Vinter saga
A national anthem
This is a story about productive procrastination, subtle melancholy, Sweden’s identity with itself, and how that relates to the norms about what I should say about Vinter when friends ask me, “how is your startup going?”. But first, let’s put some music on.
Vintersaga is a word consisting of two other words: “vinter” and “saga.” You probably know that “vinter” translates to winter. Saga means a long story about events over a period of many years in English, but in Swedish, “saga” translates to fairy tale.
Ted Ström wrote a song called Vintersaga in 1984, which has been interpreted by many artists over the years. My favorite variation is the one by Swedish singer-songwriter Amanda Bergman. In 2015, Amanda had a hit with Vintersaga. With 13 million plays on Spotify and her Wikipedia page calling the song a hit, it must be so. The song was featured in a Volvo car video ad. I think the video is epic. It has excellent footage of Swedish nature and a glimpse of ice hockey legend Börje Salming. If we had a Superbowl in Sweden, this ad would play there.
The state-owned Swedish radio station did a one-hour documentary on this song. Here is their summary: “Vintersaga is the song about a country where a cold wind blows and the melancholy rolls in.” The documentary talks about why Swedes love this song. A few years ago, we had a public debate on whether Vintersaga should be the formal national anthem. Many see it as the informal national anthem. The lyrics connect with many Swedes. Why? I make four educated guesses in the four sections below. I say educated because some ideas come from the documentary while some are my wild speculations.
1 Weather
The song, just like Swedes, is obsessed with the weather. Study these excerpts:
- The snowstorm comes — “snöstormen drar in”
- Thick snow — “Tät snö”
- A truck in snow dust — “En tradare i snörök”
Not to mention the chorus: “And down from the sea blows a gray, freezing wind.”
Swedes experience four seasons. In Stockholm, we go from heavy jackets and minus 10C in the winter to short skirts in the plus 25C sunshine during summer. Stockholm goes from 6 hours of daylight in December to 18.5 hours of daylight in June. The country is 1,572 km long — it takes 5 days by car to go from north to south. Sweden’s climate varies a lot due to its length: in the northern part, the average temperature is +13C with 8 hours of daylight in July, but -12C with half an hour of daylight in January. The delta is 25C and 7.5 hours which is a big difference. Swedes are obsessed with the weather, partly because of the variance between seasons and cities. It’s also because we lack the social skills to talk about anything else.
2 Swedish places — big and small
The song features several iconic Swedish symbols. It contains famous symbols like Volvo, Ullevi Stadion, Österlen, Marstrand, Landsort, and Visby. The song also contains less famous places like Tjörnbron, Härnösand, Torneå, Docksta. Mentioning these less known places makes the song connects to people not living in the major cities Stockholm, Gothemburg, Malmö. While the big cities represent Sweden internationally, the small cities connect with the millions of people living in the rest of the country.
The song is not only about small places, but also about small things. It features everyday people making everyday moves. Small moves. The song contains lights that go out, and traffic moving on the highway. The most telling excerpt is: “A cinema in Pajala runs Deliverance.” Since I had no idea about Pajala or Deliverance, I googled and learned that Deliverance is an American thriller from the 70s, and that Paja is a small place in northern Sweden with 2000 inhabitants.
3 “Vemod”: Subtle Melancholy
The song, just like Swedes, is filled with Melancholy. Study these excerpts:
- “Frozen dreams in the monarchy.”
- “An overdose on the train station in a suburb.”
- “Love runs on cheap wine.”
I love that third one. Not to mention the chorus: “That’s when the great melancholy rolls in. And down from the sea blows a gray, freezing wind.” In Swedish, the text is “Det är då som det stora vemodet rullar in. Och från havet blåser en isande gråkall vind.”
The word “vemod” is mentioned four times in the song. Vemod is a subtle sensation of sadness over something you have lost. It’s a form of emptiness. Vemod is also what readers of Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse five feel when the bird sings, “Poh te weet?”.
Vemod is an iconic Swedish word that describes Swedes individually and collectively.
I translated the Swedish word vemod to melancholy, but the English word doesn’t do the Swedish justice. English is a richer language, and finding a single word to express a feeling or describe a thought is often easier — this is an exception. I can’t find a suitable word for vemod in English, so let’s go to Japanese instead. Vemod is related to the Japenese term “Mono no aware” (物の哀れ) which literally means “the pathos of things.” It’s a Japanese idiom for the awareness of the impermanence of things. It’s a transient, gentle sadness at their passing — and a longer/deeper sadness about this state being the reality of life. That’s a sentence worth re-reading.
4 “The world beings over there”: small country complex and the law of Jante
All of a sudden, a strong statement appears: “På andra sidan sundet börjar världen” — the world begins over there. E contrario, the world does not begin here in Sweden.
“Sundet” refers to “Öresund,” the water between Malmö and Copenhagen. If you go by boat from Stockholm and you want to go to the Atlantic sea, then you have to pass Öresund. When he writes that the world starts at the other side of this tiny passage, he implicitly says that Sweden is not part of the world. It begins over there, not here. Because we’re merely Swedes living in Sweden. It’s a humble way of expressing how small Sweden is compared to the rest of the world. Swedes are humble. We even have a word/law that is much more famous than “vemod” indicating how humble we are: “jantelagen”, the law of jante. This law stipulates that you should not think you are better than others, know more than others, stand above others, that you’re good for anything, or can teach others any lessons, neither that others care about you. (Source: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jantelagen)
When I talk about my company and say, “it feels like a fairy tale,” I am within the boundaries of Jantelagen. By contrast, when I say that my goal is for Vinter to be the largest crypto index provider in the world, I’m breaking the law of Jante and my fellow Swedes look at me like I’m an alien or American.
Vintersaga in the Vinter podcast
This is a story about productive procrastination, subtle melancholy, Sweden’s identity with itself, and how that relates to the norms about what I should say about Vinter when friends ask me, “how is your startup going?”. I have not talked about productive procrastination yet. Here is what happened this week when I was procrastinating.
- Listen to the song “Vintersaga.” Love the song.
- Watch the Volvo ad. Love the ad.
- Want the song for the Vinter podcast.
- Ask Marco the lawyer, my co-founder, in Slack if we can use the last 15 seconds of this song as the Vinter podcast intro without getting sued. No reply. A developer suggests we do an AI remix. I don’t want a remix, I want the o-r-i-g-i-n-a-l, and although I’m not a lawyer, I don’t think remixing removes the copyright.
- I almost gave up, but I was procrastinating hard and said to myself, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
- Google the artist's name, Amanda Bergman. Found her Facebook page. Click on the About section. See an email address.
- Write this email.
Hi, may I use the last 15 seconds of your song Vintersaga in my podcast “Vinter podcast”? - Click send. Nine hours later, she replied:
- “Yes!”
In the most recent episode of the Vinter podcast, we have an intro and outro from Vintersaga. The Vinter saga continues. “Saga” (fairy tale) is a fitting description of Vinter. When I look at where we are now compared to where we started, I’m humbled by the success we have had. It feels like a fairy tale. Although I confidently say that my goal is for Vinter to be the largest crypto index provider in the world, we have already exceeded my initial expectations. I’m happy and hungry. I want the saga to continue. It will.
My interview with Matt Hougan was one of the first podcasts where we included the song Vinter saga.
