Sweden is cold and dark. That's how it feels to me. Long dark cold vinters. But half of the year it's light. Since Sweden is quite high up north on our globe we get a big variation in light hours in summer and vinter. This is important to swedes. Not that we notice. I had a friend that worked at Reuters. The news agency. He had been working all over the world and in the 90s he was working in Stockholm. He liked it but he had troubles talking to swedes. So different in summer and vinter he said. "-In summer I can talk to anyone in Kungsträdgården and we'll be friends in minutes, but in vinter.... they'll hit me if I try...", he said. I had not noticed that but when he said it... yeah, it's like that. "-It easy for me to see", he said, "I'm from England and there it's cold a foggy every day. No change". But he was right. We change a lot.
So summer is very important to us. And midsummer marks the start of it, dispite it's name. From midsummer it will be a warm and long bright summer here. And we celebarte that at midsummer, viking style! Families gather in crowds at summer houses and in the achipellago and, yes, we eat almost raw herring, we drink a lot, we drink some more, and we dance, change wifes and .... well it can be quite messy. But fun.
But for people living alone it's a hard time. As for Christmas and other typical family holidays. And in Sweden there is a lot of lonely people. Out of the 4,7 miljon homes we have in Sweden 1,8 miljon is one man (or woman) households. 39%. Thats the lonliest in the world. And for all those lonely people midsummer stinks. Especially since the towns all just close down. There in nothing to do but to drink....viking style. Well, not really ... you could read a book. Some do, I'v heard.
City Lights is a song about this Swedish loneliness. And the feeling you can get that it's tearing you apart. I think we are not made to be alone us humans and that's why it hit's us so hard. So probably the loneliness is not just Swedish...... The City Lights video is shot in New York but ...... it's full of that traditional Swedish loneliness. So try to enjoy.... anyway.
/Gus
