The little man
Svante, who is the common figure throughout the album, is in fact a rather complex character. "My life's barely worth a bottle," is the opening line of the disc and Svante is full of booze and ennui at one and the same time:
"What does it help that your liver is shrinking/when your stomach is swelling/I suffer from hatred of myself/ If only I was capable of being just a little pleased with myself," he says in "Svante's Black Ballad" ("Svantes Sorte Vise") in such a way that you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Because there is constantly a tragicomic twist to Svante with his fat belly and his egocentric melancholy. He doesn't feel he is capable of living up to his beloved Nina or perhaps it's just the feeling of sympathy for the little man and his inadequacies that hits many Danes in a soft spot?
Swedish Danishness
Benny Andersen's picturesque poems and Povl Dissing's wry singing lectures were a great success from the word go, perhaps as a reaction to the overpoliticised motifs that dominated art in the early 1970s? The tales of Svante's doings had their source in the private sphere of life and therefore offset the socially critical aspect. But despite the fact that the stories about Svante have today become a permanent part of the Danish cultural heritage, the songs were inspired largely by the Swedish ballad tradition.
So Svante is in fact a Swede in exile, stranded in Denmark and permitting himself to have the kingdom on at the same time. This can be seen most obviously in the song "Muddy Tongue" ("Muddermaalet") which makes fun of the Danish mother tongue, none of which prevents "Svante's Ballads" from being a fantastic example of the range of the Danes' mother language. There you go. The coffee is still hot...
Peter Elsnab is a music journalist and Jesper Nykjaer Knudsen is a culture journalist.
Povl Dissing and Benny Andersen, 1984. Photo: Morten Langkilde/ Polfoto.