HEI – FARA – Lillebjørn Nilsen

Folk music in Oslo?

‘The folk tunes recorded here are not representative of any particular Norwegian county, nor is the singer. In fact, I was raised in Oslo, where you’ll find exactly the same streets, the same industrial plants and the same tall buildings as in any other European city. No mountains here, with goblins or ogres inside them. No fiddle-playing nix in the city river — he left even before pollution started. And as for the good people underground they have been driven away by the underground railway and its mobsters.

The tall buildings, nevertheless, are full of people wonderful people. In the one I grew in, there was at least one guy who played the Hardanger fiddle.There was also a swedish by of my own age used to play waltzes on his accordion. And the old lady who looked after me when my mother was away working, had such a strange way of speaking, and she sang the sweetest lullabies I ever heard. I know now that she hailed from the flat coastland of Jaeren in Southern Norway. My father played the fiddle and taught me how to tune the open strings sa that they would respond to the melody notes. And an American boy somewhat later in life taught me how to obtain the same effect on a guitar.
In a big city, you’ll find people from all parts of the country. Some have cod for Christmas, some prefer pork, depending on where they learnt their eating habits. Some even come from so far away taht they don’t celebrate Christmas at all. As for myself, I have loved our folk tunes for as long as I can remember. To a child living in the city they brought the atmosphere of fairy tale poetry and the smell of moss and pine forests. We need them.’ – Lillebjørn Nilsen