Saturday, March 24, 2007

Let’s Be Friends

Our Swedish correspondent LN sent me a link to a Norwegian web page featuring a new song by the singer Åge Aleksandersen. LN translated only the song lyrics for me, and based on those I thought the song had to be a spoof, an ironic and deadpan takeoff on Norwegian dhimmitude.

Åge AleksandersenSo I wrote to Kepiblanc (who reads Norwegian), and asked him what he though of Åge Aleksandersen’s song. Here’s what he replied:

Sorry to say, Baron: this guy is a 112% moron. He is dead serious and wants to embrace Muslims, no matter what. If you have the text, you know how abominable this is.

As Steen says: Norway is in serious shortage of psychiatric wards.

I asked Kepiblanc to translate anything else on the page that seemed pertinent, and he kindly agreed to. But first, here are the song lyrics:

“Reaching out a hand for Islam”

Utdrag fra sangen “Æ vil vær din venn” Excerpt from the song “I want to be your friend”
   
Æ vil vær din venn I want to be your friend
Æ vil sitt ved ditt bord I want to sit at your table
Elske under himmelnatt Make love under the heavenly night
Kysses av kjærlighet Be kissed by love
Sammen i sorg Together in sorrow
Ta i mot liv Receive and welcome life
A vil vær din venn I want to be your friend
 
Du steiner dine mødre You stone your mothers
Pisker dine søstre Flog your sisters
Lemlester dine døtre Mutilate your daughters
Bak slør Behind their veils
Men æ vil vær din venn But I want to be your friend

The page is from Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK — Norsk Riks Kringkastning). The caption under the photo reads:

He has sold more than 1.5 million albums since his debut in 1972. This is his thirtieth anniversary as a soloist. Today Åge Aleksandersen finishes his twenty-first album, “Two Steps Forward”.

An excerpt from the article itself:

Wants to befriend the Muslims of the world

This time it’s a mature Åge Aleksandersen stepping forward with his lyrics. In one of his songs “Æ vil vær din venn” [I want to be your friend] he tries to explore his tolerant attitude towards Islam.

“This is about a love so encompassing that it can’t go any further,” says Åge Aleksandersen.

“At the intersection between Islam and Christendom, it is a colossal challenge to me to remain open and try to see the good in all people.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Stretches the borders

“I have worked with this text for three or four years. One word here, one word there. Meticulously, I tried to compose a song that tells something essential about my feelings and how complicated I find them. I am prepared to go out of my way in order to reach out to those on ‘the other side’.”

“It probably won’t be a hit,” Åge Aleksandersen sighs.

“During those three or four years when you struggled with this text, a lot of things happened to the relationship between Islam and The West. We waged war against them, not once but twice. A backdrop when you wrote this song, perhaps?”

“Yes, this song is my safety valve. It’s where I can let off steam. Explore in detail. Proclaim how I perceive this.”

Kepiblanc supplies us with some additional commentary:

The rest of the article is just the usual babble about popularity, chit-chat, and promotional platitudes.

Baron, I can assure you: there’s no irony at play here. This is NRK at its worst. Norwegian political correctness and dhimmitude gone ballistic. And NRK — just like the Norwegian Government — doesn’t even know the words “irony” or “sarcasm”.

Funny thing is, the song is in Nynorsk [New Norwegian], an artificial, constructed dialect invented to protest the dominant Bokmål [Book Language] — essentially Danish. Nynorsk took some remote dialects from isolated valleys, tossed them in a melting pot and came up with a dialect almost indistinguishable from my childhood dialect of South-Jutlandish [Old Anglo-Saxon]. Talk about irony…

After reading — and translating into Danglish — this nonsense I urgently need a beer or five, be it early morning or not. It saddens me immensely to see good, old Norge going down the drain.

How about a very wet “Norge’s Wake” here at Gates of Copenhagen?

I’ll take him up on that, and raise a virtual mug of Mørkt Hvidtøl to the Vikings, the fjords, and the Old Norse who are no longer among us!

By the way — when Kepiblanc refers to “Danglish”, he is employing my term for the dialect our Danish volunteers use when they translate an article from their native Dansk (or from Norsk or Svensk) for Gates of Vienna. Danglish differs from Standard English mostly in the spelling, the punctuation — Danish has different conventions about the use of commas — and the word order. When I receive a an article in Danglish, I make the minor modifications required to put the translation into Standard English.

And Kepiblanc is being modest — his English is virtually flawless, as is that of several of our other translators.

Now I’ll let the good Swede LN have the last word:

Come on all you Muslim dudes — you gonna get love…

19 comments:

History Snark said...

I think calling this idiot a "112% moron" does him an injustice. He's at least 150%. Does he think that stoning their mothers and flogging their sisters is a good thing? Perhaps when the time comes to flog Aleksandersen's womenfolk, he'll be good enough to explain it to the ladies as a sign of "friendship". Ditto for the inevitable raping of them.

He must be on some really serious drugs.

History Snark said...

I should also point out that when I read this:

“This is about a love so encompassing that it can’t go any further,” says Åge Aleksandersen.

“At the intersection between Islam and Christendom, it is a colossal challenge to me to remain open and try to see the good in all people.”

what I understood was "this is about an egotism so encompassing that it can't go any further....it is a colossal challenge to be this much of a self-righteous dumbass".

Maybe it's just a problem with the way I understand "Danglish".

Mr. Spog said...

Totin'

That's how I read it as well. "With love so encompassing, I must be a really exalted being."

ziontruth said...

Stockholm. 'Nuff said.

Zerosumgame said...

As Steen says: Norway is in serious shortage of psychiatric wards.

How about we just put up a padded wall around the whole country?

Anybody want to bid on the straitjacket contract?

Profitsbeard said...

Is the Music For Masochists?

"Behead Me Baby One More Time"?

"Don't Worry, Be Dhimmi"?

I know Ingmar "Chess with Death" Bergman and the berserker Vikings weren't exactly noted for their subtle senses of humor, but this guy goes beyond parody.

He's as humorless as the Muslims themselves.

(Except that they go further and ban music as a distraction from praying 500 times a day to the meteorite god.)

"Slay It Right"?

"Make It Pain"?

Or the older hit:

"I Still Haven't Found Who I'm Aiming For"?

There was a band named Black Flag.

Looks like White Flag will be the new EU catch-all group.

What is "Occupation" said...

off topic

take a moment, find an arabic website to translate

amazing tool!


http://www.google.com/translate_t

X said...

If he was sincere he might have sung "I want to forgive you", since that requires repentence by the forgiven party.

Exile said...

Where can I find this guy?

And excuse me while I load my shotgun....

History Snark said...

Archonix,

That's a good point, but nowhere does he suggest that the Muslim has done anything wrong, so there's no need for forgiveness. Cultural relativity at it's very worst.

That bothers me more than the homoerotic theme of the first verse. This idiot doesn't understand Islam on even a kindergarden level. He just wants to be friends, like a child might try to please an abusive parent.

Ugh.

Asger Trier Engberg said...

Well the basic irony is also, that in order to prevent the Norweigian "imperialism" - the "colonial past" - "racism" Norweigians embrace islamic imperialism and racism.

One thing is the obvious stupidity, but I mean this is very close to total national schizophrenia.

Birkebeinr said...

Mr. Aleksandersen can afford to make a fool of himself - but I never knew he was going to this length. I still despise him most for his "I hate Reagan song". He was once said to be Norways Dylan but Aleksandersen ended up in the musical branch of Henry Rinnans band.
An old marxist dimwit.
By the way, Kepiblancs comments on Nynorsk is wrong. And Aleksandersen sings in Trønder dialect, not Nynorsk.

John Sobieski said...

I'm sorry but the 'useful idiot' club is all full!

hi said...

What's really disturbing is that writing that piece of inane garbage took him 3-4 years. I have to disagree with Steen, it seems to me that psychiatrists already performed some serious electric chock treatment on this guy back in the 70's.

Yorkshireminer said...

I didn't realize you were teetotal Baron, Hvidtøl if my memory serves me correctly is non alcoholic, if so then you are going to miss out on some of the more finer points of Danish culture.

Baron Bodissey said...

Yorkshireminer --

No, I can raise the elbow with the best of them.

Your Danish is far superior to mine -- since mine is all but non-existent -- so you're probably right. But I was relying on my Berlitz Danish phrasebook, which gives this definition:

Mørkt Hvidtøl: a dark, reddish-brown beer; sweet and creamy.

It doesn't say non-alcoholic; but maybe it is.

I chose it because it had two
ø's in it. I never miss a chance to use an ø!

Always On Watch said...

“It probably won’t be a hit,” Åge Aleksandersen sighs.

Poor baby! People don't want to sing his version of "Kumbaya"?

Well, maybe that's because some of us have learned "Islam's Not for Me." Link to that ditty

Captain USpace said...

Yeah, this guy should be locked in a room and forced to listen to 'Islam's Not For Me' over and over again. Or maybe give him a break with some variety; INFM into 'Winds of Jihad' into 'Shoe Bomber' and then 'Open Season' and then the Teapack's 'Push The Button'.

I also think the first 3 lines of the last 5 listed above might even earn him a surprise fatwa from his peace loving Muslim brothers.


absurd thought -
God of the Universe hates
infidel songs...

people listen to music
one by one we learn more truths
.

Baron Bodissey said...

YM — I just got the word from Kepiblanc. He says this:

“Both are wrong. Hvidtøl (white ale - which usually IS black - Danish grammar again...) are Low-alcohol beers that are a remainder of the pre-lager Danish brewing tradition. Originally top-fermented, most (except for Refsvindinge) are now bottom-fermented. Despite the name meaning ‘white beer’ they come in both pale and dark varieties. Alcohol between 1.5 and 2.6% (by volume).”

It is pretty weak stuff — about like shandy, eh?

Post a Comment

All comments are subject to pre-approval by blog admins.

Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. For more information, click here.

Users are asked to limit each comment to about 500 words. If you need to say more, leave a link to your own blog.

Also: long or off-topic comments may be posted on news feed threads.

To add a link in a comment, use this format:
<a href="http://mywebsite.com">My Title</a>

Please do not paste long URLs!

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.