Stuff Swedish People Like: Bruce Springsteen

Swedish people do not believe in god, but they do bellive in Bruce. And every summer (at least) he returns to play in front of his believers, who will gladly pay a large chunk of their paycheck to be saved by The Boss. He usually plays in venues that harbour around 40 000 people or more, and if we had a 100 000 people venue in Sweden, he could probably fill such a stadium 5 nights or more every summer.

Bruce is a great performer who will do long shows. He has a huge catalogue of songs from a career that started in the early 70's, full of tunes about cars, closed down factories, teen queens from yore and unjustified wars. In short, he is a good guy with a huge heart, who will stand up for the underdog. How can you not like that? Especially Sweden, with it's long tradition of Social Democratic rule, who's politics used to be somewhat in Bruce's direction.



There are also several Bruce-clones in Sweden, the most notorious is Ulf Lundell, who is also an author, a fine artist and play writer. Lundell used to sound a bit like Dylan initially, but when Bruce broke through, there was no turning back. And if Bruce is God to many Swedes, than Lundell is Jesus, and Dylan is his uncle. Lundell usually writes adoringly about Springsteen in his books, read by many Swedes who will worship anything Lundell does. There is another Swedish older guy guitar wielder named Thomas Ledin, who's tour manager has told Springsteen that Ledin is the Swedish Springsteen. Which has led to that they hang out when Bruce is in Sweden, and Bruce usually stays in Ledin's apartment and so forth. Ledin however, is more of a Michael Bolton type, but the Boss cannot know that.



Anyhow, why do Swedes love Bruce like no other artist? There are several possible answers, the first being that Swedes are very USA-friendly, with something like 3 million emmigrating to the US in the 19th century, and there are few artists who are so all-American in a positive way as Springsteen. Another is that Bruce is a very safe and in the middle of the road-kind of artist, a little bit like a Volvo, a favourite Swedish car. Bruce is Also very "lagom". Lagom is a Swedish word, that is difficult to translate, but means something like: Not too much, nor too little, just good, right in the middle.