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My dad just published a book. In an interview, when asked what she will read this summer, Annika Norlin answered: “I will definitely read the Olle Adolphson biography by Jan Malmborg”. My dad’s book. Annika is Hello Saferide and Säkert!, her lyrics are little stories, smart and sad and funny, she has been my favorite songwriter since I was a teenager. Olle, the musician in the biography, is my dad’s favorite songwriter. His songs are also stories, sad and beautiful and contradictory, like life. This summer, I will read “Jag ser allt du gör”, a collection of short stories by Annika. And so, lives re-connect and meander through this contradictory existence. In “Trubbel”, the song that gave the biography its title, Olle sings about a relationship, infidelity, contrasts a beautiful summer in full bloom outside with his own garden, where “it’s scrubby and overgrown, ugly and neglected, and just as hopelessly dull and gray as in my heart”. A little like the feeling I got from the botanic garden in Clermont-Ferrand, a forgotten nook, wistfully almost-remembering past days of love and care.
Photo: Jardin botanique de la Charme in Clermont-Ferrand, France, October 2018. Posted on Instagram July 22, 2020.
Katja Malmborg 