Musikbussen = The Music Bus

Björn was interviewed and performed on stage with a "reunited" Hootenanny Singers for a rendition of Marianne at the Västerviksfestivalen. Björn joined Hansi Schwarz and Tonny Roth on stage.  Johan Karlberg had died in 1992.

Tomas Ledin was amongst the other performers on the show.

In his interview Björn was asked if he could describe what a ballad was. He said it couldn't be the ABBA song Mamma Mia, but Slipping Through My Fingers was close to being one. But he found it difficult to characterize.

Interviewer: It's been rumored that you will reunite.

Björn: We haven’t performed together for such a long time. We would have had to rehearse for maybe a month. Or something like that.

Interviewer: What is a ballad to you?

Björn: Well, it’s definitely something that has meaningful lyrics. In other words I want to hear the lyrics, I want to follow the lyrics and the lyrics should tell me something. You can’t call Mamma Mia a ballad. It isn’t.

Interviewer: It can’t become a ballad either...

Björn: No, it can never become a ballad. It’s a different format. However if you continue with ABBA, a song such as Slipping Through My Fingers which is also in Mamma Mia!, the musical, it tends, it’s almost a ballad. It’s so difficult. That’s why I think it’s so good that Hansi knows what to choose.

Interviewer: What do ballads mean to you personally?

Björn: Well, this whole event in Västervik and my upbringing here and the ballads that were played here, it means quite a lot.

Interviewer: I also think about that you write a lot of lyrics nowadays. I think that often there’s a little story in what you write.

Björn: Yes. It’s funny that you say that because that’s exactly what Catherine Johnson, she’s the book writer for Mamma Mia!, said to me. That here we have 100 songs, I pick 23 of them, any of them, and build a story around them. It’s due to the fact that the songs themselves are short stories. And I think that intuitively it comes from here. The fact that Olle Adolphson and Taube and others begin and end there. It’s something imbibed with mother’s milk in a way. I also think it mattered when I wrote lyrics for ABBA.

Interviewer: Even though you didn’t think of it at the time.

Björn: No, not at all.

Björn (from 1966): In the beginning, mostly here at home in Västervik, I thought it was quite uncomfortable when people stared at me as I was walking down the street. Now I’m so used to it that I don’t notice it.

Interviewer: What makes it so special to perform here?

Helen: Well, it’s a very faithful ballad audience plus the way it looks here, it’s fantastic. It’s an incredibly wonderful place to perform.

Helen: The ballad is quite intimate in a way. And because of that it also becomes very personal. You probably have to be a bit more intimate and a bit more connected than if you sing a musical or something else.

Interviewer: It’s been rumored that Hootenanny will reunite.

Björn: No, I don’t think so.

Hansi: I don’t know anything about that.

The old members of Hootenanny Singers now sing Marianne.

Björn: Well. Do you want to hear this miserable song one more time?

Audience: YEAH!!!

Björn: Sure, that’ll work.

Hootenanny Singers sing Marianne one more time.


Translation by Claes Davidsson

Thanks to Jan Bach, Malin Westerberg and Micke Andersson.  Extra thanks to Claes Davidsson for the translation
YouTube link c/o vasterbron