{"id":119080,"date":"2023-08-02T13:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T18:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/?p=119080"},"modified":"2023-08-02T15:51:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T20:51:27","slug":"reflections-of-the-bards-sublime-lumsks-fremmede-toner-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/reflections-of-the-bards-sublime-lumsks-fremmede-toner-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections of the Bards Sublime: Lumsk<\/b>‘s Fremmede Toner<\/i> (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For each of these 6 poems, I’ll provide brief context on the author, as well as the narrative\/themes of the text. I’ll then analyze the connections between the songs and their associated poems, and between the mirrored song counterparts. (Reflecting the track list, the Norwegian translations will precede the originals throughout.) Many thanks to our very own Potates in TovH Discord for their help in checking my understanding of the original German lyrics, and providing translations of their own: Hans<\/strong>, EvilHenchman<\/strong>, DarthWTF<\/strong>, and Zocktol<\/strong>. Danke!<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s a link to Part I<\/a>!<\/h3>\n

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
\n<\/strong>“Avskjed<\/span>” \/\/ “Abschied<\/span>” (1884)
\n(“Farewell”)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a highly influential German philosopher, cultural critic, prose poet, and edgelord magnet. His quote “God is dead” informs many of his philosophical ideas; in his lifetime, secularism was rising in Europe, and many feared that without religion, a lack of meaning would infect society\u2014leading to a damaging nihilism. It’s a common misunderstanding that Nietzsche was somehow a proponent of this nihilism; in fact, he was dead set against what he saw as a wasteful ideology.<\/p>\n

His concept of the \u00dcbermensch\u00a0<\/i>arose in direct opposition to nihilism; it was the concept of a new type of human that would forsake otherworldly religion in favor of a love of the planet and of the life that resides there, unfettered by concepts of “good” and “evil” and other forms of Christian morality. Naturally, the Nazis swooped in to appropriate this idea, creating an Untermensch character that has no connection to Nietzsche; he was critical of both antisemitism and German nationalism. (Time for an eternal return to the library, you utter dolts<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Another subject of Nietzsche’s writings was classical Greek theatre\u2014especially tragedies. He believed their unflinching focus on suffering was itself an affirmation of life, rather than a pessimistic or nihilistic aversion to the full range of the human condition. This focus on the tragic can be seen in his poem “Abschied,” which follows a hapless wanderer who has given up the comforts of home to suffer “tausend W\u00fcsten stumm und kalt” (“a thousand deserts silent and cold”). Murders of crows appear in the opening and closing stanzas as deathly omens, and the protagonist appears “zur Winter-Wanderschaft verflucht” (“cursed to winter wanderings”) for their foolish act of leaving behind the warmth of familiarity.<\/p>\n

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I S\u00fctterlin-ly can’t read this. The TovH potates tell me the top right stanzas show Nietzsche’s notes for “Abschied.”<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Unlike the other song pairs on Fremmede Toner<\/em>, “Avskjed” seems only loosely connected to its original language counterpart. (I’m not sure whether this was intentional on Andr\u00e9 Bjerke’s part or the translations I’ve seen are on the fritz, but we’ll make do.) There’s certainly a tragic theme in this song: the narrator bemoans the cruelty of winter and the “trol\u00f8se sol” (“faithless sun”)\u00a0 as a young violet emerges from the soil, only to be frozen by a cold snap. The repetition of “forbi!” (“past!”) in each stanza accentuates the loss of life; the gravity of the knowledge that our time is uncertain and in some cases, far too short.<\/p>\n

Espen Hammer’s bass work lends a thumping, syncopated rhythm to the song, an immediacy largely absent from the album until this moment. At 2.5 minutes, it’s one of the shortest tracks on the record, but what it lacks in length it makes up for in attitude. As Klingen accuses the sun of treachery, a driving snare sets in, transforming the song into something akin to pop-punk in its propulsive energy. When she sneers “Mitt hjerte er blitt som best\u00f8vet av sne” (“my heart became as dusted with snow”), we can hear the bitterness in her tone\u2014a condemnation of the endless march of seasons.<\/p>\n