{"id":20844,"date":"2025-06-20T19:45:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T23:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20844"},"modified":"2025-06-20T19:45:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T23:45:47","slug":"hils-fra-meg-derhjemme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20844","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Hils Fra Meg Derhjemme&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hils Fra Meg Der Hjemme - Lynn Peterson - 5\/17\/2014\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sAN8rAXKUfA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>As you\u2019ve probably noticed,<\/strong> on those increasingly frequent evenings when my skull contains only a couple thoughts rattling around, none of them usable here, I resort to posting music. Often it\u2019s Scandinavian music. I\u2019d like to pretend I do this because I grew up with it, but in fact I heard very few of these songs in my childhood, except the hymns. I learned them as an adult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cHils Fra Meg Derhjemme\u201d<\/em> is regarded as the Scandinavian-American anthem. I had the idea it was originally a Swedish song, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.norwegianamerican.com\/hils-til-dem-derhjemme\/\">this article<\/a> says it was first performed in Denmark. Nonetheless, all the Scandinavian immigrants adopted it. It\u2019s a song of homesickness, and quite heartbreakingly beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are a number of versions available on YouTube, but only a couple live performances. And most of those are either instrumentals or an odd, C&amp;W adaptation. So I\u2019ll have to settle for a performance performed in 2014 by Lynn Peterson and Garrison Keillor, on <em>Prairie Home Companion<\/em>. I\u2019m no longer a fan of Keillor\u2019s, and am loath to feature him here, but needs must.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As you can read in the article linked above, the song tells of a sailor at sea, standing watch at night. He sees birds flying north, and fancies they\u2019re headed for his homeland. He asks them to take his greetings back to his family, to the green mountainsides and bright fjords (Swedish and Danish versions vary those details a little).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t believe this song is well known in Norway. The last time I was there, I had an evening with the cousins at Avaldsnes, and Cousin Edna brought out her guitar. She asked people to share their favorite songs, and I suggested \u201c<em>Hils Fra Meg Derhjemme<\/em>.\u201d Nobody had ever heard of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you\u2019ve probably noticed, on those increasingly frequent evenings when my skull contains only a couple thoughts rattling around, none of them usable here, I resort to posting music. Often it\u2019s Scandinavian music. I\u2019d like to pretend I do this because I grew up with it, but in fact I heard very few of these &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20844\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Hils Fra Meg Derhjemme&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[5602,5601,5600],"class_list":["post-20844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-garrison-keillor","tag-hils-fra-meg-derhjemme","tag-scandinavian-music"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20845,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20844\/revisions\/20845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}