"My First Love" is indisputably one of the ultimate, romantic pop ballads in Norwegian music history.
/ 19/08/2014 / Janne Sievers"My First Love" is indisputably one of the ultimate, romantic pop ballads in Norwegian music history.
Tekst: Kai Lofthus
Those who had the idea for the song – and who for 35 years so far, with full copyright control (without a music publisher involved), have collected TONO royalties for it – were Jahn Teigen, producer Tore Syvertsen and lyricist Kim Bård Hansen, also known as Herodes Falsk. We spoke to Kim about the challenges he experienced in Hamburg writing the lyrics.
No Kim, no cuddles
In another, imaginary timeline that we don't want to live in, Kim Hansen didn't come up with any words to the melody that could have become "My First Love". Maybe it got a different title and lyrics. Maybe the melody was chosen not to be included in the album. Or that the time was spent on something other than working towards the creative breakthrough. And that hundreds of thousands of Norwegians would have had to find other songs to confirm their love with. Fortunately, Kim's creativity wanted it differently, so the song still found a place in Teigen's catalog, Norway's music history books and the love lives of the Norwegian people.
Reverse order
Writing songs is difficult enough without commercial expectations. In 1978, during the preparations for Teigen's solo album "En dags pause" (Vera Production/RCA Victor) which came out the following year, Norwegians were humming Norwegian top favorites like "Jeg gi'kke opp" and "Claudius" and Prima Vera's "Gight feber" and "Det er Norge som er bra". Teigen and Prima Vera were briefly in the spotlight of Norwegian music. To create the songs for "En dags pause" he traveled to Hamburg with Kim, Tore and the musicians Svein Dag Hauge (guitar), Bruce Rasmussen (drums), Svein Gundersen (bass) and Geir Langslet (keyboards). The work took place in Rüssl Studio in Eidelstedt, north of Hamburg, a studio where artists such as Kraftwerk, Roger Whittaker and Baccara had also spent a lot of time.
We enter the story at a time when the musicians had done their part and returned to Norway. There were ultimately 13 songs for the album and almost all were ready when the lyrics for "Min første kjærlighed" remained to be written. Kim tells TONO-Magasinet that he used to write his lyrics before the music was ready, but that it was the other way around in this case: - We had an idea to make a record in Norwegian and Jahn would sing as we spoke. I like to write the lyrics first, just like Bernie Taupin. It requires you to write rhythmically and I certainly do that. Jahn and Tore had written the music in what was the Bee Gees' era. I think it was very difficult to write the lyrics for that melody. I wrote maybe 10-15 suggestions and none of them were really good. It's a nice melody and I knew it was a potential hit. We were staying at the house of a German comedian [Otto Waalkes, who owned Rüssl Studio] and I went to his house, sat in his room and had to write a lyric. On a table were many old weekly magazines, including an old Stern. In one report there was a picture of the old food halls in Paris, with a black-and-white photo of an old lady in a stall with a shawl on her head. On another page there was an article with the headline Meine Erste Liebe. The articles had nothing to do with each other, but they made me think that everyone has been in love once. Then it only took me maybe 10 minutes to write the text!
Spontaneous
According to keyboardist Geir Langslet, there was no preparation or rehearsal before the departure to Hamburg; everything happened there and then. He remembers the period with pride and joy: – We were so young and it was great to get into that studio! There was really good chemistry between everyone. It's crazy to have been part of such a hit, extremely strong. The song hits everyone. It's a good production, well played, nicely done and with nice sounds.
As everyone in the music industry knows, the creative process is only the first thing you have to master. Even though Kim, Jahn and Tore listened to the recordings on the cassette player in the car on the way home to Oslo and felt that "Min første kjærlighed" could be a hit, it was "Sala Palmer" that became the big radio hit during the launch period. "Sala Palmer" went straight to number 1 on the Norwegian charts on June 22, 1979, while "Min første kjærlighed" was never on the Norwegian charts or VG-lista. The album was at least Teigen's first No. 1 on the VG-lista, and in retrospect, the people have made "Min første kjærlighed" the evergreen classic that generates radio revenue year after year.
http://open.spotify.com/track/4LMDDrhnM4vm5Ql4K3vw9t
http://www.beat.no/#releases/153489
Kim Bård Hansen – who reportedly has over 450 works managed by TONO – also turned 60 this summer! Congratulations!