New Lyrics for the Most Joyful Tune You've Never Heard: Staffansvisa från Stockholm

Since I posted the first version of this essay (part of a 2020 series in the now-defunct Wordpress ancestor of this site) I've often wanted to share it outside the original context. I've also regretted that, at this same time, I rushed out a recording of my lyrics for the tune discussed below. This was never good enough—I was simply too impatient to share the heart of my discovery—and, importantly, my current version is improved in major ways.

Accordingly, I've revised this essay for a wider context and added a section with my lyrics so that you can sing along with a great recording. Sadly I still don't have a worthy recording of my version. One step at a time. Enjoy!

Readers who follow this blog steadily, as opposed to parachuting in and out, may recall me mentioning a concert by Harald Haugaard and Helene Blum's great band that I streamed from Denmark. Listening to it, I learned that there exist wonderful Danish lyrics—all but unknown in the US—for a beautiful tune sung here with markedly different ideas translated from German. The discovery spurred me to create and share my own English language translation.

However, this was not the only point in the concert when I discovered something sadly unknown in the US. Nor was it the only song for which I have new lyrics to share. There is another, called in Swedish "Staffansvisa från Stockholm." and in my version "Christmas Party."

Here is the tune in a remarkable performance by students at the Sibelius Academy in Finland. If you are the sort of person who has become wary about my suggestions because they seem too gloomy or ironic, this is your day to click with no fear. This will be one of the most joyful songs you will ever hear.

What are they singing about? To answer this question well, we must move through some background layers. But let's begin where I did. Listening to the concert, which played an arrangement similar to this one, I had no idea what the words meant—although it was a Christmas concert, after all, and once I thought I may have heard “Yule lights.” Mainly I heard a tune that was stunningly great: an ear worm in the best possible sense. I passionately wanted to sing it, with or without words that matched the original meanings (if and when I ever discovered them.) Here is what flowed through me:

Come along and sing with me

This beautiful Christmas** melody

Sing it again in harmony

And come and join the party

Refrain:

Later we can sing of pain....

Come along with me and sing of joy today.

We will have a feast tonight

And sing this beautiful melody

With all our favorite foods we like

So come and join the party. Refrain.

Turn our favorite songs up loud

And sing this beautiful melody

Everybody dance around

and come and join the party. Refrain.

Walk with me below the stars

And sing this beautiful melody

Steal a kiss out in the dark             

then come and join the party. Refrain.

[**for not-Christmas parties, use "holiday," "summer" etc.]

Those are the sung verses, best for group singing with a call and response vibe. For the instrumental parts (mainly flutes and fiddles in the arrangement above) I play the introduction on guitar and sing the riffs between the verses with the same "la-de-dah-de-do's" that the group uses when they pick up the tune toward the end of the recording. The students' arrangement uses a key change that works for me if I start in G, switch to D for verse 4, and return to G for a reprise of the first verse.

Voila! We can sing this in English! And it sounds great!

It was only after my first draft was finished that I learned some important things: this is a traditional Scandinavian song with multiple versions, it is associated with St. Lucia Day celebrations near the winter solstice, and this version was developed by Esbjörn Hazelius, who sings it here. So a question arises, should we go back to the drawing board? At minimum, some context deepens the meanings.

Why Didn't I Know This?

I am amazed that I'd never heard this song, despite being far more steeped in Nordic traditions than most people from the US. Both my Mom's Swedish-American and my Dad's Norwegian-American families taught me traditions, and I attended the ostentatiously Norwegian St. Olaf College. Lately I've participated in a folk music camp led by Haugaard and sponsored by an ostentatiously Danish-American church. I joined this camp to work on guitar with Antti Järvelä, who I believe is related to the producer of the video above. It was from knowing Harald and Antti that heard about the above-mentioned streamed concert.

Also, my daughter is named Lucia, which naturally makes me pay attention to St. Lucia Day.

None of this had led me to the song. My favorite aunt, whose first spouse was a Swede, tells me she heard it during a sojourn in Sweden. But she's my only acquaintance I've asked who remembers it at all, with the sole exception of her ex who grew up there.

The point is that if someone like me is in the dark about this wonderful music, there surely are many more.

Notes for the Culturally Deprived

Let’s try to appreciate this a bit more. I am no expert, but have learned a few things from my aunt, her ex, and websites including one about St. Lucia Day, these Staffansvisa lyrics, and this wikipedia page. I hope better informed readers will tell me more and correct my mistakes.

On St. Lucia Day, a solstice celebration especially in Sweden (to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia, plus related Italian versions) young girls dress as Saint Lucia, who is associated with light. They enter a ritual space (perhaps a church procession or in a household) wearing wreaths of candles and carrying saffron buns or cookies. A lovely song associated with this circulates in the US, but I’ve never heard it sung in a ritual context.

What is unknown here is that behind these "Lucias" with their candles often follow a procession of “star boys.” Staffansvisa is a traditional song about those boys. There are variants of the tune—it bears repeating that we're following an arrangement by Esjbörn Hazelius—with lyrics sprawling out in many directions. Often they culminate in feasting. So far so good for my idea about a party.

Translating the Heart of the Song

What about finer-grained details? Standard versions start with roughly these ideas.

Staffan was a farmer’s son (We sing this song to thank him) He fed his horses, one by one (For following the bright star) Even though the world is dark We can find our way beneath the shining star.

That is my crude stab at a paraphrase that rhymes, matches the tune, and stays close to the literal meaning. It is based on comparing translations, since I don’t speak Swedish. And let's be clear—I know this is terrible poetry, so I don't recommend singing it, nor taking a literal approach to translating generally. The point at hand is simply to get a handle on what they're saying.

Even more literally, the Swedish says that “Staffan was a stable-boy,” that he waters five horses, that “we thank you very much,” and that there are stars twinkling in the dark—all of which is better if you prefer precision that doesn’t match the song's meter.

Update: Stefan Sylvander, who speaks Swedish, suggests this—although he may be thinking of a slightly varying tune.

Riffing on the Verses

Often this first verse is followed by five more that discuss the colors of Staffan’s horses, one of which he rides. Each time, we "very much do thank him” and sing a refrain about stars in the dark of a winter solstice.

In some versions Staffan learns from the stars about Jesus’s birth, as the Magi do in the Bible. Thus he may come into conflict with King Herod, who does not like hearing about a rival king from Staffan any more than he liked hearing this from Magi. In one version, a rooster cooking in a frying pan comes to life and flies away to prove to Herod that Staffan is telling the truth.

Alternatively, Staffan may hunt a big bad wolf or a bear to ensure that the party can begin safely. (In this context Google’s AI translator offers “Now there is fire in every stove, with Christmas porridge and Christmas pig.”) Singers can improvise other verses, as with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”— “Now bring us our figgy pudding,” “Now let’s [fill in the blank],” etc.

Most verses lead back to the refrain about following stars in the night when it still is dark. I am pleased that, at this key point, I instinctively thought of “Later we can sing of pain / Come along with me and sing of joy today.” This strikes me as close enough in spirit. But I do nurse a hope of someday getting the winter night sky and the horses—and the rooster!—and the big bad wolf!—into a singable lyric on par with what I have so far.

Meanwhile, I think the pain / joy lyric resonates passably well—maybe even remarkably well given that it came through me before I knew the song was about light in the dark of winter. I share it in a hope that my version might help introduce this terrific song to more people, advancing a folk process that has a great deal to gain from carrying this forward.