Sverige i Fokus · The Musical
A weird educational musical · in English

Learn Sweden, in song.

The official citizenship-study material Sverige i fokus, dragged into a haunted Irish pub session and sung back to you in ten weird folk ballads. The fiddle is slightly out of tune. The narrator may be a ghost. Every fact is still true, and still on the test.

10 songs · ~17 min · weird Irish folk
13 chapters · 10 songs
Sverige i fokus, slightly haunted
10songs, two acts
13chapters covered
~17 minof music
ENEnglish lyrics, Swedish terms kept
Act I

Arriving and belonging

The land in the north that talks in its sleep, the rule of the people, the power cut in three, the curtained voting booth, and the four standing stones of law.

01

Welcome to the North

Landet Sverige Chapter 1 · The country Sweden · 1:42
Play1:42
Intro

North of the north, where the maps forget their names,
the country lies down like a long pale beast, and breathes in the rain.

Verse 1

Five lands make the Nordics, and ours is the long one dreaming,
Denmark and Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden the tall,
sixteen hundred kilometres of spine, from Treriksroset's grey cold stone,
down to Smygehuk's dark water, where the country mutters in its sleep.

Chorus

Welcome to the north, to the forest and the snow,
the Baltic to the east where the drowned little islands glow,
the Gulf Stream keeps us warm like a hand we cannot see,
a quarter-million islands, and they're all of them watching me.

Verse 2

The ice age carved the lakes with its long grey fingernails,
Vanern, Vattern, Malaren, three eyes that never close,
three lands: Gotaland, Svealand, and Norrland wide and far,
and ten million of us blink awake where the harbours are.

Bridge

Twenty-one regions, two hundred ninety towns,
Stockholm, Goteborg, Malmo, say their names and the lights come on.

Final chorus

Welcome to the north, and now there's also me,
a small warm thing learning the country from the mountains to the sea.

02

Folkstyre (Rule by the People)

Sveriges demokratiska system Chapter 2 · Democracy · 1:41
Play1:41
Intro

The word is Greek, it means the people rule,
folkstyre, a word we feed each morning so it stays alive in school.

Verse 1

All of the power begins with us, the people are the ground,
we choose between many parties, and we can vote the mighty down,
one person and one quiet vote, and the ballot no one sees,
and everyone may speak their mind, that's yttrandefrihet, loose on the breeze.

Chorus

Folkstyre, folkstyre, the people hold the say,
all are equal before the law, and a fair trial all the way,
you can march, you can sign, you can join, you can call,
or stand very still in the silence, for the freedom belongs to all.

Verse 2

But the creature grows pale and thin when too few of us will vote,
when lies swim up through the glowing feeds and bite the things we wrote,
when they whisper at the journalists till the brave ones hold their tongue,
so we guard the trembling truth and the right to stand in the throng.

Bridge

Take part, take part, it breathes the stronger when you do,
learn the questions, raise your voice, the folkhem is hungry for you.

Final chorus

Folkstyre, folkstyre, the people hold the say,
and the freedom that we feed belongs to all, and here to stay.

03

Three Levels

Sa har styrs Sverige Chapter 3 · How Sweden is governed · 1:42
Play1:42
Intro

Who decides? Come close, I'll show you how it's done,
the power here is cut in three, it's never held by one.

Verse 1

Three levels: the state, the regions, and the kommun close to home,
and a voice from the EU drifting in, you never rule alone,
the Riksdag has three hundred forty-nine, elected every four,
they write the laws and the budget, then the government takes the floor.

Chorus

State, region, kommun, the power's split in three,
the Riksdag picks the statsminister to steer the ministry,
the regions hold the hospitals and the buses humming through,
the kommun keeps the schools and the water, the small things touching you.

Verse 2

And the agencies go shuffling out to do the daily work,
Skatteverket counts your coins, Forsakringskassan, Migrationsverket lurk,
they follow law and not their moods, and two pale watchers prowl behind,
the JO and the JK, making sure the agencies stay in line.

Bridge

And the King? He wears a crown but he hasn't got a say,
Carl the Sixteenth Gustaf, a soft ghost drifting through the day,
then Victoria, then Estelle, the line goes on and on,
a constitutional monarchy, where the royal power is gone.

Final chorus

State, region, kommun, the power's split in three.

04

Every Fourth Year

Politiska val och partier Chapter 4 · Elections and parties · 1:42
Play1:42
Intro

Every fourth year the country has to choose,
a little card slides through your door, there's nothing here to lose.

Verse 1

Eighteen years to vote, and for the Riksdag a citizen too,
but for the kommun and the region, three years living here will do,
the EU every five, and a referendum's a suggestion in the wind,
in two-thousand-three we kept the krona, told the euro no, and grinned.

Chorus

Every fourth year, in the little curtained booth,
a folded secret ballot that you whisper like a truth,
it's proportional, so twenty of the votes is twenty of the seats,
but you need four percent to enter, or the Riksdag never meets.

Verse 2

Eight parties haunt the Riksdag, and I'll call them all by name,
the Center and the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, the Green,
the Moderates, Social Democrats, Sweden Democrats convene,
and the Left party makes it eight, the strangest choir you've ever seen.

Bridge

They sing upon the squares with a leaflet and a grin,
join a party, start your own, you can let the strangeness in.

Final chorus

Every fourth year the country has to choose.

05

Four Fundamental Laws

Lag och ratt Chapter 5 · Law and justice · 1:37
Play1:37
Intro

Four laws stand above the rest, too old and hard to change,
the grundlagar of Sweden, four standing stones, and strange.

Verse 1

Regeringsformen first: all public power comes from the folk,
with respect for every person, equal worth, that's how it's spoke,
the freedom of the press in print, the freedom of the voice and screen,
and the order of succession for the crown, and that's the four, I mean.

Chorus

All public power comes from the people, that's the line,
and the courts stand cold and separate, no minister can sign,
you're innocent until they prove it, you can answer, you can appeal,
with a lawyer there beside you, rattssakerhet is real.

Verse 2

The police go sniffing out the crime, the prosecutor weighs the case,
three courts: tingsratt, hovratt, hogsta domstolen at the base,
from fifteen years you answer for a crime in Sweden's eyes,
and the Kriminalvarden keeps the prisons where the sentence lies.

Bridge

And out across the breathing forest there's a right that's old and free,
allemansraten, the right to roam, to wander, you and me,
to walk and pick the berries, pitch a tent beneath the pine,
but don't you wake the farmer, and leave it well, and it's fine.

Outro

Four laws stand above the rest, four standing stones, and strange.

Act II

Rights, work and roots

A watching press, the rights we are born with, the welfare that feeds on tax, two hundred years of fever dream, and a land of many faiths that lights the dark.

06

Free Press

Mediernas roll Chapter 6 · The role of media · 1:40
Play1:40
Intro

Open the paper, turn on the screen,
in a free country the press is free, and the state stays unseen.

Verse 1

Two of our basic laws protect the things that we can say,
the press runs free in Sweden, and the government can't sway,
and offentlighetsprincipen lets us ask to see the files,
so a journalist can check the power and uncover what it hides.

Chorus

Kallkritik, kallkritik, question what you read,
check it with another source before you let it lead,
for anyone can post in the glow, and the false swims fast and loud,
so think before you pass it on, don't follow the humming crowd.

Verse 2

There's public service: SR, and SVT, and UR,
three sober owls who take no side and sell you no ad, no sir,
there's papers fed on advertising, and channels you can buy,
a responsible publisher answers for it, that's the law they're held by.

Bridge

You can leak a truth in the dark, you've a right to stay unknown,
the source is kept in shadow, so the story can be shown.

Final chorus

Kallkritik, kallkritik, question what you read.

07

Born Free and Equal

Manskliga rattigheter Chapter 7 · Human rights · 1:48
Play1:48
Intro

Born free and equal, every one the same,
in dignity and rights, no matter the name.

Verse 1

After the war in forty-five, then fifty-one nations rose,
and they built the United Nations so the peace could hold and grow,
in nineteen forty-eight they wrote the rights down, thirty in a row,
thirty little candles in the dark: to speak, to rest, to learn, to know.

Chorus

Born free and equal, that's the line they drew,
no one's worth is greater, and the same bright thread runs through you,
not by your sex or your colour, your faith or your age or whom you love,
discrimination's against the law, and we lift each other up.

Verse 2

Women and men hold equal rights, equal pay and equal say,
and a father and a mother share the leave to stay away,
in seventy-nine, the first on earth, we said you can't strike a child,
and since twenty-twenty the children's convention is the law, and filed.

Verse 3

Five peoples named as minorities in the year of two-thousand stand:
Jews, Roma, Sweden-Finns, Tornedalians, and the Sami, first of this land,
the Sami are the indigenous, with the Sametinget and Sapmi wide,
and the right to love who you love is protected, recognised with pride.

Outro

The DO guards equality, and a hate crime weighs the more,
we are born free and equal, that's the thing worth singing for.

08

The Welfare We Share

Arbetsmarknad och valfard Chapters 8 and 9 · Labour market and welfare · 1:43
Play1:43
Intro

Most of us work in the private trade, and some in the public hall,
thirty in the schools and the wards, and seventy beyond the wall.

Verse 1

The unions sit across a long, long table, LO, TCO, SACO too,
and the wages here aren't set by the state, they're bargained through and through,
a kollektivavtal holds the deal, the pay and the hours and the rest,
and if your job dissolves there's a-kassan, a hammock for the dispossessed.

Chorus

It's the welfare that we share, and it's fed upon the tax,
the moms upon the things we buy, the slice from every paycheck's stack,
so the school is there, the doctor's there, whoever you may be,
a great warm floor beneath us all, the trygghet running free.

Verse 2

The state pays out the pensions, the child support, the study aid,
the regions run the hospitals where the pale-coat doctors trade,
the kommun keeps the schools and the care for the old and for the young,
and the socialtjanst is the net that's woven for when it all comes undone.

Bridge

Everybody drops a coin so that nobody falls too far,
it's the bargain of the folkhem, that's the kind of home we are.

Final chorus

It's the welfare that we share, and it's fed upon the tax.

09

Two Hundred Years

Modern historia · Sverige och omvarlden Chapters 10 and 11 · Modern history and the wider world · 1:55
Play1:55
Intro

Two hundred years ago we were poor and bent to the land,
now look how far the dream has come, it's hard to understand.

Verse 1

The factories rose in the eighteen-hundreds, the people drained to town,
and a million ghosts sailed west to America when the work could not be found,
the folkrorelser gathered in the lamplight, marching for the right to choose,
till nineteen twenty-one, both men and women voted, and we woke into the news.

Chorus

Two hundred years, from the plough to the glowing screen,
through two wars kept neutral, through the lean grey years between,
the folkhem that Per Albin built in nineteen twenty-eight,
a home for all, whatever your start, whatever your fate.

Verse 2

In thirty-eight at Saltsjobaden they shook on the Swedish way,
the bosses and the unions bargaining, and they still shake hands today,
in the war we stood aside from the fighting, but Wallenberg gave the Jews
his paper made of mercy, and the white buses carried thousands home to choose.

Verse 3

Then the record years of plenty, nineteen-forty-five and on,
five weeks of paid-for summer and the forty-hour we'd won,
a million homes came rising, and the people came to stay,
from an emigrant land to an immigrant land, we turned around the way.

Bridge

We joined the EU in ninety-five, the Council back in forty-nine,
and our last true war was long ago, in the eighteen-hundreds' time,
but when Russia struck Ukraine we felt the cold draught at the door,
so we joined the NATO alliance in twenty-twenty-four.

10

A Land of Light

Sekular stat, mangreligiost land · Traditioner Chapters 12 and 13 · Religion and traditions · Finale · 2:03
Play2:03
Intro

A secular state, but a land of many faiths,
you believe, or you don't, and the law protects the space.

Verse 1

Since nineteen fifty-one you're free to choose your faith or none,
and in two-thousand the church and state unclasped their hands, and it was done,
the Church of Sweden's Lutheran, five million on the roll it keeps,
and Islam is the second faith, and all the world's belief still seeps.

Chorus

So we light the year with candles when the winter wants to win,
Lucia walks in a crown of fire with the saffron and the hymn,
and we dance the midsommar pole when the sun forgets to set,
with herring, new potatoes, strawberries, and the strangest friends we've met.

Verse 2

Valborg burns its bonfire on the thirtieth of April's night,
the first of May the workers march, the sixth of June the flag flies bright,
that's the national day they welcome the newest souls into the fold,
with Newroz and with Eid as well, new traditions joining old.

Bridge

I came here as a stranger and I learned this country's bones,
the folkstyre and the grundlagar, the rights, the standing stones,
the long pale land in the north with its forests and its sea,
and today they speak my name aloud, and now it holds to me.

Final chorus

So we light the year with candles when the winter wants to win,
and we open the door to one another, whoever wanders in,
from Treriksroset's mountains down to Smygehuk by the sea,
this is Sverige now, our folkhem, and it's strange, and it holds you and me.

Outro

Welcome to the north. Valkommen hem.