I’ve been hopefully anticipating a new video from Aarhus’ finest, Slagger Lund, to confirm that the change in the year hasn’t done anything to moderate the absurdly wacky world he lives in. It really can be Theatre of the Absurd at times, in the nicest possible way, of course.
This track, ‘Lam fra sproget og nedefter’ (‘Paralysed from the tongue down’) is his third and last single from the album ‘Nygade & Væk’ (Mr Google denies an English translation), which was released late last year.
The song title is suggestive to me of paralysis brought about not by disease or accident but more likely by quaffing too much Carlsberg and wandering in front of Saga Norén’s Porsche somewhere between bar and home, as she speeds to the scene of another grisly serial murder.
Slagger himself calls it “some sort of a protest song in an obscene world,” in which case I interpret the lameness to be representative perhaps of suppression and silencing. There’s plenty of that going on in good ol’ England right now and Slagger should book himself a vacation here so he can experience it firsthand.
He would quickly glean enough material for a trilogy of double sided albums. Something is rotten in the State of England, to paraphrase The Bard.
But I reckon he’s crazy enough to handle it anyway. This song includes such choice lyrics as
“I know a dog whisperer, baby / He told me / That your dogs hate you”
and
“Charles Manson just walked into Disney World / He brought an organ with him”
Actually, when you think about it the words aren’t so weird; in fact they are pretty smart with cute double meanings. The advice could have come from the ‘whisperer’ or from a dog that has learned to talk, while Manson could quite easily spend an afternoon on Disney rides (more correctly at Disneyland in Anaheim) before joining his cult family to slay Sharon Tate and her entourage in Benedict Canyon, and on his return visit take one of their organs with him (as opposed to a Hammond Organ).
It is something that Monty Python might have worked into a comedy sketch or film in their weirder moments, or perhaps the bizarre characters of the 1990s British black TV comedy show The League of Gentlemen, set in the village of Royston Vasey, from which ‘You’ll Never Leave.”
It’s all rather abstract but then that’s what Slagger is all about and as a bonus he’s come up with a neat little melody on this ditty.
As for the video, well it sort of reminds me of Sweden’s Marble Raft, and the two singles they have released from their forthcoming album ‘Dear Infrastructure’ in which they journey into the dark recesses of a new to them and cold and unwelcoming city where animals have taken over and where cars wander aimlessly like the humans used to.
But while their songs are a little dark and threatening all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds where Slagger is concerned and that’s the way it should be. The video stands in contrast to the lyrics but that’s what he does; it’s his trademark.
He’s a fascinating character. I hope I get the chance to share a pint with him one day and to try to find out what makes him tick. In the meantime, now he’s got the album out of the way a song or two in English might be worth trying. He’s got the vocabulary and the syntax; no problem.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slaggerlund
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slagger_lund/
