As Dragspel says, "Skål!...That's all you need to know, 
especially when you're with friends and the 
happy spirit moves you...

-----Original Message-----
From: Nlofstrom@aol.com 
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 
Subject: Re: Helan går

Dear Swede-Ler's:

I have been asked to do a little research on the origins of the toasting song, " Helan gar" and I am coming up short. I haven't been able to find out anything about it. Who wrote it, how long it has been around or on which occasions it is customarily used and if there are alternate versions of the song which begins, " Helan gar sjung hopp-fall-er-i fall-er-al-la-la helan gar sjung hopp-fall-er-al-la-la!  Och den som inte helan tar, han heller inte halvan far. Helan gar! (sorry I don't know how to do swedish characters in AOL).

Would someone please enlighten me?  Nani 

>>> Lisa@imc2.com 09/13/02 08:58AM >>>

I'm not a real Swede, but I sometimes play one in print. :-) 

"Helan går" means pretty much, "drink it up." The rest of the verse warns, if you don't drink this one, you're not going to get the next one (halvan). The second verse warns that if you don't finish halvan, you're not going to get the third snaps (tersen).

See, each snaps has a name referring to the order in which it's drunk: helan, halvan, tersen, quarten, quinten, sixten, septen, etc. (eventually there's a "smuttan" I think :-) There are even snaps songs associated with each one, or at least there have been in some Swedish songbooks I've gotten--at parties, you often get a little photocopied book of the songs that will be sung that evening. Just the words, as everyone is expected to know the melodies. Easy enough to fake after tersen. :-)

I don't how old the tradition is, but I can't remember a single party in Sweden, from the Christmas smorgasbord to birthdays, where we didn't sing Helan går. It's appropriate for any occasion involving snaps, as far as I'm concerned. 

Lisa

>>> charlie@charlie-anderson.net 09/12/02 06:26PM >>>

I am sure there are many others on the list who have more knowledge of the origin than I. I have been told that many years ago on certain occasions, the landlord would invite some of the tenant farmers in for a small drink on the condition that they provided a little entertainment. The singing of Helan går became the entertainment. Regarding alternate versions, the version sung by most Swedish male choruses, including Svea of which I am a member, differs a little but not substantially.

Charlie

>>> alexander@backlund-online.info 09/13/02 09:47AM >>>

"Nationalencyklopedin" says: "Helan går, skålvisa av okänt ursprung, mycket känd och spridd sedan förra hälften av 1800-talet. H:s melodi påminner om militära trumpetsignaler och kan ha fungerat som sådan, även om det inte kunnat beläggas. Flera tonsättare har skrivit variationer över melodin, bl.a. Franz Lehár."

[Helan går, drinking song of unknown origin, very well known and widespread since the first half of the 1800's. The melody is reminiscent of military trumpet fanfares and may have functioned as such, even though this has not been proven. Several composers have written variations on the melody, among them Franz Lehár.]
 

>>> Juergen.Stuber@loria.fr 09/13/02 07:01AM >>>

The following is from Vin & Sprithistoriska Museet (http://www.vinosprithistoriska.se/), it's no longer on their web site, found it in Google's cache. On the other hand, you can now listen to the songs themselves on the site.

[Summary: Drinking songs are an old tradition in Sweden, going back at least to the Middle Ages where celebratory drinking with singing was a regular part of weddings and other festivities. In the latter part of the 1700's, songs were being composed specifically for social drinking occasions, and handwritten collections of such songs started appearing, followed by the mid-1800's with printed collections.]
 

Writes Juergen: I'll just translate the first few lines on Helan går: Our best known drinking song "Helan går" has thus a history that can be followed back in time 150 years. Its origin is unknown, but the melody is cited 1845 in Franz Berwald's operetta "Modehandlerskan", which however was a fiasco and was only played once. ... The first recorded version of "Helan går" came out in 1915. Today there is also an English version [see following] so that even our English guests can follow the first round of drinking ("helan").

Vår mest kända snapsvisa "Helan går" har dock en historia som går att följa 150 år bakåt i tiden. Dess ursprung är okänt men melodin citeras år 1845 i Franz Berwalds operett "Modehandlerskan", som för övrigt blev ett fiasko och bara spelades en gång. Nästa gång visan finns omnämnd är i Gustaf Meyers studentminnen från Uppsala år 1869 där visan sjungs till den första supen. "Helan går" hade alltså några år på nacken när Emil Norlander använde den i "Jubileumsluft" på Södra Teatern år 1905.  1915 kom "Helan går" ut för första gången på grammofonskiva. Men "Helan går" har fascinerat fler människor, även utanför vårt land. När den österikiske tonsättaren Franz Lehár besökte Sverige på 1930-talet blev han tagen av en fantastisk svensk sång som sjöngs med det största allvar. Lehár ville gärna använda melodin som tema i något större verk och vände sig till svenskar i Wien med sin förfrågan om vilken sång det var. Det visade sig dock inte vara nationalsången, som Lehár först trott utan det rituella intagandet av helan som han hade bevittnat. Han skrev senare i alla fall fem variationer på melodin, vilka kom att publiceras i Dagens Nyheter 1936. Idag finns en engelsk transkription av "Helan går" kallad "Hell and gore" så att även våra engelskspråkiga gäster kan sjunga med i sången till helan. Källa: Christina Mattsson, "Helan Går. 150 visor till skålen", Värnamo 1989

>>> paul-svensk@svensson.org 09/12/02 06:35PM >>>

You don't need Swedish characters for this :)

Hell and gore,
shun gop, Father Allan, lallen lay.
Hell and gore,
shun gop, Father Allan lay.
Oh, handsome in the Hell and tar,
hand, Ay Hell are half and four.
Hell and gore -
- Shun gop, Father Allan lay!

>>> lsteele@mit.edu 09/13/02 09:38AM >>>

Then there's Hugo Alfvén's "Uppsala Rhapsody."  This was commissioned for I-forget-what solemn academic occasion of the kind Alfvén loved to poke fun at. The piece is basically a medley of traditional patriotic songs which, 
as the composer knew quite well, would be recognized by the students in their incarnation as drinking songs.  (This tradition is very much alive, yes?  Most books of snapsvisor that I've seen contain only the words and the notation "sung to the tune of...")

Anyhow, as the "drinking" proceeds the instruments become more and more inebriated as witnessed by a growing number of "wrong" notes in the familiar melodies.  The climax is a gloriously blotto "HELAN GÅR!" -- just 
the three notes -- upon which the entire orchestra presumeably goes bottoms-up (I hope I'm make it clear that this does *not* actually happen at the performance; it's what is depicted in the music!) and we hear brännvin trickling down a hundred throats in the form of descending chromatic scales.  It's elegantly done, and apparently caused quite a stir at the first performance.

Lynn Steele

>>> david@curle.com 09/13/02 10:04AM >>>

This discussion reminds me of how often I have listened to Swedish concerts of choral music or even church services, and heard a song that I recognize only as a snapsvisa!  It is slightly unnerving to be at a fairly solemn and sober event and hear certain melodies - the Swedes in the audience think nothing of it, recognizing a standard and common hymn or song, but in my head all I can think of are the words to the snaps version of the melody, with the typical references to drinking it, drowning in it, worshiping it, pulling it up and down on on string in my throat, hiding it from the sheriff, etc.

By the way, I looked in one of my snaps songbooks, and found the following list of the order of each round of snaps that Lisa referred to earlier:

helan
halvan
tersen
qvarten
kvinten
rivan
septen
rafflan
rännan
repetitionen
smuttan
smuttans unge
femton droppar
Lilla Manasse
Lilla Manasses bror
Kreaturens återuppståndelse
Den Bleka Dödens Dryck

>>> alexander@backlund-online.info 09/15/02 07:34AM >>>

> Is there any wisdom why they are named like this, (the whole, the half, the one-third,...)?

"Nationalcyklopedin" sayeth: "helan och halvan, första och andra snapsen vid en måltid, fick sitt namn på 1700-talet, då det var vanligt att männen vid inmundigande av brännvinsbordet tog två supar, varvid glaset första gången fylldes till brädden, andra gången till hälften. De följande snapsnamnen "tersen", "kvarten" osv. fick sina namn först på 1800-talet, sannolikt i latinkunniga studentkretsar och utan någon halvering av volymen."

>>> pwgren@yournet.com 09/15/02 06:26PM >>>

I thought this was pretty interesting, so I hope nobody will mind if I quickly translate this into English for those who cannot read Swedish.

>The National Encyclopaedia says: "the whole and the half, the first and second snaps taken during a meal got its name in the 18th century, when it was usual for men when partaking in the brännvinsbord to drink two glasses
of snaps. The first time the glass would be filled to the brim, and the second time half-full.  The terms, the third, the fourth etc. did not get their names until the 19th century, most likely in student circles conversant in Latin but with no additional decreasing in amount for each successive glass."

The SVENSKA AKADEMIENS ORDBOK defines brännvinsbord simply as a smörgåsbord with snaps or liqueur.

Paul Widergren

>>> rpeter@zianet.com 09/15/02 04:06PM >>>

This whole thread reminds me to mention that those of you with Nokia cell phones can set your ringger to play helan går.  When I got my first cell a few years back and went scrolling through the ringer tune choices I saw one
called "helen" and thought "nah, that can't be helan går!" When I listened to it, sure enough it was!  I guess it makes sense when you remember that Nokia is a Finnish company and how many Finns speak Swedish as their first
language.

Peter

>>> paradise.cowgirl@verizon.net 09/15/02 05:10PM >>>

I thought it was less than 10% of Finns that speak Swedish?? And even less that speak it as their first language??

Still, I bet there are alot of Nokia phones in Sweden :) Cheers!