Sing, sing, no matter the weather

There is a cassette tape from 1985 where my dad sits in a room full of Persian and Chilean refugees. I don't know why there would be a lot of people from Iran and Chile in a room, but I can imagine that there are several common denominators to escape from and also a lot of common ground to agree on; leaving one campfire to gather around another.

My dad told me that there were two Chileans who played guitar and people sat on chairs around them. The cassette tape crackles and my dad starts to sing an ancient Persian song whose first line directly translated into English is "I've never seen a flower with thorns". I do not know what that means, but every time I hear the cassette tape, I get a lump in my throat and my eyes water up.

If you fast-forward twenty-three years I'm standing in a living room with large windows, on the top floor of an apartment block in central Gothenburg. The rain hoses the windows clean and I look out over the rooftops. I sing "Ut mot ett hav" from the musical Kristina från Duvemåla and I have no idea what I'm doing.

It all started when I sent text messages to everyone I knew that could sing. That's a lot of people because I have been in and hung out with musicians the past five years.  It is worth mentioning that I sang in a band during those five years. Two to be exact. I've recorded four albums. Having said that, I can’t sing. Or rather: I sing, but do not really know how it’s done. It's more a sense of security that has emerged. I have, however, no idea what I do when I sing.

Therefore I texted every singer I knew. That’s how I got Henry's phone number. That’s why I’m standing at the top of a concrete ship, singing a Peter Jöback song while the wind takes hold of my hair. It’s not going great. Henry has a lot of patience and warmth. He pressed my shoulders, pointing at my chin, asking me to use my diaphram.

(Here I open a parenthesis to tell you briefly about the diaphram. For those of you who have not been in contact with it or thought about it, it sits just below the navel. It is a muscle that is like a palm of the hand between the navel and where your underwear starts. When you sing, you should think of the muscle. It’s where the power comes from.)

The hour ends too soon. Henry excuses himself and I press the elevator button to move down in the ship. The melody is stuck in my head. When I leave it’s still raining.