Swedish sailor songs, popular culture and maritime national identities, 1918–1960

Abstract

In twentieth-century Sweden, conventional inland nationalism was challenged by strong currents of maritime national identities. The reason was a national frenzy regarding maritime popular music – primarily, songs about Swedish sailors and their adventures in exotic faraway lands. Throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and continuing into the 1950s, numerous Swedish composers, singers and musicians produced hundreds of sailor songs. Their commercial success was staggering, to the delight of Sweden's developing music industry, but the identitarian consequences were even more astonishing. Maritime national identities flourished as Swedishness itself changed drastically via this huge exposure to sailor songs.