Danes sing constantly, from childhood songbooks to drinking songs like "Sail Up the River" to custom birthday songs called festesang. When Danish hits play at parties, locals get enthusiastic while foreigners sit out. Professional songwriters sell personalized festesang online for about 400 Danish crowns.
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Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kajander Melish. There have been very few international singing stars from Denmark, and. That's a surprise because Danish people love to sing. Joining choirs is very popular, and Danish schoolchildren often start the week with a song. In my daughter's school, all the grades get together in the gymnasium and sing something from the school's common songbook. There's actually a kind of common songbook for all the children of Denmark called De Små Sanger, where you can find classics like Se min kjole— see my dress? Lille Peter er et kop— little Peter spider. Or Ole's new automobile— Ole's new car. Ole's new car is actually a toy car that he uses to run into things, like his sister's dollhouse. In general, the small songs are a throwback to an older Denmark, a quieter Denmark where most people lived in the countryside. Many of the songs refer to green hilltops or forests Or baby pigs or horses, or happy frogs that live in a swamp. And, of course, all the humans in the small songs are entirely Danish, or pærdanish, as the local expression goes. 1 out of 5 children born in Denmark today is not an ethnic Dane, but there's no such thing as Little Mohammed Spider or Fatima's Toy Car. Still, everyone who grows up in Denmark learns these songs. And other songs that are just a part of the Danish canon. Back when I was looking around for a school for my daughter, I went to a parent introduction meeting where the principal asked everyone to start by singing the Autumn Song. All the Danish parents got up— there were probably 200 of them there— all smiling and brought back to their school days and happily singing the Autumn Song. I had no idea what was going on. I just stood up and hummed along. Mm-hmm. But Danish singing is not just for children. Danish teenagers and young adults, who tend to drink a lot of alcohol, love Danish drinking songs. Snap songs are made to be sung right before drinking a shot of snaps, and they're an important part of Danish student culture. One you'll probably hear is Sail Up the River. The lyrics are easy to learn. We sail up the river and we sail down again. That was such a lovely song. Can we hear it one more time? And then, of course, you sing it again. Many times. My neighbors were doing that last weekend. But Danish adults don't have to be drunk to sing. If someone has a round birthday— 30, 40, 50, 60— or is retiring from a job after many years, it's considered good manners in Denmark to write them a song. You don't have to write the melody. You just use one of those Danish songs that everybody knows. And then you write lyrics that gently satirize the person's lifestyle or interests, plus how much you care for them if it's a birthday, or how much you'll miss them if it's a retirement. The good news is you don't have to write these lyrics yourself. Some people do this professionally. You can Google festesang and you'll find dozens of people using Google AdWords to sell their services. It costs about 400 crowns to get a song written for your event, and the songwriters will ask you for a few lighthearted stories about the person being celebrated. Like, he's good at fixing things around the house, or she's very messy and can never find her car keys. It doesn't go much deeper than that. When it's time for the party, there will be a paper copy of the song lyrics for everyone attending, and you'll all stand in a circle and sing it. I usually don't know the song they're singing along to, but I hum along a bit and then I pick it up by the second or third verse, and there's usually about 7 verses. You get tired by the end. One thing I always find funny is the person being celebrated generally sings along to the song about himself. And at the end, everyone raises their glasses for a toast. Skål! Later at the party, there'll often be a dance floor, and if you watch the floor carefully, you can easily tell who at the party is Danish. and who is a foreigner. When the songs by international artists are played, everybody dances. You know, Beyoncé, Pharrell, George Michael. Danish people have a particular love for George Michael. Danish, foreigner, everyone dances to George. But when songs come on from the Danish artists, people like Kim Larsen or Sanne Salmondsson or Anna Linnet, all the foreigners sit down. They don't know the songs, and the Danish people are getting very enthusiastic about hearing the old Danish hits. Particularly if they've been drinking. All those shy, quiet, controlled Danes you see every day— you may have to move out of their way on the dance floor. And if they ask you to sing, just hum along. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. You can buy the How to Live in Denmark book at howtoliveindenmark.com or on Amazon, iBooks, or saxo.com. The Chinese language version is also available on iBooks And from our website. Come leave a comment at howtoliveindenmark.com or leave a comment on our Facebook page, How to Live in Denmark. You can follow us on Twitter @howtoliveindk. The 2 is a number. See you next time. See you next time.
