Peter Bjorn and John

Scandinavian countries often produce talented musicians. The music scene that has been very interesting for decades. Thanks to the Scandinavian governments for encouraging music exports. I am pretty sure everyone knows ABBA that hailed from Sweden. Those who were teenagers in the 80s know A-Ha from Norway and those turned on the radios in the 90s probably know Ace of Base. In my opinion, there are even more Scandinavian talents which may be overlooked by majority of us, Malaysians.

The Metal music scene from Scandinavia has been very strong with bands such as Entombed from Sweden, Children of Bodom from Finland, Nightwish from Finland, etc. Yeah, there were a lot of hoo-has created by various narrow-minded Malaysian authorities about Metal music for decades. If I keep writing about them, I will end up cursing them for their stupidity. Well, those stupid idiots even categorised indie music as Black Metal. My goodness, where are their brains? The government should send them for music lessons before making all the noise!! Ok, I am almost going out of the intended topic now.

In the indie scene, we have The Cardigans from Sweden, Ida Maria from Norway, Popsicle from Sweden, The Wannadies from Sweden, Bjork from Iceland, The Raveonettes from Denmark.... This morning, while listening to XFM from London via internet. I came across another interesting Swedish band called Peter Björn and John. The band is named after the first name of each band members. Very simple name for a band! It consists of Peter Morén (vocals, guitar and harmonica), Björn Yttling (bass, keyboards and vocals) and John Eriksson (drums, percussion and vocals). They had a hit in the U.K. with the song, Young Folks, in 2006. Yes, I discovered this band late but it's better late than never. The song also features Victoria Bergsman who is a former member of The Concretes. The Concretes is another Swedish band well known in the indie scene. The vocal of Victoria reminds me of a guest vocalist of a song by a British trip-hop band, Tricky.

Here's an animated video clip of Young Folk by Peter Björn and John:



Lyric:

If i told you things i did before
told you how i used to be
would you go along with someone like me
if you knew my story word for word
had all of my history
would you go along with someone like me

i did before and had my share
it didn't lead nowhere
i would go along with someone like you
it doesn't matter what you did
who you were hanging with
we could stick around and see this night through

and we don't care about the young folks
talkin' 'bout the young style
and we don't care about the old folks
talkin' 'bout the old style too
and we don't care about their own faults
talkin' 'bout our own style
all we care 'bout is talking
talking only me and you

usually when things has gone this far
people tend to disappear
no one will surprise me unless you do

i can tell there's something goin' on
hours seems to disappear
everyone is leaving i'm still with you

it doesn't matter what we do
where we are going too
we can stick around and see this night through

and we don't care about the young folks
talkin' 'bout the young style
and we don't care about the old folks
talkin' 'bout the old style too
and we don't care about their own faults
talkin' 'bout our own style
all we care 'bout is talking
talking only me and you

and we don't care about the young folks
talkin' 'bout the young style
and we don't care about the old folks
talkin' 'bout the old style too
and we don't care about their own faults
talkin' 'bout our own style
all we care 'bout is talking
talking only me and you
talking only me and you

talking only me and you
talking only me and you