Merry Christmas Everybody

The man on this cover once spent a long time in a hospital (for what reason I don’t know). He later decided to start and save up money for children without a home, as he knew what it was like to be longing for home. This EP was made to gather money; in one of the songs he sings that he wants to give all human beings a happier world. Quite an ambitious project.

This week we, me and my husband, was DJ:s as usual at the annual Christmas Party at Sunkit, a club for Incredible Strange Music in Stockholm. The website is all written in Swedish, but they just put up a new presentation in English, where you can also read about our annual contribution.
Last week I talked about my collection of Christmas Music in morning television, and this week I was talking in two different radio programmes (but then I got tiered of myself and cancelled a third programme). There is undoubtedly a growing interest for unusual Christmas Music.

More Dances Around The Christmas Tree

"Postflickorna" was a group of girls all working at postofficies. This record contains old Christmas songs, unfortunatly I can´t yet provide you with this particular songs. But instead I want to share some other Christmas Songs. This is filmactor Thor Modén, well known from many comedies. This time he takes the part as Father Christmas ("Tomten" in Swedish) at the main stage of the outdoor center Skansen in Stockholm, it´s just before Christmas and he sings together with a laides choir. There are two parts, part one and a part two.
Hope you enjoy it!

Old American Favourites in Swedish

This time I want to share some old American favourites with Swedish artists. These recordings were made in the 40ties, when we first discovered some of these well known songs. There are a lot of versions of both songs, but these are my favourites.
The first one is Jingle Bells with Harmony Sisters, a Finish very popular ladies group singing in Swedish with a slight fínish accent (the Swedish titel is Bjällerklang). My second example is "I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus" with Margret Bienert ("Jag såg mamma kyssa tomten").
I don´t have any pictures of these artists, so I decided to give you one of the worst postcards I have in my collection instead. There is not much to say about it, apart from that I figure it was made in the 70ties.

Old Dances Around the Christmas Tree

Kvartetten Synkopen was a male choir and they recorded a legendary EP wíth dances around the Christmas Tree. The last bit of it was sampled by "Just D", a Swedish hip hop-group, for their record "Juligen" (apparently the same name as this blog). Please listen to part one and part two of this very traditional Swedish Christmas Record from the 50ties.

Scandinavian Christmas in Hawaii

Yngve Stoor was a Swedish singer performning music in Hawaiian style. His most famous song is "Sjömansjul på Hawaii"(Christmas for Seemen in Hawaii), a very sentimental and extremely popoular Christmas song in my country, also performed by many other artists. It is all about longing for going home (a common theme in Christmas music).
He also translated american songs into Swedish. This is his version of a song that was made popoular by Bing Crosbys: "God julvisa på Hawaii".

Kalinka turns into cold ham

My old favourite Thore Skogman made his first Christmas-EP in 1963. This is another version of the cover (another one is shown below). The song Klappa på is telling about the exitement when Santa is knocking on the door. Thore is also an excellent writer of new lyrics to old songs. He turned all the old songs used for dancing around the Christmas Tree into barbaric butcher-songs (suffering pigs are hunted up and down with big knives). This song from 1985 is called Ritsch Ratsch. For another tune, "Kall skinka", he used the russian melodi Kalinka. Kalinka almost sounds like "cold ham" in Swedish, and ham is the main dish on our Christmas table.

Christmas With Evie

It´s getting towards winter. In Stockholm we just had the first snow of the year. It’s freezing cold. Discovered this LP from 1974 with religious songbird Evie Tornqvist: "Jul med Evie" (“Christmas With Evie”). She had a peculiar American accent, I remember. No idea what she is doing these days, but she had a nice hat on, don’t you think?.
Hemmets Härold LP 503 979

Glennmarks - a perfect family



The Glenmark family were not really a family, Ann-Louise were a famous singer, her husbound Bruno had an orchestra and was promoting his wife, Anders and Karin were brother and sister - Bruno was a brother of their father. They sang perfectly in thune but with a lack of temperament that made it rather boring. They also made a Christmas Album in the seventies.

Sing along with Egon

Egon Kjerrman is the unconquerable champion in Sweden when it comes to making many editions of the same recordings. Always with different covers, sometimes really strange covers. Look down below for a detail with two kids from another cover.

The setup is always the same; the poor kids are dancing around the Christmas tree together with Egon who is shouting and singing (rather false) as load as he can making them speed up. You often find these records in Salvation Army stores and flee markets for less than 2 dollars. Normally they are in perfect condition, meaning nobody ever wanted to listen to them. No wonder why, if you ask me.

Happy Holiday in Sweden

This record contains a bunch of wellknown Swedish artists from the beginning of the sixties. I particularly like the way they are imitating the sound of tripping small "tomtenissar", as we call them in Sweden. The song is called "Tre små tomtar"(meening there are three of these small men).
We have a slightly different Christmastradition, originally Father Christmas was not an old man with beard at all, he was rather a small, grey grumpy and rather mean supernatural being known from fairytales. For various reasons somebody found out it would be nicer with a red cap. And then he turned out to be part of the Christmas celebrations, which was never ment to be.
The record contains some national and some international favourites, my favourite amongs the american songs is a hilarious version of "Frosty the Snowman".

Svensk julidyll -
Idyllic Swedish Christmas



Why are the children so miserable when it is Christmastime? Why are they not looking at the camera? Why are they having the same ugly slippers and stockings as I had myself when I was at their age? Section of frontcover "Julefrid och julefröjd" (traditional dances around the Christmas Tree) with Egon Kjerrmans orchestra and choir.
LP Telestar TR 11013

Varför samlar man julskivor? - Why would anybody collect Christmas Records?

I have been collecting Christmas Records for many years. It started off as a an event during an annual Christmas party. Everybody was asked to bring along their worst Christmas Records. Most of these were of course left behind. This was the beginning of my collection. Me and my husband Per Wikström are DJ:s every Christmas at "Klubb Sunkit", a club for incredible strange music in Stockholm. I am also working on a book about Christmas Records, hopefully in print at Christmas 2006.
EP: "Eva Luva sjunger Tomten av Victor Rydberg".
EW Ton ETC 96

Songs about "The Smörgåsbord"

On this websajt I will present selections from my collection of Christmas Records. I will write about Christmas Music, show interesting covers and later on I might even present audio-files with music. This cover is one of my favourites. It is an EP from the early sixties with a wellknown Swedish artist (and a personal favourite): Thore Skogman. As you can tell from the cover the lyrics focuses on food. In one of the songs he sings about people that are eating so much that there are shuttletraffic to nearest hospital. Which I would say is not a very unlikely thing to happen during a Swedish Christmas Celebration. Our traditional Christmas food, the "Smörgåsbord", is rather fattening.
(EP "Klappa på", Odeon GEOS 198)