I'm excited to share with you and the world that I have released my first official music video!
The song is "Music", which was recorded over in Sweden and released on my Kriztina Åhs & Countryfied project, but the video itself was recorded in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I wrote the song about the feeling, thrill and magic of enjoying - you guessed it! - music.
I hope you find it as enjoyable to watch and listen to as it was for me to sing it.
One is crazy cute and adorable - talking 'bout videos for goodness sakes! - and the other is a crazy kind of lonely captured in a song. The latter does offer a solution and a reflection on our own responsibility for our situations though (found in the last line of verse two. Lyrics provided).
Kriz Rogers wrote this song when going through a divorce. She performed it live with her band Countryfied at the Swedish Masters of Country Music in September of 2008.
Driving Me Crazy
Lyrics - Copyright Kriz Rogers
The ones I loved before gave me what I asked for
A bunch of lies and heartaches that made me walk the floor.
But, they were honest, told the truth 'bout what they did so I knew.
What a difference it was, not anything like you.
Driving me crazy
To the edge of the world.
My heart is not driven in a way it deserves.
Living by anger - praying for love.
Driving me crazy
to the edge of the world.
At times I touch the sky. Countless days I crawl on ground
so dirty it's like darkness there maybe I belong.
But I'm not stupid, I can see if I stay here I do me wrong.
There's no one who'll rescue me: not anyone but me.
I'm known for having a poetic touch to my lyrics. In this blog post I am going describe how it began - by reading and listening to the works of two national treasures of Sweden. It influenced my songwriting.
My mom and dad - but most and foremost my dad - had a deep connection with reading poetry and the appreciation thereof, most notably of the pieces by the skald Evert Taube and the poet Dan Andersson. In my parents' library, dad had a book with the complete Evert Taube collection and one with the Best of Dan Andersson. Andersson died in his sleep at a very young age (32) at a hotel in Stockholm, but he had already left a considerable legacy with his melancholy descriptions of life, living, people and knowing there was a Divine power.
The theme both poets had in common was their love for nature, but as Dan Andersson lived and worked in the heart of Sweden, his closeness to the land expressed itself in the fields and forests in his works, while Evert Taube's passion was the sea, the archipelago and sailing, since he lived on the west coast of the country.
Dan Andersson's poetry has had many a singer and songwriter putting melody to his words. A member of ABBA (Bjorn), was part of a band before the ABBA days that recorded and released a Dan Andersson song:
Here's a translation of the first, then the last two verses of "Omkring Tiggarn från Luossa" by Dan Andersson, (courtesy of Ola Wikander):
Round the beggar from Luossa people gathered in a ring, by the campfire they sat and heard his song. And of wayfarers and mendicants and every wondrous thing and of his longing he sang to them all night long.
May the black and salty waters cool the cheeks that burn with fever, let’s be miles away from life before the morning breaks above! Not of this world was I, brother; hardships without end I suffered for the sake of worries, faithlessness and of my burning love.
By a shore all dressed in seashells stands a gate of roses heavy, therein sleep the mouldered shipwrecks, and the tired men find rest. Songs unheard and high there sing like violins in distant echoes under arches where eternal children live forever blessed.
It was my dad's favorite and he asked me to sing it for everyone that came to our house.
I tried to find a good youtube video of one of Evert Taube's songs in English, but I couldn't find one :(
But, one of the songs that my class and I were singing at all summer graduation performances (yes, our school had a show each spring before school let out), was "Änglamarken", which translated into English would be "The Earth of the Angels", saying this earth and this life needs nature and its wonders for to have a place for children to play.
Here is Evert Taube singing himself in a ballad he wrote about a sailor:
When thinking about it, I do believe my song "When I'm Watching Butterflies" has drawn inspiration from both poets .... I did not think about it while writing it though.
Maybe it is so that you - yes, you :-) - who are reading this right now have helped me get to where I am. For that I thank you. There is a free download you can access here:
Just recently I learned that a carbonated beverage here in the South is mostly referred to as coke (I have been calling it soda for the longest). So ... if you hear someone asking for a coke, he or she may actually be asking for a Pepsi!!! My favorite coke is Mountain Dew (also a Pepsi product btw).
