This is how the song came about: "Shouldn't Have To Be Like That"

– It may not be the best song we've done, but it's definitely the most popular, says Rune Kristoffersen to TONO-Magasinet with a sympathetic and artistically grounded distance to "Shouldn't Have To Be Like That."

Tekst: Kai Lofthus

Contract with Virgin
Before Rune Kristoffersen started working for Grappa and Rune Grammofon he wrote songs and played bass and keyboards in Fra Lippo Lippi. He also worked for a period for Uniton, Tormod Opedal's company that released the band's first two albums; "In Silence" (1981) and "Small Mercies" (1983). Through Uniton the band had achieved distribution through, among others, Rough Trade and other independent companies abroad. "Shouldn't Have To Be Like That" opened the doors to the international and commercial part of the industry; with a contract with Virgin Records in London. The first edition of "Songs" was released on the label Easter Prod. in 1985, and then partially re-recorded and mixed and released by Virgin in 1986.

For Rune, this represented a big step from his early new wave/post-punk recordings, inspired by bands like Joy Division. He is credited as the song's lyricist and wrote the melody together with pianist Øyvind Kvalnes (Manus), based on an instrumental song that the latter came up with. Kvalnes was 20 years old, a few years younger than Rune and Per Øystein Sørensen, and wanted to prove that he could also contribute something on the songwriting side.

Neighbors at Nesodden
The creative work began at home in Nesodden outside Oslo.

– This was a song I wrote with a brand new member of the band (Kvalnes). Up until then, the members of the band had often written separately. This was during a period when we became a more distinct pop band. Øyvind and I lived next door to each other in Nesodden, and he probably came up with half the song for me, to show that he could write. Øyvind also came up with the chorus, which was very catchy and a bit unfamiliar to us. Then we came up with the melody together. There was some uncertainty about whether we had gone too far, but there was never any question of adjusting it to be less commercial.

Rune wrote the lyrics, home demos were made and sent to Sweden. He also says that from the time the song was brought to his attention, it was "relatively quick to finish it."

In the radio program "The New Norwegian Songbook" on NRK (26.4.2014) (http://radio.nrk.no/serie/den-norske-sangboka/DNPR62000714/26-04-2014) It turns out that the song was originally an instrumental, recorded at Rainbow in Oslo. It took a year from the initial strums to the finished recording, according to Kvalnes.

Philippines and Sweden
Many people probably associate the band with cult status in the Philippines and success in larger countries than Norway. The production mostly revolved around Sweden.

– We really looked up to Sweden, says Rune. – We had made the first songs in a basement in Nesodden and thought everything from Sweden sounded much better, including the bands on Stranded Records, like Ratata and Lustans Lakejer.

Producer Kaj Erixon had produced the latter two bands, and Rune contacted him, reached an agreement and suddenly Fra Lippo Lippi found themselves at Polar Studios in Stockholm. In Stockholm at the time, there were four musical enthusiasts who ran the rock club and record label Wire and took an interest in the band. The well-respected journalist and industry veteran Lars Nylin was one of them. Wire had started in 1984 as a rock club in Stockholm and arranged concerts with foreign artists in the Nordic countries. After licensing an album with the Smithereens, they released "Songs" in Sweden, and also branched out into England with a London office staffed by Harry Magee, who later became one of the leading executives in the English music industry and now works in the management of One Direction. Magee helped to create some buzz in England, with a moderate chart position and interest from Virgin Records.

– Fra Lippo Lippi was a very important band for Wire, according to Nylin. -Both "Shouldn't..." and "Songs" as a whole are sublime documents of the time. They have the same timelessness as, for example, Blue Nile, an obvious association. Our work with them also helped us to get Swedish bands like All That Jazz, Thirteen Moons and Leather Nun released in England. Furthermore, the cover of "Songs" (designed by Kent Nyberg) is one of the most beautiful ever made in Scandinavia.

http://wimpmusic.com/track/446075

https://play.spotify.com/track/56GQh9TVSThuxxY9olPTpF

Caption:
LA, USA 1987. The Norwegian pop band Fra Lippo Lippi is about to break through in the USA. Per Øystein Sørensen and Rune Kristoffersen in Studio E at Warner Brothers Recording Studio on Cumpton Street in North Hollywood, Los Angeles together with Walter Becker and Roger Nichols. PHOTO: Rolf M. Aagaard / Aftenposten / NTB scanpix