A photo made me deeply fascinated by the life of Helen Richey
…and that became a song and a video.
It all started when I made my second animated music video for “If you were coming in the fall” from the Butterfly Girl EP. I coloured lots of old black and white photos for the video, and started to look into the history behind the people on the photos. One of them was the female aviation pioneer Helen Richey (1909-1947).
Her fascinating story and badass personality, – and tragic death – made me write a song about her as a tribute. The music video I made for the song is kind of a mini-documentary about her life-story.
Jeremy Jensen from the American indiepop band The Very Most sings on this track and Michaël Korchia from the French indiepop band Watoo Watoo plays bass.
The second track “The only thing I miss” is kind of a sad/angry breakup song. Several of my lyrics are partly personal, but very few of my sad lovesongs are. I don’t think I have ever experienced a bad breakup. Some of these songs are based on observations, some are based on books and poetry, some are based on pure fantasy.
The song started with the bass guitar, and I layered several bass guitar sections on top of each other + several drum tracks on top of each other. Sounds chaotic in theory, but I think it works.
“Blomsterälskare”, the third song, was made when I stumbled across an old language course record from the 50s/60s in Swedish. I love those records! The voice recordings are from that record. The title can be translated to “flower lovers”, and the voice talks about that “All Swedes are flower lovers” and he tells about what they have in their garden. I hope the Swedes will not hate me for the ending…
I would really appreciate it if you added my songs (any of them) to your playlists on Spotify. It will help me a lot. Thank you in advance!
You can find the spotify link below the album cover on this page.
Available lyrics
She dreamt of birds,
wishing she could fly among them,
tethered and earthbound,
yearning for her tri motor aeroplane.
She loved it so much,
she knew
that that was what she was meant to do.
Fly, Helen, fly,
Lift your wings up to the sky,
Fly, Helen, fly,
Let the air around your wings
set you free.
They loved her,
cause she was a woman,
and then for that same reason,
they stopped her,
they crushed her.
Her flight has ended,
but we see her still, – a lonely bird,
white feathered lark,
she showed the way, we followed her.
Hope you can fly where you are now,
Helen Richey,
Hope you can fly where you are now,
Helen Richey
Did you ever see me,
did you ever notice I was around?
Did you ever love me,
did you ever miss me when I was gone?
The only thing I miss
about you
is her
The only thing I miss
about you
is her
Did I ever love you,
did I feel good when you were around?
Did I ever see you,
did I ever miss you when you were gone?
The only thing I miss
about you
is her
The only thing I miss
about you
is her