Babel (BENNY)

Filmed: Early March 2014

Location: Mono Music and RMV Studios, Stockholm, Sweden

Broadcast: Sunday 16 March 2014, SVT, Sweden

Release status: Unreleased

Shown in: Sweden

Additional information

Benny gave a short interview to SVT's Babel programme to promote a competition (Babel schlagertävling = Babel Song Contest) run by the programme which gave various Swedish writers the opportunity to win a battle to compose the lyrics to a new composition by Benny Andersson for BAO! to perform with vocals sung by Helen Sjöholm.

One entry by Mikael Niemi is in the video section with Helen singing (includes a short snippet of footage of Benny).

Benny was on the judging panel with Helen Sjöholm and Babel's programme leader Jessika Gedin and producer Marie Nyreröd.  There were ten entries with the winning entry being performed by BAO! in the last Babel programme of the season.

The 10 entries are listed below with a summary of what their song is about:

  1. Mikael Nemi is telling him how he, as a starting point, managed to bring together vodka and dignity into a burning separation story.
  2. Susanna Alakoski fell in love with the melody and wanted to write a love song in a mountain environment, for such she has never heard.
  3. Göran Controls in some radical fighting phrases and contributes with a cool lyrics about going from loneliness to community.
  4. Deckar writer Camilla Läckberg has caught the dance of the melody and wrote a song of love and dance as the theme.
  5. Beate Grimsruds contribution is a song about birth and death - and to mature. She has built the lyrics around her debut novel. There are limits to what I do not understand.
  6. Jan Guillou joins ABBA with Hoola Bandoola in a love story with a greetings to political radicalism in the 1970s.
  7. The music journalist and feminist Caitlin Moran has written a text about teenage love and a "vintage boyfriend" from home in London.
  8. Horace Engdahl's contribution is inspired by a New Year's party. Brittle hearts and emptiness that rise easily in a hot air balloon sets the tone.
  9. Helena von Zweigbergk finds a warm, humble and mature tone in the melody that makes her think of emotions in the little hours.
  10. Lastly, John Ajvide Lindqvist takes the opportunity to write a love song to his wife.

Thanks to Ice and Pascale Ranson
YouTube links c/o Rinat Sitdikov and ᗅᗺᗷᗅ Fan

 

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