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PROLOGUE
On Easter Saturday 1989 I recorded almost the whole of the Top 20. I had been given a cassette player for Christmas, and even though I had been interested in music before, my interest increased when I was suddenly able to record the chart for myself. That winter I spent Saturday afternoons in front of the cassette player: I recorded, recorded over a track, recorded again. It felt sophisticated, because I thought that what I was doing wasn’t something my contemporaries did until they went to high school. Knowing which songs were in the chart made me feel grown-up.
There was plenty of drama in the spring of 1989. Debbie Gibson’s “Lost in Your Eyes” had been at number one for three Saturdays in a row, but was knocked off the top spot by Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up,” which went straight in at number one. Or “Straight up to the top,” as the radio personality Kaj Kindvall said. Genius.
On this particular Saturday I had to leave with just under half the chart still to go, because it was time for our Easter lunch. I rewound the tape back to the beginning of side B when Mom called me down, then I pressed Record and left the machine to its own devices.
I liked Easter, because it was peaceful and undemanding. Unlike Christmas and Midsummer, we celebrated at home without any visiting relatives, and without doing anything special. Four long days when everyone was free; Mom and Dad would be busy in the garden while I lay in my room reading, listening to music, and eating my Easter candy. I might go out on my bike at twilight, or watch a movie with Erik if he was home in the evening. We ate at the big dining table in the room we jokingly called the best room, which was really only used on special occasions or when we had guests. An inherited crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting sparkling rainbow-colored reflections around the room when the sun’s rays caught it, but on this Saturday there was no sun. It was mild and overcast, but Mom had set the table beautifully, with lit yellow candles and napkins decorated with Easter chicks next to our plates. I don’t remember much about the meal, although I expect I thought the food was delicious. It was the same kind of perfectly ordinary celebratory food that was eaten at the same time in many Swedish homes: herring, meatballs, chipolatas, Jansson’s temptation, hard-boiled eggs cut in half and topped with a blob of mayonnaise, a prawn and a sprig of dill. I liked everything except the herring, and probably had several helpings.
After lunch Erik and I each received an Easter egg, filled with small candies and a rolled-up hundred-kronor note. It was a surprisingly large sum of money, and I immediately started fantasizing about what I could spend it on. Then I fetched a pile of Donald Duck comic books and lay down on the living-room sofa. After a little while Erik came in, grabbed one of the books, and settled down at the other end of the sofa. And so we lay there with our feet side by side, enjoying our candy. I liked those times when there was still a sense of balance and equality between us now and again, when he stopped trying to emphasize the age difference and lowered himself to my level. Like during the Christmas holiday when we did a jigsaw together, one with lots of pieces depicting the map of Sweden. And it was Erik who had taught me to use my new cassette player. One day when I was sitting drawing and listening to a tape, I suddenly felt terrified when I heard a whispering voice between two tracks. “Hanna . . . Hanna . . .” it said slowly and eerily, then Erik called out in his normal voice: “Happy name day, you old mudskipper!” That was what he used to call me when we were younger, and I thought the whole thing was so funny that I played it to my friends. I was so proud of having a big brother who not only remembered my name day but also came up with a surprise for me. Easter felt kind of heavy, somehow; we were full of food and lacking energy. It was an early Easter, the end of March, but the whole of the spring so far had been unusually warm. It was damp and mild and breezy, and as we lay there reading, the room went dark, the sky was suddenly filled with thick gray clouds.
“I hope it isn’t going to snow!” I heard Mom say. She was worried about the crocuses that were in flower all over the garden. She and Dad were still sitting at the dining table, chatting and tucking into the small cheeseboard that always appeared at special dinners. Neither Erik nor I were interested in cheese.
“This one’s cool,” Erik said, holding up the comic book. I knew exactly what he meant. It was a long adventure where Mickey Mouse and Goofy were in London, and the reader could decide how the story developed by choosing between two options, then turning to a particular page. “Is it new?”
“Kind of. It’s not one of your old ones anyway.”
“I know that.”
He was going out with his friends later, and disappeared up to his room for a while before shouting “See you later!” from the hallway. When I’d finished my book I went upstairs and rewound the tape to find out what had happened on the chart. It turned out that Paula Abdul had hung on to the top spot, but a new track had come straight in at number two—“This week’s shooting star!” as the jingle informed me. It was Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.”
I’d seen the video the week before and it had made a strong impression on me, even though I didn’t really understand what it was about. However, it was incredibly dramatic, with a burning cross and a black saint, beautiful scenes from inside a church with atmospheric lighting and a huge choir. There was something dark and ceremonial about it that appealed to me. I thought it was on a completely different level from other music videos.
I turned the tape over and went back to the beginning of side A, which meant I didn’t have to listen to Kaj Kindvall babbling away. The first few tracks followed on straight after one another without a break, then I had decided that a brief silence between tracks might be good, like on a bought tape. However, when I pushed down the record button for a few seconds between recordings I didn’t get the silence I was after, but a loud rushing sound that was most unpleasant.
I wondered if there was a proper way of recording music from the radio, what older and more experienced listeners did when they were taping the chart. I thought I would ask Erik when he got home.