Lillebjørn Nilsen

Artist: Lillebjørn Nilsen

LP: Lillebjørn Nilsen's Beste

Song: "Barn av Regnbuen"
[ listen ]

Song: "Regnet er en Venn"
[ listen ]

Everything's been coming up Norway lately. I've been trying to learn Norwegian using the Duolingo app (en skilpadde spiser mot; han leser avisen), then I found this 1978 Norwegian folk LP at Jive Time when I stopped in to look for Christmas music. And now I've begun taking Norwegian language classes at the Nordic Heritage Museum on Thursday evenings, thanks to my dear friend Carrie. 

Then today on the bus I read six pages in my Lonely Planet guidebook that covered the entire history of Norway—from the conquest of the Vikings to discovery of Oil—on my way to see "Demning," a Norwegian film that was screened as part of the Nordic Lights Film Festival. 

 [ "Demning" (2015) — Dir. Paul Tunge ]

Set during the course of a hike in the rugged, mist-covered mountains that loom over Bergen, the film condenses the entire arc of a typical (in my experience) relationship into the span of a few days—from meeting cute, enjoying warm caresses, and hopes of everlasting kjærlighet—to pettiness, unease, disconnection, and then finally the inevitable physical attacks with sharp objects, wanting to shove gravel down each others' throats, and so on. It's a lovely film.

Lillebjørn Nilsen was born in December of 1950 and is considered by some to be "the voice of Olso" since he's written so many songs about the city. Right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011 and has never been considered the voice of anywhere, supposedly hates Nilsen's 1973 hit "Barn av Regnbuen (Children of the Rainbow)," co-written by legendary folksinger Pete Seeger, because of its call for acceptance of people from around the globe, who are as varied as the colors of the rainbow. On April 26, 2012, over 40,000 Norwegians gathered in the streets to sing "Barn av Regnbuen" outside Breivik's trial.

[ Lillebjørn Nilsen ]