Translating songs to English will always be a difficult and tedious process, yet for Annika Norlin of Säkert! it was a task that she enthusiastically signed up for. While few foreign language crossover artists can imitate the success of let’s say Shakira, for Annika she kept thinking about how sad that her English speaking audience couldn’t have the pleasure of understanding her songs in Swedish. When it hit her that she should just translate the songs, the result was that her songs mostly from her previous album “Facit” (translates to looking back/result) did get translated and ended up being part of her first English album as Säkert! suitably named “På engelska” (In English).

While the Swedish language may be soft and fluid at times it is still undeniably harsh, for Annika switching to English has given her songs a bit more light and in essence sweetened her vocals.  For the most part Annika does a commendable job translating from Swedish without losing too much lyrically or rhythmically. Whether it’s the unique storytelling in simplistic “Can I” (originally “Får jag”) a song about about watching a Sweden vs. Finland hockey game at a bar called Dovas or the rather complex rhythms of global warming-themed twee song “Isarna” (Ice) the feel and rhythms aren’t lost on its English equivalent “The Lakes We Skate On”. Translation aside På engelskais filled top to bottom with great song after another. Take “Honey” with its glistening guitar licks for example; “Dancing Though” with its fast-paced flamenco/ska beat and “The Flu” despite some awkward/clumsy anatomical terms is perfectly melancholic with its Celtic-flavored guitars and strings. All points considered, despite being a translated album, the songs perfectly stand on their own. Even without Markus Krunegård on the English version of “Det kommer bara leda till nåt ont” translated as “It’s going lead up to something bad” the song measures up perfectly to its Swedish equivalent.

There is a word in the Swedish language about the Swedish ethos that every Swede will tell you can not be directly translated. Norlin wrote this album with this ethos in mind with the songs being about working too hard, loving too much, talking too little, growing up too slow in the northern parts of Sweden, and about fearing your country’s politics is going somewhere where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Some people call it Scandinavian minimalism, some people call it the classic Swedish melancholia, but Swedes know it as lagom. It’s this lagom or Swedish ethos unfortunately that is so hard to translate. It’s the idea that the middle road is always best that applies even in music by being neither too much nor too little and being neither too happy nor too sad. While Norlin has done a phenomenal job translating all the texture and feel into “På engelska”, it’s still a matter of “lost in translation” as the prose and structure simply can’t rival that of Säkert!’s original Swedish language songs. So if you speak and understand Swedish by all means grab a copy of “Facit” and also her eponymous self-titled LP “Säkert!” but if you still haven’t gotten a firm grasp of the Swedish language, På engelska definitely won’t disappoint.

På engelska is available at Razzia Records.

Listen to Säkert!’s “Weak is the Flesh” from På engelska

Weak is the flesh by Säkert!