self-titled

Swedish punk!

La La La
Huda Ghaliya is a girl from the Gaza strip. On June 9, 2006, when she
was 11 years old, seven members of her family were killed on the beach
Gaza, by an artillery shell from an Israeli warship. The aftermath was
captured on video. You could see Huda reacting to her family being
exterminated in front of her eyes. What I saw in that short video
sequence is impossible to comprehend or forget.

Lyrics: The greatest sorrow I've ever felt came from sand and
sediments. They ripped the trees from the ground, shouting for blood.
You were forced to flee your home, never to return. La la la. From
the patches they left behind - the only land you still have - they
stole the solid foundation of life. There is no more water in your
well. How can anyone survive here? How do you find hope in such
despair? La la la. They have roads and lush, green fields. Separated
from starvation by the wall. Those who never had to struggle shuts
their eyes to keep afloat. They would fall if they could see how they
bury you in sand, how they extinguish life on the beach of Gaza -
where one girl is left alone. Her sorrow will never fit. Her sorrow is
a black hole in our galaxy.

Listening to Victor Jara
Discovering political activism (and punk rock) at an early age is an
amazing thing. I still prefer naiveté to bitterness, and the first few
years of my own life as a socialist punk were filled with the former,
and had nothing of the latter. What a wonderful world it was.

Lyrics: In junior high we called ourselves communists. Contrary to the
teachers we knew the difference between Lenin and Stalin. We used to
joke about Trotsky and the ice pick. We listened to Cornelis and
Victor Jara and in all the demonstrations we had more fun than the
grown ups. On the first of may we woke up with the feeling that we
were gonna show the fuckers who we are. And when Ian came to town all
the students skipped their classes. On the town square we were taught
exactly what cops do with kids like us. In sewing class I tried to
make a flag of red wool and the teacher tried to have me expelled for
having subversive ideas. We played punk like punk should be played but
now I think I have forgotten how.

På gott och ont (For better or worse)
There is a special kind of darkness and hopelessness reserved for
people who suffer from anxiety disorders and severe depressions. In
return these people might gain insight to a deeper level of happiness,
one that's unreachable for "normal" people. Sometimes this seems like
a good trade off. "Ålidhem", referred to in the lyrics, a neighborhood
in Umeå, built entirely of red bricks and mortar. It is where I lived
during my university years.

Lyrics: Sometimes I see all the beautiful things around me. I see the
forest and the heat above the road. I hear how the sound changes with
the temperature. I love the passing of the seasons and how there's
something wonderful happening every second. There is a meaning with
everything that you do even if you are not doing anything. When the
sun rises above Ålidhem and the bricks are glowing red, then there is
no other time or place that I would rather be. But in my darker
moments (we all have darker moments) the world is standing with its
boot on my throat, telling me about everything I had forgotten,
everything I had pushed away and all those things I had yet to learn,
about malice and false desires, about lovelessness and fancy
restaurants. The sky is disappearing from my vision. The world is
drowning me and I can't breathe, but I can't die like this - no one
ever have. I continue living, for better or worse, with valleys deeper
than bottomless holes. But I will never give away my peaks, they rise
higher than the deepest abyss.

Köplust och trängsel (something like "material desire and crowding")
This is the first song I wrote for this band. I was staying with some
friends in Phoenix and was thinking of a person I had met back home
before I left. I was feeling down and at that moment she represented
everything I wanted to be but was not - courageous, dedicated,
self-sufficient. I felt that we shared the same ideas about the
cruelty of this world, but that she did something about it and I did
not. It was a feeling of worthlessness and awe, not a good
combination. At least it resulted in this song.

Lyrics: A place where hateful hearts are growing. Swollen bellies
deliberately starved. We close our borders and send away children who
no one will miss. The red sky is raining blood, but where you stand a
tree is growing. All the corpses make the ground fertile. Give me your
hope, give me your courage. I feel small seeds of hope growing in my
heart, but my sympathetic nervous system cuts them down.
Redistributions in my blood flow, the world is squeezing the oxygen
from my body. Sometimes I want to lose my senses, lose myself in
material desire and crowding. But that wouldn't help anyone but me.

Sov gott (sleep tight)
Sleeping is great, sleeping next to someone you love is greater.

Lyrics: Can't really translate this one, haha, sorry..

No Ambition
I am constantly torn between my ambitions and my longing for a life
without stress and anxiety. Seems like you can't have both, and I
wish this urge to prove oneself was forever banished from the human
psyche.

Lyrics: Things were making a lot less sense. I declared war on
indifference. Had a feeling of impending doom, sprawled out on the bed
in my basement room. I never know exactly how to handle living slow
and sweetly amble, being attentive, safe and careful, with experiences
by the handful. I wanna travel around the world, write a book with my
own words, about the green and growing wildness of this earth. But
that would be living only for me and that's a life that cannot be,
however much I'd like to prove my own worth. When it comes to career
decisions I take pride in my lack of ambition. There is no goal
attached to my mission, I am happy if someone listens.

Sean Bonnette och jag (Sean Bonnette and me)
Jello Biafra once said "It's always better to do something than to do
nothing". I wish all the holier-than-thou activists would listen to
his words. Attacking well-meaning people for not doing enough is a
good way to make sure they won't feel encouraged to do anything at
all. Noam Chomsky called this attitude "The plague of the left", I
wholeheartedly agree.

Lyrics: Soon I won't care anymore, this is going nowhere. You have no
clue or balance. I feel like going somewhere else, dance someone
else's dance, maybe get another chance. All the good deeds I put to my
name won't get me anywhere, you won't even shake my hand. I feel like
going to another country, maybe play some shows with my band, light
some fires in people's hearts. // I have nothing good to say about the
narrow path, it's a tricky track that won't lead you anywhere. Nothing
good to say about the narrow path. I try to always, always, always be
tolerant.// Sure, everyone should try to do their best, and Sean
Bonnette and me, we try hard every day. But how much shit are we
supposed to eat? Never feeling good about oneself is the best way to
stay unhappy. Humility, kindness and open, earnest ways - it's not
that hard to be welcoming. We have to save our social right of common
access, it's a part of common sense not to condescend.

Alla ni som väntar (Everyone who's waiting)
This song is based on a quote from Lester Freamon, a character in the
TV-series "The Wire" (the best TV ever made!). He says "A life, do you
know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for
moments that never come". This one is almost impossible to translate..

Lyrics: Back to square one at springtime, what a worthless season. I
want to go all in for a restless love. The air is filled with
nervousness, I can feel it breathing. A temporary case of mental
confusion can always take the blame. My brain sometimes goes to live
in the streets. Me, I sit in the window, staring out - I know what I
want. My goals are gone with the wind, just as good. I have lost all
the blueprints that used to show me how everything worked. // Everyone
who's waiting for the end of their waiting - you're waiting in vain //
If I can be reincarnated, I want to be someone's blood. If you bury me
in the ground, I'll turn to dust. My paradise has beaches of concrete.
I can find my way home. I won't have to live for the moment, I'll
worry about it later.

Gaza
The latest Israeli war on Gaza was so shockingly brutal, so
devastatingly cruel, it can never be forgiven or forgotten. And still,
the siege continues. Gaza is now officially considered the worlds
largest concentration camp. No justice - no peace.

Lyrics: //I'm not sad, I'm frustrated. So fucking angry I can't
function. Nothing is right and no one reacts. But we're still here,
even if you don't see us.// I'm not tired, I'm exhausted, this time
I've finally lost it. If you come back home tonight maybe we can go
somewhere where we are allowed to be humans again. //I'm not sad...//
I don't want peace, I want my life back. It's our home and our land
and all the friends that I miss. There's nothing hard or complicated
about it - the bastards took everything that was ours.

När kapitalet tar till vapen (When capital take up arms)
The title is stolen from a book by the great Swedish author and
activist Andreas Malm.

Lyrics: Stones are good to have when capital take up arms. Fast feet,
light shoes - keep alert! Friends and comrades are the most important
thing you've got. Start fires but keep your head cool. // Everything
we've won, we've won through struggle. Keep fighting! No compromise!
Some people give a little, some give more, some people give their
lives. No compromise! // Retreat when the police advances and attack
again when they retreat, that's the basics of guerrilla warfare.
Jungle like jungle - this is where we live.

Fredrick Federley
Fredrick Federley is a young and "up and coming" politician in Sweden.
Officially he's with the centrist party, but his values belong in the
extreme right. He is a strong opponent of providing health care to
refugees, he is violently opposed to trade unions and he is probably
the strongest supporter of Israel in Swedish mainstream politics.
During the atrocities committed by the Israeli army against Lebanon in
2006, Federley held benefits and raised money - not for the victims,
the men, women and children killed and maimed by bombs and bullets -
but for the aggressor, the Israeli army. He is also a strong advocate
of the newly implemented deportation techniques used by the Swedish
government. Desperate Iraqi refugees of all ages are drugged,
blindfolded and put on chartered planes back to Baghdad. A good thing,
according to Fredrick Federley.

Lyrics: Your hate almost make you burst. I can't believe that you
actually believe in your own opinions. Is it mental illness or
heartlessness? A blinding, freezing light in a dark tunnel of
compassion - is that how you want to see yourself? // You run around
Stureplan, collecting money to kill children. You don't want refugees
in your town, they are drugged and put on chartered planes. In your
holy war against the powerless and weak, do you ever think about their
graves? About how their flesh is turning into soil? // What do you
dream of late at night? Long needles and black water? About people who
no longer exists? Fredrick, Fredrick Federley - what the hell is wrong
with you? How can you live with yourself? I curse the day you were
born, I hope you cease to exist.