#happy #Ulf #Lundell #reminds #death #VLT
Leif GW Persson, Ulf Lundell, Plura Jonsson. It’s no coincidence that I’ve liked these three guys for as long as I can remember. And now they scare me to death.
This is a column. Analysis and values are the writer’s own.
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Just as I paused reading Ulf Lundell’s tenth “Vardagar” diary to look for concert tickets for Eldkvarn’s farewell tour this summer, the news came that Leif GW Persson is leaving TV4.
It didn’t feel good.
It felt like a sort of death cleaning. Like Leif GW packing his bags, throwing away old trash and walking into the woods to await the end. Not that I saw many seconds, probably none at all, but it has been safe to know that Leif was sitting there on the TV4 sofa and talking on weekend mornings.
When he announced that he was going to quit, I got unpleasant flashes from the covid crisis, when Leif GW isolated himself, the whole of him was a walking risk group. I was worried that he would take down the sign like so many others, not least the wonderful person and masterful host Adam Alsing.
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Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT
Leif Gustav Willy Persson made it, but now was the time?
No! On Thursday morning, my phone rang from at least four different news services: “Leif GW back on SVT”. He and pair horse Camilla Kvartoft will do the program “The Week” this autumn.
So nice. Leif seems to hang around for a while longer. My God, 79 is no age for a horse. Even if the horse has stuffed everything but oats over the years.
Despite the good news, I couldn’t stop being sad that Sweden’s best rock band of the last 40 years is ending. The fact that Plura gave up alcohol must also be seen as age taking its toll, that the show is over, even though he is only 72. Plura has been in my life since “Kings from Broadway”, or simply “Heavenly days”. Later we also became a bit of friends, and I’ve also sometimes hung out with GW.
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Picture: Johan Jeppsson
I have certainly not had dinner with Ulf Lundell. Twice I interviewed him, a long time ago, nervous, tense, he was blunt and on his guard. When I’m drunk I usually email him in Skåne, it’s happened at least once a year for the last ten years. He never answers, almost, of course. The poor guy must be down with crazy fans who feel entitled to email just because he made a new good song or a new good book.
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New “Vardagar 10” and what I managed to do in “Vardagar 11” are great, again. His diary project is the best thing he has done in book form since “Sömnen” or “Hjärtat ljus”, which is not saying anything.
But something rubs. At first I don’t understand what it is. Then it hits me.
Mr. Ulf shows clear signs of happiness.
Terrible.
It’s no wonder it gives me the anxiety of death, right? Physically, master Ulf, I say this as a doctor, will be very old. As if with a little heart racing, he seems perfectly healthy, he eats healthily and walks mile after mile after mile.
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Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT
But what are we going to do with a happy Ulf Lundell?
Honestly.
Lundell should be grumpy, sour, angry, whiny, snarky, querulous, lonely. God, he doesn’t even seem to hate Stockholm anymore. He is in love and crazy. There are almost no humorous outbursts at all. He looks at mello. The 74-year-old Lundell seems, on the whole, to take contemporary misery with equanimity. Wouldn’t surprise me if he gives glowing descriptions of couples’ dinners in Vardagar 12 and 13.
Although I am, of course, happy for Ulf’s private sake, I still want to drink eight beers and send an email reminding Lundell that artists live for us, the audience. Artists must do everything we simple people cannot do. You must live for us. Don’t be happy. It is the industry you have chosen. You don’t do it to steal, you do it because you have to.
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Image: Mikael Fritzon/TT
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I realize that I am predictably placing my death anxiety with these three gentlemen, just as I have reflected in them over the course of my life, and not with a curmudgeonly long-distance runner, a black lesbian, or a vegan violinist. At the same time, I am not unique in being fond of them, they are all more or less popular, and many will be lonely when they leave.
THE WORST OF THE WORST
► “The point of pain”, SVT Play. It is easily inconceivable that Lars Norén had Nazis, not actors who played Nazis, allowed to agitate on a stage. And now the “7:3” set has become a superb three-part television series with David Dencik.
► TV4 reveals that the Sweden Democrats systematically troll social media, which is offensive to those of us who believe in decent open debate and arguments about differences of opinion and not anonymous insults.
► ”3 Body problem”, Netflix. Really good sci-fi, but unfortunately with a really sad ending waiting for season two.
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