My summer vacations growing up were spent on an old farm in the mountains outside of Trondheim in the Røros area (even closer to Brekken). No running water and no TV - and usually for about three weeks straight. And yes, there was an outhouse and a well that we had to lower buckets into. I loved it. I could take my books there and read for hours - and we'd go for long hikes and pick berries. Because we went berrypicking, we usually waited and took our main vacation in August, when the berries would be ripe - and then the first part of summer after school was over, I would spend long chunks of time with grandparents and/or aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Lillebjørn Nilsen taught me how to play guitar. Not directly, but he has a book that he published called Lillebjørns Gitarbok (Lillebjørn's Guitar Book), which I used to teach myself how to play guitar. I still remember Tom Dooley as one of the first songs in that book - and Freight Train, which I tweaked a little. It was a great book for a beginner, and it has served me really well. So thank you, Lillebjørn Nilsen. One of Norway's finest singer/songwriters, and a masterful guitarist, for giving me the gift of playing guitar!
Lillebjørn Nilsen should be named poet laureate of Oslo, as his songs so often take place in that city and he is able to find beauty in concrete and asphalt. In Bysommer, he writes about summer in the city. I have always loved this song - ever since I heard it for the first time sometime around 1979, when it was first released on the album Oslo 3, named from the postal code of the part of Oslo he wrote about so often. Bysommer means city summer in Norwegian (Google Translate results of the lyrics are below the video - with minor corrections by yours truly)
It's summer - it's hot at night.
Liv has taken on the white hat.
It's 20 degrees water at Katten
,
- At least there are certainly more than 18.
Eat krokan*-ice cream or chocolate!
Take a swim in Frognerbadet!
Can you anywhere better to have it
than in Oslo in the summer time when stressed out guys
all disappeared to Mallorca,
or sitting in a Ferry line at Lavik?
Yes at Lavik!
It's summer - it's warm evenings.
You can sleep on the porch, or
be awake all night rather.
without duvet or hot pelts.
Now the city is almost empty of cars.
On the bench there is a man and rests.
It's so nice in Oslo that I doubt
that someone has no better holiday
than those who have been left
In Oslo without other duties
than to water flowers for an aunt.
Yes, for an aunt!
It's summer in Studenterlunden,
Where girls walk with smiles on their faces
although much of it is disappearing
because they're digging for the new underground .
Yet we still have pavement restaurants.
And you can listen to a busker
which takes the same song many times.
And see people you know spending money
on a piece of jewelry that they think he created himself,
who's sitting there with the storefront in his lap
Yes, in his lap!
It's summer - it's hot during the day.
All have fairly good. except
those who complain of wind in Skagen.
But I have cold mackerel and beer in my belly.
And have not been to Helgeroa.
I was sitting at the Manor Inn.
And went for a walk across the Vigeland
bridge
on a night that was so warm that I lay awake until
the sun rose
and wrote a song that I went and tried
fairly quietly on the balcony.
Yes, on the balcony.
*krokan means caramelized almonds - not quite burned almonds, just tossed in sugar, caramelized, and chopped finely.
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