Poetry and Politics

MrT's daughter left for the USA today and we wished her a happy travel with a meal before taking her to the station. She has been cleaning the house of MrT during her visit, while he has mostly been too ill to see her. Yesterday they met though and she was happy, leaving with a happy memory of him.

He once was a well known figure in swedish song, mostly known for setting music to the poems by a great deal of our swedish poets, some of them rather revolutionary but all of them part of our social heritage. His active period of composing, concerting and recording stretches from early 1960's to 2015, always with a strong integrity, rebellious and never compromising with his ideals. Always on the barricades he was seen as a difficult person but respected by other artists for his strong compositions, always in the frontline of his genre by inviting well known jazz-musicians to play in his orchestra: MrT and his players. ("HerrT och hans Spelmän").

After most of all the trash has been cleaned away from his house, you suddenly noticed all the artwork on his walls, some of them gifts from other artists and this one, a clip from a newspaper that he framed and  put on the wall in his hallway. It describes well his position as the "enfant terrible" of his genre and his reputation among radio producers.

Here is a ruff translation of the words: "Next follows the ten most sold hit-songs in the USA... but first we'll play a song by Torgny Björk (MrT) to counteract  the harmful effects of commercialism".

It also was my only blip for today. Hopefully he can return to the home for the elderly shortly, after some time in hospital.