Would you also be interested in musical history lessons then? I´m not talking about music history, but music whose lyrics deal with historical subjects, written in some sort of (auto-)biographical way. Actually, I´m thinking about two albums, though I suppose you probably wouldn´t go wild for the music (maybe a bit of understatement here or am I totally wrong?) - in one case it´s country mixed with Norwegian and Irish folk influences and in the other case it´s, hm...I´d like to avoid the word "pop", because then you might think of stuff like Britney, while it is in fact lightyears away from that..I think I´ll try to find some soundsamples and post a link so you can figure out for yourself what it is.Hawk said:
The albums I´m talking about are Tom Russell´s "The Man From God Knows Where", which is IMO an excellent lesson in American immigration history (told by the example of the history of Tom´s own family whose origins were Irish and Norwegian), and Kari Bremnes´ "Svarta Bjørn". As I´m too lazy to explain in my own words what the latter is about, I´ll just give my English translation (I already wrote it some years ago) of the introductory words Kari Bremnes wrote to this album (because I don´t think there are many here who would understand the original Norwegian text
):One of the most myth-covered chapters in the history of Northern Norway deals with the construction of Europe´s most northern railway, the Ofot-Railway. It was built under difficult circumstances through a wild and inaccessable landscape. In just four years migrant workers managed to erect this railway from Kiruna to Narvik. Much has been written, sung and not less passed on orally about the migrant workers´ life and the bloody work along the border. It were mainly Swedes and Norwegians who worked at the railway, but there were also people from all over Europe trying their luck. It all must have been comparable to Klondyke in a certain way, afterwards there has also come a romantic shimmer over this relentlessly exhausting life something that often happens when reality becomes unreal. In this mostly male society there were also some women, cooks, who shared the hard living conditions of the migrant workers. There´s few documentation about them, but many myths do exist, and it were mainly men to whom these women owe their reputation. Such a migrant worker´s rose was Svarta Bjørn. A legendary figure, who has been living in people´s oral tradition for nearly hundred years. In these songs she´s telling her own story, thus it´s been possible to build it on the background of oral traditions. She comments the myths about her herself, which are many and questioned, and no-one can surely tell who she actually was. No-one can surely tell if it´s her, who lies buried at the migrant worker´s cemetary in Tornehamn under the white cross incribed ANNA-Norge. People believed it´s her lying there, but date and year of her death have been changed several times. Why? Did she suffer a dramatic death at the age of 22, after only two years at the railway? Is her name Anne Rebecka Hofsted from Utskarpen near Nesna? At the end in Nils A. Ytreberg´s novel Svarta Bjørn, the author puts the following words in the mouth of the migrant worker who became her big love, after she´s been escorted to her grave: Once there will be sung a different song about her about Svarta Bjørn!. It´s this song that I want to sing now.
Do you think you might be interested in these lyrics, Hawk? (You can still read the lyrics without having to listen to the music!
) Or did I perhaps totally misunderstand you insofar that you actually are only interested in mere history facts written from a neutral/objective point of view?
