The Voice of the Individual — the Older Category of Songs

Prison songs are, with regard to form, structure and language usage similar to other popular narrative songs — stanzaic and almost always rhyming verse. Karin Strand points out that despite us knowing that the term “skillingtryck” [broadside] refers to the printed medium used to spread popular songs from various genres since the 1500s, the term has come to be applied to a certain kind of songs with a particular style as regards both text themes and choice of melodies.

Despite its heterogeneous repertoire, and despite the broadside being a printed publication, the term is associated with a particular kind of song. It is generally used regarding songs that tell of “sorrowful” things and dreadful crimes. Some songs typical of the ideal are “Lejonbruden” [The Lion’s Bride], “Älvsborgsvisan” [The Älvsborg Song], “Drinkarflickans död” [The Drunkard’s Girl’s Death] and “Elvira Madigan”: sentimental songs from the latter days of broadside publishing, which have been recorded by artists even in our days. (Strand 2016:4)

Strand introduces the term “the broadside-ish” to identify this modern meaning of the term “broadside ballad”. Songs in the broadside ballad style have greatly influenced the older category of prison songs in both their choice of melodies and their narrative technique. Prison songs are to a great extent broadside-ish, using Strand’s terminology. In prison songs we often find formulaic beginning and ending stanzas of the kind to be found in many similar narrative song genres. Many of the songs start with a short, often humble presentation of the songsmith/singer:

I am a poor prisoner around thirty years old,

Sat behind bars and a sentence so hard.

(“Fången” [The Prisoner], Hall Prison 1972)

I am a youth from the heights of Söder,

Intoxicated by the pleasures of life.

(“Jag är en yngling från Söders höjder” [I am a youth

from the heights of Söder], Hall Prison 1971)

Take these lines that a youth has written.

It might be good if you hear of my path.

(“Centralfångens visa” [The Central Prisoner’s Song]

Similarly, formulaic final stanzas with the gist of “and would you now like to know who this song did write” is used:

Would you like to know who the writer is?

Sure — two lads it is, who has written this,

Who were once put in Forsarne.

(“Ungdomslåt från Fagared” [Youth Tune

from Fagered], Långholmen Prison 1967)

And would you like to know who the song did write?

It is a prisoner, coerced by the law.

(“Härlandavisan” [The Härlanda Song], Hall Prison 1972)

And would you like to know who the song written has,

It is but a traveller, in Härnösand was he.

(“År 1917, en ljus och vacker kväll” [In the Year 1917,

One Bright and Bonny Evening], Långholmen Prison 1967)

He who these simple lines have printed

Was a prisoner, his name was Stig.

(“Härlandasången” [The Härlanda Song], Långholmen Prison 1967)

Many of the older categories of songs are long and narratorial and tell of loneliness and suffering in the cell. The tone is often sentimental and bitter, but it is worth noting that the bitterness is often directed at the prisoner’s shortcomings, dreary fate, or the dark forces that have led the prisoner into a life of crime. Many songs express regret or a guilty conscience — not least towards near and dear ones. If any criticism of society is found in these songs, it points out that the sentence was hard — “I never thought the law could judge me so harshly”.