…
We started and had our sights set high right from the first day. It was Thomas and I who wrote all the lyrics and music, with a few exceptions. My waking hours were now 100% focused on the band.
When I look back, this was probably the most enjoyable time that music has given me. Wonderful adventures and crazy antics. I also had to work on my shyness when I was now often on stage, which has benefited me in other situations later in life.
I went through a big personality change at this time, without Thomas it probably never would have happened. (More about Thomas further down) Our goal was to be able to live on our music, but it would turn out that I would make that journey myself.
The band WILDLIW then changed its name to BEDLAM (Read about the band here) when we moved to Stockholm. When we disbanded BEDLAM, Thomas continued to play with other bands and we lost the musical touch. But we have still been followed through life, even though we didn’t play anything together anymore. I was also offered to play with other bands, but nothing attracted me. The most fun was writing the music, and I could now do that on my own.
I stepped off the stage
Now I would focus solely on the songwriting, it was no longer an attraction to stand on a stage and play. I remember how strange it felt when I first heard a song I had written performed by someone other than myself. I was at a concert and stood in the audience listening to the people around me as they sang along to the song I had written for Niclas Wahlgren. It was this..
In time it was something I would get used to. Today, it feels strange to stand on a stage and play by yourself. But I had now realized that with a little luck I could put together a song that some other artist wanted. So in the early 90s I was writing loads of music, and now funny things started happening.
Top of Swedish Music List
In 1991, I participated for the first time in Melodifestivalen as a songwriter, the artist who sang my song was Jim Jidhed, singer of the band Alien. Although I didn’t win the competition, the song became a big hit that year.
A few weeks after the Melodifestivalen, I was sitting at home at the dining table and had laid out my breakfast, the radio was buzzing in the background, it was the Svensktoppen. Then I hear the presenter say “…and new 1 on the Svensktoppen is “Will you remember me”, with Jim Jidhed.”
I had gotten my first 1st at the Svensktoppen – WOOOW! Sat there by myself, had nothing to celebrate it with. My celebration consisted of a toasted sandwich and a cup of tea. But then I came to think of the first song that our band EKIPAGE managed to make, the one we called the “Swedish set”, and now, several years later, I was there for real, it felt great! Over time I would get more songs in the first place, think I had 13 songs on the Svensktoppen with different artists.
In addition to writing regular songs, I had now entered the writing of instrumental music for Sweden’s Television. Among other things, I had been given the honorable task of writing Sveriges Television’s channel ID, the music that was played in all the breaks between programs. This is what one of them sounded like…
Me and Seppo Härkönen (singer in WILDLIW) were commissioned to write text and music when SVT 2 celebrated 25 years. It sounded like this…
Wrote lots of music signatures for various programs. A program that was fun to make signature music for was K-G Bergström’s program Rakt På, he was also from Kalix.
A funny memory from that time was the parliamentary election in 2006, I had made all the music for all the debate programs and the like. On election day itself, when I was on my way to vote, I received a phone call, SVT wanted another 20 minutes of music to be played when the election results were shown later that evening.
- Would I have time to do it?
The music was finished and delivered two minutes before the broadcast was due to start. Need I mention that I like to sign under pressure. Inspiration is not something I wait for, I don’t have time for that. This is what the election music sounded like that year
This is how the music sounded in SVT for the 2002 election
When I visited the music museum in Stockholm at this time, I happened to see my name. The name was on a placard that mentioned the person who supplied the most music to Sveriges Television, and that was me. Oops!
Den glider in
In the 90s I felt a good flow in my writing. The songs that were the best were usually the ones that were the fastest to write, and for which I had also written the lyrics myself. Which I didn’t do very often, found it difficult. The only song I had written lyrics for before was “Do you remember me”, and now I was going to try again…
The song was to be my contribution in the competition that the Swedish Ice Hockey Association had announced. They were to write a battle song for Tre Kronor for the 1995 Hockey WC.
Before I had even picked up the guitar in my hand, I had the title ready.
“It slides in”.
Now I would just try to make music to those words, as well as write a little more text. I remember that I finished writing the text when I was walking along the Kalix river one early morning. It felt like I had something good going on. Confidently told my friends that, if this one does not win the competition, I will pay for a recording of the song myself. Now I was lucky enough not to have to spend money on it. I won the poll! Now I had to find an artist who would sing, and it turned out to be Nick Borgen. I thought he was well suited and with a voice that lifted the song.
Also had the luck to get the studio musicians who played with ABBA on the recording.
I had never been to an international match before, and now I was suddenly sitting in the dressing room with the coach and the Tre Kronor team.
It was a powerful feeling to hear everyone in the Globe singing my lyrics every time Tre Kronor scored a goal during this World Cup, and every other national team match in Sweden right up until 2013. But the feeling would be even greater when the Finnish World Cup gold medalists together with 100 000 supporters sang my song in the square in Helsinki. It is the largest crowd ever gathered in Finland, and everyone sang Den glider in.
The Finnish team also wanted to sing their own version of the song, together with the Swedish coach Curre Lindström. They wanted to show that after taking the WC gold, they also wanted to take the Swedish battle plate and make it theirs. Not against me!
Over time, the song came to be called “Finland’s second national anthem”. In Finnish schools today, singing is used in Swedish language teaching. Which should partly explain why Finland is considered to have the best school in the world!
If you want to hear the whole story of “Den Glider in”, both Sveriges Television and Sveriges Radio have made documentaries about the song.
In 1997 I was commissioned to write another battle song for Tre Kronor.
Then I chose to call the song “Three Kronor”. The video featured two Finnish artists, Markoolio and Linda Lampenius, as a small nod to Finland.
The song disappeared as quickly as the Tre Kronor team marched out of the tournament that year. It sounded like this…
The success of my fight songs led to me being asked to write music for two hockey teams in the NHL, the Calgary flames and the Quebec Nordiques. To this day can’t understand why I replied – No Thanks! However, I liked to write music for our teams in Norrbotten, such as ex. Luleå Hockey, Boden Hockey, Kalix bandy and Skiing SM in Kalix1997 I also had the pleasure of being part of Melodifestivalen again. Unfortunately, that joy was short-lived, my song came second last. …maybe because I didn’t write the lyrics myself that year? But on the winner’s album I had written a song that I was really happy with. It sounded like this with the group BLOND…
The fact that I have also competed in the Lithuanian Eurovision selection a couple of times has not had such a big impact, just as a fun adventure. One year my contribution sounded like this…
What else then..
Everything rolled along at a pleasant pace. Songwriting had long ago become my full-time job. The music I wrote changed a lot. One day I was writing dance band music for the Vikings and the next day it was hard rock, or instrumental music for TV. I formed my own music publisher and released recordings on my own label. My label released the last album that Peter LeMarc recorded. With the appropriate title “In Karlsson’s cellar”
I was also very interested in copyright issues in music. So it was probably not so strange that for a few years I sat on the board of SAMI, the Swedish Artists and Musicians Interest Organization
Today 2023, I make a lot of instrumental relaxation music under the name
Café la luna, as well as music in the 60s style for old Boppers singer Peter Jezewski. It was the 60s music that laid the foundation and became the style I grew up with, fun to do
Was that all…
When I look back, many of my dreams regarding work have been fulfilled. I have also been lucky enough to be healthy the whole time. One of my dreams when I was young and interested in music, was that I would someday get the chance to play with my favorite band. Favorite bands changed over the years, Nazareth, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Genesis, Toto, etc… But when I was finally offered to play with my favorite band, I strangely said no. It went like this…
Toto (anecdote)
Thomas Jakobsson and I often went to Stockholm to go to concerts. On this day, I would see and hear TOTO for the first time, which at that time was my absolute favorite band. If you hang out with Thomas, you should also be prepared for the strangest things to happen, so even now…
Never could have believed that before this day was over that…
- We would sit and chat with Steve Lukather in a bar for hours.
- We would be invited backstage after the concert.
- We were going on the tour bus with TOTO.
- We would see Jeff Porcaro perform a dance performance to a Donald Fagen song
We would be invited to dinner with the band at a restaurant.
Similar occurrences were common in the company of Thomas. I want to briefly mention when Thomas and I got to act as tour guides/guides on a summer evening in Stockholm and drag Kiss and Iron Maiden around. We had to help them into shelters in Stockholm. Nothing you told about when you got home to Kalix, no one would believe it anyway…
Back at the restaurant with TOTO…
We were now all sitting around a large table in the restaurant, but the people I ended up next to were none of the members from the band. I tried to be nice and chatted with my table neighbors between bites. The guy on my left this evening had sung in the choir behind TOTO. He told me that he otherwise played bass guitar in another band back home in the USA, I thought it sounded fun, and happily asked…
We call ourselves Eagles.
Well, what do you call your band then?
On my right sat Steve Porcaro’s girlfriend, and she wanted to dance with me when she heard a dance-friendly Motown song. Of course you stand up! Once on the dance floor, the venue’s DJ changed the music, now the song “Rosanna” started instead, with TOTO. We finished dancing and on the way back to the table I asked a little shyly what her name was…
–Rosanna Arquette, I got the answer.
I knew the song “Rosanna” was named after Steve Porcaro’s girlfriend Rosanna Arquette, but I didn’t make the connection until then!
But it was Jeff Porcaro who I would talk to the most this evening, and not only this evening…
Hold The Line
It happened that I met Jeff every time TOTO visited Sweden, we became good friends. My wife and I were invited to his home in Los Angeles and had already bought the plane tickets when I saw the newspaper flyer that Jeff was dead.
But at the time when Jeff was playing drums in TOTO, we always met and hung out after the band’s concerts. …and one evening the question came. I probably wasn’t prepared for it, I probably got a bit of a shock. So I quickly replied – no thanks!
Jeff asked again if I would change my mind Now I was even more firm in my answer – NO THANKS!
After a few milliseconds of reflection time and the shock had now subsided, my answer became doubtful – yes… But on the condition that I got to choose the instrument myself. I chose the tambourine, because I had played with WILDLIW.
The question Jeff Porcaro asked was… – Do you want to play with us?
…so play with TOTO, for real, on a stage, in front of an audience! Unbelievable that I said no twice – what an idiot! This was one of the dreams you had when you were young.
So, during a concert in Stockholm, Jeff Porcaro dragged me on stage to play the tambourine on their encore. However, I didn’t know what song it would be. It turned out to be “Hold the line”. Below is a short film clip from that occasion. You can see me at the back of the stage swinging a tambourine.
Thanks for the word
If you want to listen to more music I wrote for various artists, here is a playlist on Spotify with some of my songs.
