A song and a story

[Guest guest]

Hi all,My mother wanted me to find a particular song for her on youtube, and as I did I was struck with how so many images, memories etc can be squeesed into so few words. It's a song I have listened to before, even if it was a few years since the last time. In fact, I doubt that there are a Swedish person alive who hasn't heard it... It's a song about the (still unsolved) murder of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in february 1986. It was a huge (HUGE) national crisis, not only because a murder of a head of state always is, but because it changed so much about how Swedes thought about themselves and about Sweden. Someone has described the morning when Sweden awoke to the news that Primeminister Palme had been shot down on an open street the night before, very accurately as "It was like waking up in a new world altogether, and a scary one" Others have called it "The end of Swedish innocence". Mr Palme and his wife was walking home from a late night movie all alone, without any bodyguards or security people around, when it happened: A man walked up to the couple, exchanged a few words, then shot Mr Palme at close range, shot at Mrs Palme, but missed, and ran off into a nearby alley. And if you had asked any Swede beforehand about the lack of security, you would have got the answer that it was just obvious: That security may be necessary when he is at work (even though the most violent assault on any minister in Sweden before that had been a cake thrown in the face...), but why in heavens name would he need it when he had time off? Any person in their right mind will understand and respect even a minister's need for privacy and free time, won't they? Naive? Yeah, maybe, but up until then, that was what the world had looked like from a Swedish perspective. The song is called "Natten" ("The night"), and I have translated it into English, because I wanted to comment on it, and on how a few simple words can conjure up floods of memories and images:It goes like this (in my translation):"Death caught up with youwith a raw and violent forceIn a calendar more than fullthere was still a little spaceLife ran away from youon feet as light as feathersdisappeared around a cornerwas not seen againA flash of lightning out of nowherein a cold and endless nightwhere shadows are hunting shadowsthat can't be caughtA pool of your blood on the streetas a mirror, shiny and cleanwhere the future was visiblefor the one with eyes to seeA flash of lightning out of nowherein a cold and endless nightwhere shadows are hunting shadowsthat can't be caught"My comments:First it's "disappeared around a corner, was not seen again", that is obviously a reference to the killer who was seen by witnesses running down the alley, up some stairs, and then around a particular corner, but who was not seen by anyone after that particular corner. In other words, he (like the life of Mr Palme) "disappeared around a corner, was not seen again"Then it's the shadows hunting shadows in the refrain. With help from West Germany the first forensic sketch (a facial composite) ever to be made in Swedish law enforcement history saw the light of day, and was published broadly. This meant to introduce to the Swedish public a whole new concept: The forensic drawing or sketch. The Swedish name for this is a "fantombild" - literally a "phantom image". And the phantom image thus presented was said to portray the killer, who was nicknamed "the shadow" (because he was said to have tailed mr & mrs Palme to the movie theatre and waited for them to come out again after the movie). So... The police has an image of the killer, not a real image though, but a "phantom image" or a "ghost image", and this phantom, or ghost, they call shadow... Imagine the effect of that on the mind of a people already struggling to grasp how a Prime Minister can be shot down on the street (and on his free time, at that!).... Or, in other words, "Shadows are hunting shadows, that can't be caught"...And, lastly, that "pool of your blood". If you ask any Swede old enough to remember the murder of Palme what image comes to mind first when it's mentioned, I bet it's that pool of blood. The image accompanied all news stories about the murder the first days, and on the very first day it was, for hours at a time, the only image shown on TV (all regular broadcasting was cancelled, and in the long wait for more news, that image from the crime scene was what was broadcasted). Eventually, as soon as the police would allow that kind of interference with the crime scene, that pool of blood was covered by an ocean of red roses, put there one by one by tens of thousands (or possibly, in the long run hundreds of thousands) of Swedes who wanted to commemorate a great leader, and express their grief (and perhaps, a part of me can't help but speculating, they wanted to cover up that grim pool of blood, and make it go away). Wow, that much in that short song! If you want to hear it, it's right where I found it for my mother, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkACKSG4IAwAnd among the images that come with it on youtube are some of those I have mentioned above. love/Reb