some thought about Scandinavia

Well, personally I'm upset that my flatulence has been completely overlooked.


I sincerely apologize, may I add your flatulence as well? Which I'm sure was at the very least the equal if not the greater to Skylarker's.
 
I know enough. I have been through University, I have my Masters in English, I have consumed quite few philosophy and politics papers over the years. I don't claim to be the next Bernard Levy but I could ,if I chose to, write with the same overblown highbrow, head stuck-up-my-ass pomposity, that you you do I'm sure I could manage it. In fact I suspect plenty of people on these forums could.

But most don't. And why? Oh because it wreaks of some kind of academic elitism. That and it's really boring to read. Like a couple of old musty duckies sitting in crushed velvet smoking jackets jockeying for position as to whose navel they can gaze into the deepest.

What's funny is Morrissey himself would take one look at these solipsistic overwrought ramblings and piss himself with the pretentiousness of it all.


Well, one wonders why you wasted those years at University? I hope you have some other use for your degree in English, because it doesn't seem to have done much for you as a person. You haver an actual masters degree in english from an actual university, and the best you can manage in interpreting a lyric is this?

So what does the song mean? It's about Morrissey falling in love with a someone of a Scandinavian persuasion and then alluding to anal sex again with a few rubbish lines about eating dirt and being in a fjord thrown in, probably because he couldn't think of anything else to write.

What did you spend your time on at uni, chum? Not really the reading type, were you?

And one more thing. It'll be a cold day in hell before I start apologising for being "high-brow", just because some f***ing jerk on an internet forum finds it provoking that things are written in a certain way. What's it to you? How, may I ask, is it a reasonable reaction to respond to that as if it constituted some sort of insult, or personal attack? Touches a nerve somewhere, does it?

I'm not going to complain if you want to write in street language, or Swahili, or whatever floats your boat. And it's none of your f***ing business if I write in a way you don't like. Now, piss off.
 
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Well, one wonders why you wasted those years at University? I hope you have some other use for your degree in English, because it doesn't seem to have done much for you as a person. You haver an actual masters degree in english from an actual university, and the best you can manage in interpreting a lyric is this?

So what does the song mean? It's about Morrissey falling in love with a someone of a Scandinavian persuasion and then alluding to anal sex again with a few rubbish lines about eating dirt and being in a fjord thrown in, probably because he couldn't think of anything else to write.

What did you spend your time on at uni, chum? Not really the reading type, were you?

And one more thing. It'll be a cold day in hell before I start apologising for being "high-brow", just because some f***ing jerk on an internet forum finds it provoking that things are written in a certain way. What's it to you? How, may I ask, is it a reasonable reaction to respond to that as if it constituted some sort of insult, or personal attack? Touches a nerve somewhere, does it?

I'm not going to complain if you want to write in street language, or Swahili, or whatever floats your boat. And it's none of your f***ing business if I write in a way you don't like. Now, piss off.

Whether I piss off or not is my choice punchy, not yours.

Good to see you got off your esoteric soapbox to let a few F-bombs go there. Great to see improvement in your vernacular already champ. Does that feel better? I bet it does? Far better to get down and dirty with the hoi polloi, it does wonders for your education ;-) And hijacks one's vocabulary back to a sensible level.

Clearly my swift (parody) synopsis of the song flew over (or under) your head and what can I say? Either you'll get my brand of funny or you won't.

And au contraire, nowhere did I ask you to apologise for your (admittedly junior high school level) hypothesizing. Nor did it touch a nerve. I merely stated the obvious, that it is boring and just a tiny bit not-very-good.
 
What's funny is Morrissey himself would take one look at these solipsistic overwrought ramblings and piss himself with the pretentiousness of it all.

I can't see how this have anything whatsoever to do with academic style etc.,
But I do understand this is very boring for you, but why even bother to complain?
Oh, yes, the little Icon of yours.
I for one are not here to please or worship that uneducated man who happens to write wonderful songs.
Build your own altar for Morrissey, fine with me, just remember that your'e mind was lost somewhere in between.
This was also one of my points, that Morrissey himself is to lazy, or perhaps stupid, to make explicit references, just like most people on this forum then (If one is to believe you) And therefore I interpret them in my own way, as he does.

now lets return to the topic:)
 
I know enough. I have been through University, I have my Masters in English, I have consumed quite few philosophy and politics papers over the years. I don't claim to be the next Bernard Levy but I could, if I chose to, write with the same overblown highbrow, head stuck-up-my-ass pomposity, that you do. I'm sure I could manage it. In fact I suspect plenty of people on these forums could.

But most don't. And why? Oh because it wreaks of some kind of academic elitism. That and it's really boring to read. Like a couple of old musty duckies sitting in crushed velvet smoking jackets jockeying for position as to whose navel they can gaze into the deepest.




Masters in English ?! Hold me now ! I did propositional calculus/mathematical logic at university but I don't think that adds to the legitimacy of my remarks because I guess I know what an autological ad-hominem is. Oops... sorry... is that reference too learned ? Please tell us how to go about chit-chatting with one another....


Just to continue ... you " consumed quite a few ...papers " etc, etc. And you're laughing at anyone else for being pretentious ... ?

No, I'll keep going. Just saw on your profile that you listed your like as " watching the sweet science". Ever do any ? I only ask because I'm an ex-amateur heavyweight. Maybe we could swap stories ... like the time you made really aggressive poses/noises in front of your friends while watching a fight.
 
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Masters in English ?! Hold me now ! I did propositional calculus/mathematical logic at university but I don't think that adds to the legitimacy of my remarks because I guess I know what an autological ad-hominem is. Oops... sorry... is that reference too learned ? Please tell us how to go about chit-chatting with one another....


Just to continue ... you " consumed quite a few ...papers " etc, etc. And you're laughing at anyone else for being pretentious ... ?

No, I'll keep going. Just saw on your profile that you listed your like as " watching the sweet science". Ever do any ? I only ask because I'm an ex-amateur heavyweight. Maybe we could swap stories ... like the time you made really aggressive poses/noises in front of your friends while watching a fight.[/QUOTE]

Ex-amateur HW. Why ex? Did you go pro? What are you going to do, hit me with a virtual check-hook? Haha. Nice one buddy.

Swap stories? Nope I don't think so, I used to get beat up a lot by those Poly dudes in sparring. Sheesh they hit like some serious mofo's, you feel me? Hence I now watch the sport. Not sure about what part of 'watching the sweet science' you didn't understand. Maybe you took a few too many shots in the head during that stellar amateur career of yours punchy.
 
Masters in English ?! Hold me now ! I did propositional calculus/mathematical logic at university but I don't think that adds to the legitimacy of my remarks because I guess I know what an autological ad-hominem is. Oops... sorry... is that reference too learned ? Please tell us how to go about chit-chatting with one another....


Just to continue ... you " consumed quite a few ...papers " etc, etc. And you're laughing at anyone else for being pretentious ... ?

No, I'll keep going. Just saw on your profile that you listed your like as " watching the sweet science". Ever do any ? I only ask because I'm an ex-amateur heavyweight. Maybe we could swap stories ... like the time you made really aggressive poses/noises in front of your friends while watching a fight.

 
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:straightface::thumb: Very good.





Oh dear ,don't you get it ? I thought you might see the metaphor ; you are now making "...really aggressive poses/noises in front of your friends while watching a fight" i.e. feeling emasculated while watching the grown-ups do something you can't/won't and hence responding with your own child-like mimicry of that.

As for shots to the head , I do now have an awkward clicking sensation in my right jaw after walking into one too many left hooks. Just terrible...
 
Oh dear ,don't you get it ? I thought you might see the metaphor ; you are now making "...really aggressive poses/noises in front of your friends while watching a fight" i.e. feeling emasculated while watching the grown-ups do something you can't/won't and hence responding with your own child-like mimicry of that.

As for shots to the head , I do now have an awkward clicking sensation in my right jaw after walking into one too many left hooks. Just terrible...

Nah just like the toon. The TT's have always been a guilty pleasure of mine. I find his voice has a very soothing quality, what was that Brando quote?

"Like crushed walnuts" Haha! Whatever that means.

I see you live in Sydney, ergo I'm going to take an educated guess and say your Australian? Might explain that jaw problem, I hear Aussies struggle to walk and chew gum at the same time, boom boom! Just kidding.

As to the rest of your post...............................I'm afraid it too disappeared up it's own arse. Trust me nothing I have posted in this thread is any kind of mimicry of what I've already read. Why would I want copy the portentous drivel of others?

If by grown-up you mean 'writing overblown vanity pieces on a Morrissey fan forum' then yeah I'll pass on being a grown-up.

There is a famous story (you've probably heard of it, and I'm not trying to be funny, you probably have) that when Martin Amis wrote Money he gave a copy to his father Kingsley to read. Apparently he got right up to the point where Martin Amis introduces a character in the novel called........Martin Amis. At that point Kingsley threw the book across the room and told him to stop showing off.

I actually love Money but you get my point.

Perhaps I should leave it with someone who can say it a whole lot better to me and a bona fide genius to boot, Ozzie Wilde. Let me paraphrase,

"Don't use big words, they mean so little."

I'll leave you clever clogs to keep dissecting badly written unreleased Morrissey toons with all the grandiloquent pomposity you so obviously love.

Me? I'm personally going to take Floyd Mayweather to win over Cotto by late KO. Bradley I think may upset Pacquiao, but whaddoo I know? :crazy:

Feel free to have the last word bruiser, I have to go and buy something for lunch, enjoy your Saturday!
 
We're shooting ourselves in the footsies here, just when it appeared that a few evenhanded people had congregated. No harm hoping. Still, one can't help noticing by the by, the correlation between more education and more social inequality - 'educated criminals work within the law' or as Oscar Wilde said, it "makes one rogue cleverer than another".


THE POVERTY LINE

I was poor. Very poor.
There was no food to quell my hunger.
No clothes to hide the shame of my naked body.
No roof above my head.
You were so kind.
You came and you said
‘ No. Poverty is a debasing word. It dehumanises man.
You are needy’.

My days were spent in dire need.
My needy days, day after day, were never-ending.
As I grew weaker
Again you came.
This time you said.
‘Look, I’ve thought it over,
“Needy” is not a good word either,
You are destitute’.

My days and my nights, like a deep longing sigh,
Bore my destitution.
Cowering in the burning heat,
Shivering in the cold winter nights,
Drenched in the never-ending rains.
I went from being destitute to greater destitution.
But you were tireless.
Again you came.
This time you said
‘There is no meaning to this destitution.
Why should you be destitute?
You have always been denied.
You are deprived, the ever deprived’.

There was no end to my deprivation.
In hunger and in want, year after year,
Sleeping in the open streets under the relentless sky
My body a mere skeleton
Was barely alive.
But you didn’t forget me.
This time you came with raised fist.
In you booming voice, you called out to me.
Rise, rise the exploited masses.

No longer did I have the strength to rise.
In hunger and in want, my body had wasted.
My ribs heaved with every breath.
Your vigour and your passion
Were too much for me to match.
Since then many more days have gone.
You are now more wise, more astute.
This time you brought a blackboard.
Chalk in hand, you drew this glistening bright long line.
This time you had really taken great pain.
Wiping the sweat from your brow, you beckoned me.
‘Look. See this line.
Below, far below this line, is where you belong’.

Wonderful!
Profusely, Gratefully, Indebtedly, I thank you.
For my poverty, I thank you.
For my need, I thank you.
For my destitution, I thank you.
For my deprivations, I thank you.
For my exploitedness, I thank you.
And most of all, for that sparkling line.
For that glittering gift.
O great benefactor!
I thank you.

- by Bangladeshi poet Tarapodo Rai.

Before reasonable people object, bear in mind that this is no more off-topic than saying, as has more or less been said, that there should be no topic, or if it's allowed, it can only be discussed if opinions adhere to one point of view, or are expressed in one particular style! "It's really laughable, ha-ha ha-ha-ha ha-ha ha-ha-ha..."
 
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Well, one wonders why you wasted those years at University? I hope you have some other use for your degree in English, because it doesn't seem to have done much for you as a person. You haver an actual masters degree in english from an actual university, and the best you can manage in interpreting a lyric is this?

So what does the song mean? It's about Morrissey falling in love with a someone of a Scandinavian persuasion and then alluding to anal sex again with a few rubbish lines about eating dirt and being in a fjord thrown in, probably because he couldn't think of anything else to write.

What did you spend your time on at uni, chum? Not really the reading type, were you?

And one more thing. It'll be a cold day in hell before I start apologising for being "high-brow", just because some f***ing jerk on an internet forum finds it provoking that things are written in a certain way. What's it to you? How, may I ask, is it a reasonable reaction to respond to that as if it constituted some sort of insult, or personal attack? Touches a nerve somewhere, does it?

I'm not going to complain if you want to write in street language, or Swahili, or whatever floats your boat. And it's none of your f***ing business if I write in a way you don't like. Now, piss off.

You don't have to apologize for being high brow because you aren't high brow, other than in your own head. You post nauseatingly drawn out, pretentious analyses about Morrissey on a web forum. That's fine, but don't assume your lonely, masturbatory Beowulfian treatises here are -by virtue of length or lack of typos- evidence of some intellectual aristocracy.

I literally laughed out loud by your use of the word "f***ing." You're one of those people who thinks that if they cuff up their jeans and stand in the soil for five minutes, they're one of the common folk. We have presidents and movie stars here who do that all the time. It's depressing and sickening. But people buy it. Stupid people who are easily intimidated believe it. And those are the people that people like you count on to bolster your self-constructed veneer of intelligence.

You're a gutless fake and we'd all be better off if you stopped posting. None of this has anything to do with not liking the way you write. You're a hollow, see through coward, you can't write, and so you write endlessly...because you hope in vain that your carefully crafted verbosity equates to having anything to say.

It never has and it never will.

And Scandinavia is a shit song for much the same reason.
 
I have just three things to say to the pair of you (ie, bhops and Skylarker).

1, If you think I'm going to waste my adrenalin entering into a pissing contest with the likes of you, you're sadly mistaken.
2, I'll start entertaining the notion of taking what you have to say about my writing and intellectual prowess seriously when I see one of you contributing something worth reading
3, This place becomes uninhabitable if everyone is going to throw a tantrum every time they see someone write in a style they dislike. So, f*** off and go join the Morrissey frink thread, or whatever floats your boat.

And with that, you go where you belong, which is on the"ignore" list. Bye bye.
 
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And with that, you go where you belong, which is on"ignore". Bye bye.

tumblr_lo15l3BbPN1qj9e69.gif
 
Bigmouth has seeded and opened up this discussion in a stimulating and inviting way. There's something about the song that might be similar to Well I Wonder which fed off the underlying emotion of Elizabeth Smart's book, In Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. It's difficult to identify Scandinavia's source or sources of inspiration. The comment about vampires: "a medieval cure for vampirism was to eat the soil from the grave of one's attacker" - brings to mind the author John Ajvide Lindqvist who confesses to drinking from the warm flow of Morrissey's genius. He wrote Let The Right One In. The Brechtian comparison is interesting. I don't know where the violent images - people burning, children dying, blind asylum, stabbing - come from. Of course they are relevant anywhere in the world, our shared human history, but probably something more specific is in mind. Qvist's sense of what the song's about is broad but sends spirit soaring:

Bigmouth quotes Swedish artist Stina Nordenstam: "...The big difference is that he is extremely ironic all the time. That's the number one thing he's doing..."

A recent summary of some organisational research on leadership elevates a certain type of irony to the highest and rarest position.



and
-
http://integrallife.com/member/barr...s-leadership-sustainability-executive-summary

Something about the bringing together of otherwise irreconcilable opposites with a transcendent satisfying result that also seems to be going on in the song. As Oscar Wilde said: "The well-bred argue with others. The wise contradict themselves!" ; )

You bring up a nice point with Lindkvist. Wouldn't it be great if the song was in fact an oblique tribute to the film (and hence indirectly to some extent a tribute to himself)? :)

Re Stina Nordenstam's comment, I'm not sure I really agree with her. I don't experience irony as a particularly prevalent trait of Morrissey's lyrics, in fact there seems to me to be rather more earnestness than irony. Sarcasm, yes, and ambivalence, but irony not so much.
 
I have just three things to say to the pair of you (ie, bhops and Skylarker).

1, If you think I'm going to waste my adrenalin entering into a pissing contest with the likes of you, you're sadly mistaken.
2, I'll start entertaining the notion of taking what you have to say about my writing and intellectual prowess seriously when I see one of you contributing something worth reading
3, This place becomes uninhabitable if everyone is going to throw a tantrum every time they see someone write in a style they dislike. So, f*** off and go join the Morrissey frink thread, or whatever floats your boat.

And with that, you go where you belong, which is on the"ignore" list. Bye bye.

Haha, what intellectual prowess? I just see a lot of huff huff puff puff.

The only one throwing a tantrum is you, all I ever merely said was that I find a lot of what has been written in this thread to be faux-intellectual bollocks. Tellingly when I first made that post I didn't mention any names or particular posts, interesting that you just automatically assumed it was you, you ole narcissist. :thumb:

I mean wouldn't it be great if the song was an oblique tribute to the wonders of Ikea? What with all it's talk of the Scandinavian countryside.

Or perhaps it's just because dear ole Moz couldn't think of anything better to rhyme bored with than fjord?

But like Skylarker I think I may have myself a lil ole Don Draper weep that you don't like my analysis.
 
You bring up a nice point with Lindkvist. Wouldn't it be great if the song was in fact an oblique tribute to the film (and hence indirectly to some extent a tribute to himself)? :)



Wow, go crazy ! Nice putting together of the jigsaw pieces . How true ? Who can say ? But nonetheless a groovy bit of thinking....
 
You bring up a nice point with Lindkvist. Wouldn't it be great if the song was in fact an oblique tribute to the film (and hence indirectly to some extent a tribute to himself)? :)

Re Stina Nordenstam's comment, I'm not sure I really agree with her. I don't experience irony as a particularly prevalent trait of Morrissey's lyrics, in fact there seems to me to be rather more earnestness than irony. Sarcasm, yes, and ambivalence, but irony not so much.

Probably depends on the interpretation of irony she has in mind - seems to be a few! The common type verbally combative, the other trying to connect disparate things?

You bring up a nice point with Lindkvist. Wouldn't it be great if the song was in fact an oblique tribute to the film (and hence indirectly to some extent a tribute to himself)? :)

Wow, go crazy ! Nice putting together of the jigsaw pieces . How true ? Who can say ? But nonetheless a groovy bit of thinking....

It is that!
 
I was just listening to a live version of the, probably, album-to-be song "Scandinavia", and got quite strong associations to a kind of nationalistic theme. It starts with this dysantropic view against us northern europeans, but "then You came along" etc.
Especially I find these parts interesting:

"I kiss the soil/I hug the soil/I eat the soil"
and
"Un-protesting I'll die in Scandinavia [...] I'll be happy to die in Scandinavia"

Of course, you would reject this view claiming Morrissey being british (irish etc. etc.) but nevertheless these are connections to a romantic picture - the Soil of Scandinavia - depending on wheter you choose to interpret those parts of the song or not. I agree it definitely would be a bit heavy to call it Blut und Boden, but as we have seen in the past Morrissey tend to write about several different things, so I wouldn't rule it out.
And Im sure that this site have been through a thousand of discussions about those kinds of nationalistic aspects of Morrisseys works, but I haven't seen a specific discussion about "Scandinavia" - maybe rather reasonable since it hasn't been released yet.

Just some thoughts from a scandinavian.
Do reply and tell me if I'm insane, or if there is a chance that Morrissey describes this fascination with the Northern Soil in terms that (at least in a scared country like mine) would be seen as Patriotic (that is in a negative sense).

[I havn't been here for a while, If this topic has already been discussed, then do ignore this post - or delete it.]

From what I have heard Morrissey got inspired to write this song after hearing the swedish song "ack värmeland du sköna" which has lyrics about wanting to live in Värmland (a part of Sweden) and then being buried in the Värmland soil.
It was even suggested that he was going to use this backdrop video of Zara Leander singing it and watching the video it would make sense somehow if he was to use it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7y4WTKK3ZQ

Urbanus
 
Morrissey's Scandinavia

I was bored in a Fjord
& i curse the heart & soul of Scandinavia
Let the people burn
let their children cry
& die in blind asylums

But then you came along
& you held out your hand
& I fell in love with you & Scandinavia

I kiss the soil
I eat the soil
I hug the soil
and I praise the God who made you

Stab me in your own time in Scandinavia
Un~protesting i'll die in Scandinavia

Into a crime in Trondheim
I despise each syllable in Scandinavia
Let the people burn
let their children cry
& die in blind asylums

But then you came along
and you held out your hand
and I fell in love with you & Scandinavia

I kiss the soil
I eat the soil
I hug the soil
& I praise the God who made you

Stab me in your own time in Scandinavia
are we happy to die ? in Scandinavia



It's like the Swedish song but also clearly different in being only in thrall to a country because of someone's inspiring/romantic influence.


Ack Vaermeland, du skoena
English translation

Oh Vaermland, you beautiful, you magnificent land
You crown jewel among Sweden's provinces
And if ever I should reach the Promised Land
I would still return to my beloved Vaermland.

For there I want to live, there I want to die
If one day I take me a bride from Vaermland
I know it's something I shall never regret.
For there I want to live, there I want to die
If one day I take me a bride from Vaermland
I know it's something I shall never regret.
translation provided by Ulrich Menzel

www.esther-ofarim.de
 
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