There is a lot of history – good and bad – between Finland and Sweden that goes back to the time the Crusades. Finland was the Eastern part of Sweden for roughly 700 years. The basis for government, legal framework and education were established during our time as part of Sweden. The written Finnish language took it first steps, even though it was for a long time the language of the lower classes. Swedish was for upper classes, aristos, the university folks and wealthy merchants. At some point, during the 30-year war, 40% of Carolus Rex’s (a.k.a. Charles XII) army killing and looting in Germany were Finns. Consequently, during the Winter War, there was large and vital contingent of Swedish volunteers to help Finnish defence against the Soviet troops.
Given the history, it is not unexpected that in the border area around Tornio (Torno) river in the north there has been centuries of interaction which has left its mark in the population from both sides of the river. People there used to speak a dialect of Finnish–or a separate language, depending on your point of view–called meänkieli (“our language”); they still do to some extent: there are roughly 60 000 speakers today split evenly between the two countries. The Swedish side of the area is called Norrland.
The end of primer.
The original Swedish title for Popular Music is Popularmusik från Vittula. Vittula is a place; it can be translated as C*ntsville. That name – raw, uncivilised, powerful – is pure Finnish.
It’s early 1960s in Vittula area in Pajala municipality. Road surfacing work is about to commence. Progress & growing living standards! We are introduced to a young boy, Miika, who is as mesmerised about the change as everybody else. Miika befriends Niila, a quiet boy whose father is a failed lay priest of a Lutheran sect called Laestadianism. Laestadianism, in case you didn’t know, is sin, fire and brimstone turned to 11. There is no joy at all, you are sinner and sinner yet again, there is nothing good about you, even though you confess your sins and bathe in the blood of Jesus to become a true (sic) believer. And no birth control, TV or alcohol.
Pajala is slowly losing people. Moving south is really the only exit from an inward-looking, repressing communities in Norrland, where anything outside the norm is frowned upon and beaten back to senses. The only people who return back to Pajala are the dead, buried in the cold, hard, frozen ground.
Niila’s fiery, über-religious, repressing matriarch dies. At her funeral all the true (sic) believers are present, some even having arrived from Minnesota. Niila’s American cousins don’t speak Swedish and Miika and Niila don’t know English. However, the cousins give Niila a present that will change everything: a Beatles record, Rock and Roll Music.
Tsas letmi hisamatö rokkänrol mjuusik!
And hear some of that rock and roll music they certainly do, first using Miika’s older sister’s record player in secrecy, then with his sister and her friends. Rock and roll and girls! (No drugs!) Miika is bursting with happiness.
The boys start a fake band with fake guitars, even performing with at their class. It goes violently wrong but their classmates like it.
Then the school gets a new music teacher, Greger, from Scania, Southern Sweden. He is everything that people in Pajala aren’t. He is outspoken–although nobody can understand him, the Scanian dialect being close to Danish, and nobody understands Danish–; he is active; and he even has a racing bicycle! Greger gets the school to buy proper musical instruments and hey presto! Miika and Niila find themselves in a band. The band itself is more or less dysfunctional, concocted of boys who can only play a little, although with a competent guitarist named Holgeri, who is a tender-looking, long-haired boy. Finally, Erkki is chosen or cajoled to be the drummer. Erkki does not have a concept of tempo or anything except noise and mayhem. However, he is a wise chose for a drummer. Holgeri and others were definitely going get bullied because of the band (being in it means automatically that you are a showoff and showoffs get shown their proper place), but Erkki bullies the bullies and the band members are left alone.
After a long time the boys learn somewhat to play together and Greger manages to get them gigs. There’s drinking (the drugs part in the 1960s in Sweden) and sex, the final ingredient. As is typical for coming-of-ages stories, the age comes when the childhood and all the good things associated with it comes to an end and what were once unbreakable bonds get broken. Miika and Niila go their separate ways. Niila is the only one really makes it, ending up a rock star living in London. Miika beomes a teacher.
While Popular Music is a coming-of-age story, it is also sprinkled with magical realism. As an example, the boys must cut off the dead grandmother’s penis to stop her haunting Niila…
But where Popular Music hit me was the fathers and their legacy. See, Niila’s father was a repressed, bitter and violent. He was eventually broken by Niila’s older brothers and Niila. (Violently, of course.) Miika’s father was not violent, but proud, average and very much into the concept of honour. When Miika is old enough–becomes a man if you will–his father, after a Friday sauna, explains thoroughly how the world works: Don’t read books, they are a waste of time and mind (what?); there are long-standing vendettas: if Miika becomes an employee at the Pajala community these and these families’ businesses must be hindered and everything possible must be done against them; oh and the grandfather sowed his oats around, so don’t start dating girls from these certain families.
Roughly, my father was a mix of Niila’s and Miika’s. Let me share this small story to illustrate: my father celebrated his 50th birthday in the early 1980s. Beige, brown and grey still ruled in those days. The neon colours and synth bass lines of the Most Mythical Decade were still to come. At the party my drunken uncle solemnly declared these three truths (axioms) to me:
1. If somebody is your enemy you totally destroy him.
2. If your friend needs help you help him in any which way you can.
3. Never ask for help yourself.
He later passed out in one of our guest rooms and peed his pants while sleeping off his stupour.
My father operated by these axioms, mostly. Coming from such a background it was no wonder that I also started to plan my exit from home early on. There was nothing keeping me there. That part of the world still exists but like Pajala is slowly dying.
Its betö tö böön aut tän tö feid äwei. (Neil Young)
P.S. My mother & her family was/is “normal” with lots of love.