July 12 - Fire pils og en pizza (Four Pilsners and a Pizza)

Sunday I introduced some of you to Lillebjørn Nilsen, proclaiming him poet laureate of Oslo. Norway's poet laureate of the working class, on the other hand, has to be Åge Aleksandersen. Yes, I know that older generations will hold Rudolf Nilsen as an even stronger poet, but Åge is really Norway's Bruce Springsteen in terms of both style and substance. They both got started in the 70s, had their strongest followings in the 80s, got somewhat lost in the 90s, and enjoyed a resurgence this millennium. Also, they are both really into giving their audiences their money's worth, as they both hold really long concerts.

Today's song has a similar theme to it as yesterday's The River - but this time the dreams came in the form of promises the protagonist had no way of living up to. I have included a translation today as well, but I was working a little bit more on this one - hopefully I have been able to replicate the meter so that you potentially even can sing along a bit without knowing a word of Norwegian. The translation doesn't quite do the song justice, but at least you will have an idea what it is about.

It is also fitting to play Åge these days - his first solo album opened with a version of Elton John's Country Comfort with new lyrics: Langt igjen til Royal Albert Hall (I'm a Long Way From Royal Albert Hall). Just about a month ago, 41 years after singing about it, he was on stage at the Royal Albert Hall, which is a venerable concert hall in London. The audience was pretty much all Norwegian, as he only sings in trøndersk, a Norwegian dialect (which also happens to be what I speak when I speak Norwegian).

So while he finally could play Royal Albert Hall, the protagonist in his song still offered his loved one four pilseners and a pizza in place of the steak and champagne he had promised her. Here is 4 pils og en pizza from the album Levva Livet (Live the Life), a fantastic album from 1984 that became the best selling album in Norway at the time, selling 260,000 copies (not bad when you consider that the population of Norway was just over four million at the time).

Promised you the Bahamas

A brand new car, a Chevrolet

We still drive the beat up Mazda

In apartment number three

Chorus:

Four pilsners and a pizza

And bottled wine from time to time

No pricy steak or champagne

But I don’t complain

We had planned to buy a house, once

But we had to let it go

Now we are painting out apartment

We were two, but now we're three

Chorus (3 times)

Four pilsners and a pizza

And bottled wine from time to time

No pricy steak or champagne

But I don’t complain

Last year we traveled to Larvik

The vacation of our lives

Both kids were tan, and their father

Was nice and tan as well