FEATURE STORIES

Beautiful, Green Skellefteå – A Musical Love Story

This is my hometown.
Perhaps The Wannadies have created the ultimate Skellefteå song.
But many more have found inspiration in this municipality. Helena Melender of the pop duo Heelin is one of them. They are currently promoting the song "Jag å Skellefteå."
"The song is a melancholic tribute to this town," she says.

Bruce Springsteen has done it. Jay-Z has done it. Taylor Swift has done it. They've all sung about their hometowns. And there's definitely something special about depicting the place you come from, isn't there? In Sweden, for nearly 25 years, Håkan Hellström has romanticized Andra Långgatan, Älvsborgsbron, and other more or less worn-down places in Gothenburg. Stockholm has inspired hordes of songs, with everyone from Monica Zetterlund to Veronica Maggio.

To say that Skellefteå is a music town with a rich history is no exaggeration. Countless orchestras and musicians have emerged from the municipality since the first music association was founded in 1889. In 1962, the municipal music school started, which has been crucial for the development of new bands and artists. The church has also been a hub for the music scene in the area. Over the years, Skellefteå has inspired many artists to write songs with Skellefteå themes. In both minor and major keys, both melancholic and cheerful.

In 1980, Skellefteå Municipality released the LP "Musik i Skellefteå," a time document of the city's music life. This includes the song "Ballad från Boliden" by troubadour Gunnar Enqvist. Among the contributors are the folk music group Burträskar’a (local dialect for the people of Burträsk), who have often sung about life in Västerbotten, including in "Byskevisan," which in local dialect reflects the peasant son Jahrnkaisa-Manne and his adventures.

In the category of Skellefteå tributes, Bo Löfbom and his "Sköna, gröna Skellefteå" definitely belong. The song, released in 1990, describes a summer evening in the city: "Imagine an evening by the Lejonströmsbron / with the church and Bonnstan in the background." In the chorus, the love for the hometown is absolute: "Beautiful green Skellefteå / the city that has everything / that makes you completely relax / Skellefteå – it’s wonderful!"

A somewhat more unexpected Skellefteå song entered the Swedish consciousness in 1971. At that time, singer and songwriter Lalla Hansson from Stockholm was a rising star. Together with producer Bengt Palmers and some of the country's top studio musicians, he recorded his debut album featuring American pop songs with Swedish lyrics. The title track of the album was a version of The Band's "Up on Cripple Creek." Surprisingly, the song received the Swedish title "Upp till Ragvaldsträsk," named after a village about 15 kilometers south of Skellefteå, which had never been the subject of any serenades before or since. "Upp till Ragvaldsträsk jag tar mig / utan något fjäsk" sings Lalla in a song describing a love affair with a woman from the village. Lalla himself had no connection to the area. The idea came from his collaborator Björn Håkansson, who co-wrote the lyrics.

"I think he had relatives there. But I went up and took pictures in connection with the album release. And that song is still relevant in my life. People ask for it when I'm out playing," says Lalla Hansson.

Then there's "My Home Town." A song that's impossible not to mention when it comes to songs about Skellefteå. In 1988, The Wannadies, led by singer Pär Wiksten, had their first gig at Norrhammarskolan. Two years later, the band released their self-titled debut album, which included "My Home Town."

"That song was incredibly important for us in the beginning and the most played song on the radio back then," says Pär Wiksten.

The album paved the way for an international meteoric career for The Wannadies during the 1990s. Skellefteå actually became something of a pop music epicenter during the indie wave, with bands like This Perfect Day and the record label A West Side Fabrication. The municipal music school and music high school nurtured musicians such as Sahara Hotnights and Frida Hyvönen.

"My Home Town" has since become a true classic and has been covered by several other artists, including Annika Norlin, who translated it to "Min hemstad."

"To be honest, we never thought of it as a tribute song to Skellefteå until people told us they thought it was such a nice homage to the town. The song is about a guy missing his girl who lives somewhere else. And since we lived in Skellefteå, it was about the town," says Pär with a laugh.

Pär Wiksten has a fondness for songs about hometowns. In 1998, a compilation album by the band was named "Skellefteå."

"There is often a kind of romantic nostalgia in songs about the places where you grew up. A high touch factor!"

"My Home Town" has come to mean a lot to the group.

"It captured the band's spirit well, a kind of local patriotic 'we're not moving' feeling in a good way. Now it feels almost unbelievably big that it still lives on, partly thanks to hockey," says Pär.

Hockey, indeed. Over the years, many songs have been written about and for Skellefteå AIK. Early on, Roffe Staads Kör och Orkester sold their hockey songs to several clubs around Sweden. In Skellefteå, this resulted in the song “Hela Guldstans favoriter,” which includes the immortal chant “S-K-E-LL-E-F-T-E-Å – let’s go!”

Another memorable AIK song is actually by the same Pär Wiksten. On the 2012 track "Hela Sveriges AIK," he had his then 7-year-old daughter Elsa sing a somewhat unconventional hockey anthem, with lines like: “North or south, city or village / and we are the salt of the earth / butter, lingonberry jam, and malt.”

"I got a request from Skellefteå AIK asking if I could consider writing a hymn for the team. Naturally, I declined because sports hymns are the cheesiest, most cliché-ridden music genre of all," he says.

But the proposal was impossible to resist in the long run.

"One morning, the seed for 'Hela Sveriges AIK' appeared. So I continued working on it, trying to avoid the usual pitfalls with words like 'banners' and 'fires.' Today, I'm incredibly proud of it. A perfect psalm for my team!"

The song has taken on a life of its own and is still sung in the stands – and even at funerals.

"A friend's mother printed out the sheet music so an organist in Skåne could play it on the church organ when a Skellefteå resident was to be buried. That’s hard to handle for a 'flännis' (tearful person) like me," says Pär Wiksten.

Laleh Pourkarim, better known by her stage name Laleh, has become one of the country's most beloved artists in the 2000s. In 2007 and 2008, she lived in the Skellefteå area, which she visited in connection with a video shoot. She described her time in Västerbotten as a way to find peace and explore a new environment. When her third album, Me and Simon, was released in 2009, several tracks were influenced by her years in Västerbotten. The song "Bjurö klubb" describes an encounter with a blue whale and is inspired by walks at Bjuröklubb, located about 20 kilometers from the E4 outside Lövånger, south of Skellefteå.

"I have spent a lot of time in Norrland to get away from the big city. You find peace so that you can write, calm and tranquility. Bjuröklubb is a nature reserve where I have spent a lot of time," she said in an interview with the news agency TT.

Today, "Bjurö klubb" is one of her most beloved songs and a definite live favorite.

A somewhat less streamed but equally endearingly quirky artist is Erik Karlsson, who makes music under the name Chicagojazzen. Based in Skellefteå and Umeå, he has been releasing albums, cassettes, and digital releases under underground labels like Zeon Light, Periferin, and Irrlicht since 2006. Erik consistently refuses to conform to any genre boundaries in his music. The common thread has been described as "a messy, noisy DIY spirit, a touch of northern Swedish local reference, and an unwillingness to create radio hits." Among his song titles are gems like "Bränn ner Jörn" ("Burn Down Jörn"), "Någon har frusit ihjäl på en p-ficka utanför Ånäset" ("Someone Has Frozen to Death in a Parking Pocket Outside Ånäset"), and "Jörnköket byggde denna spea kropp" ("The Jörn Kitchen Built This Lean Body"), a tribute to the large kitchen that prepared school meals for Skellefteå municipality's schools for decades.

"I have a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards place-specific music. Often it becomes quite excluding for the listener when you're expected to know exactly which street in Gothenburg Håkan Hellström is walking down, or what ungodly acts the Ramones are up to on 53rd & 3rd Street in New York. So, it's partly a kind of revenge that there's so many local references in my music, haha. If I have to be fed references to places I don't know, then people who don't read Norran can try to decipher what my songs are about," says Erik.

Even today in 2024, the music scene in Skellefteå is very much alive. With the intense expansion Skellefteå is experiencing, many believe that a new musical golden age could be just around the corner. Names like Röda Naglar, Kjells bänk, Hök, The Soulmate Society, and Barons Court are some of the new bands that have popped up on the local scene. A new addition to Skellefteås musical horizon is Heelin, a pop duo consisting of Skellefteå musicians Helena Melender and Elin Öhman. Both have a background in the rock band Soak The Sin, which many predicted would be Skellefteås next big pop export in the early 2000s. In 2023, Heelin debuted. One of their first singles is called "Jag å Skellefteå." An atmospheric song with driving drums and a narrative text about growing up with big dreams in a small town. About ups and downs and daring to go your own way.

"Friends moved to other cities to study. We stayed here. As young musicians in the music town that Skellefteå was at that time, it felt right," says Helena Melender.

"I never really believed / that it would be us two / me and Skellefteå," sings Helena in the song. She describes it as a melancholic tribute to Skellefteå – the latest in a proud tradition.

"We have experienced so much, even though we stayed. I guess more songwriters have felt the same pride as us, which feels nice," she says.

Text by Olov Antonsson, who loves songs about hometowns and has written several songs about Skellefteå, including "Johanna i parken" from 2016.