Are you looking for Norwegian music? A band I’d recommend to anyone is Vamp. Based in the west coast city of Haugesund, they’ve been famous for their Irish-inspired folk rock since the 1990’ies. They’re a staple at televised festivals, and have won an armful of the prestigious spellemann (”fiddler”) awards.

The band was founded by Torbjørn Økland and vocalist Øyvind Staveland, and has had many different musicians as members. Fellesnevneren (the common denominator, the thing they have in common) for all these people has always been that they are extremely gifted musikanter (musicians). Watching them live is amazing, they play any instrument you can imagine! In addition to singing, Øyvind plays fiolin (violin), bratsj (viola), trekkspill (accordion) and fløyter (flutes – takk, Wikipedia!) Among all the instruments they use, I’d say it’s the ”folksy” stuff like violins and accordions that really make people wanna dance at their shows.

If you understand Norwegian, the gift of listening to Vamp becomes even greater. Most of their texts are written by Kolbein Falkeid, who’s published many diktsamlinger (collections of poetry) and is an outstanding poet. His lyrics are in the local Haugesund dialect. If you understand standard bokmål Norwegian, the texts are not that hard to understand. The most noticeable differences are the word for ’I’, eg, and some slightly different endings (like hestar instead of hester for ’horses’).

Let’s take a look at the refreng (refrain) of one of Vamp’s greatest hits, Tir n’a Noir (the title’s Celtic and refers to a myth about a distant land in the west):

Va du drøm? Va du te? Va du hud? Va du blod?

Eg kan hørra deg le. Eg kan huska eg lo.

Bakom horisontar,

Så forvitra og glir

E du mi,

Mi Mary McKear.

Were you (a) dream? Were you in existance? Were you skin? Were you blood?

I can hear you laughing. I remember I laughed.

Behind horizons

That crumble and glide

You’re mine,

My Mary McKear.

 

In the last refrain, the beloved Mary McKear anwers:

Horisontar fins ikkje.

Alt du tar på forblir

Eg e di,

Di Mary McKear.

Horizons don’t exist.

Everything you touch will remain

I’m yours,

Your Mary McKear.