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Julia 2:290:00/2:29
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Christmas in Egerdal 2:440:00/2:44
EGERDALSELVA
The River Egerdal
Latest Music
EGERDALSELVA (The River Egerdal) - Letter to the Listener
These are the stories and thoughts behind the songs...
If it can be said that a family flows like a river down through its generations, these bits of music represent splashes captured from upstream, near the source of the Egerdahl family’s flow.
All songs are played on "Julia" - Grandma Egerdahl's 110+ year old guitar from Norway. All songs are original compositions with the exceptions of "Julia" & "Ja Vi Elsker."
1. The Road Through Hamarøy: When I had the basic arrangement finished for this one, I asked Haakon what it should be called. He said that it sounded like a travelling song. That matched what I was thinking exactly. This is named for the winding roads through Hamarøy that lead to the town of Egerdal (it’s a really great drive!).
2. The Egerdal Town Parade: This is based on a fingerpicking melody I came up with nearly 25 years ago but never fully developed until now. Contemplating a name for the arrangement anew, it sounded to me like a happy, small town occasion with a certain march feel – like a little parade!
3. Uncle Holy’s Seasick Blues: It’s been said “The Blues ain’t nuthin’ but a good man feelin’ bad…” In this blues, the “good man feelin’ bad” is my father – Harold Egerdahl at 9 years old.
With this blues number, I musically reference the rising and falling of an ocean liner on big, North Atlantic swells in an attempt to create a melodic seasickness - or musical nausea.
At the age of 9 in the year 1928 my dad and family made the trip from Norway across the Atlantic Ocean on a boat. My dad never quite recovered from that ocean crossing. He would reference that boat ride throughout the years as one of the most miserable experiences in his personal history. For the rest of his life, he avoided travel whenever possible. He did travel to keep my mom and I happy, but at the outset of any trip, he would always provide us with a gentle reminder that he was not fully onboard with the idea of “travel for pleasure.”
The nickname “Uncle Holy” was coined by his little nephew Ed Egerdahl. As a kid, the pattern of Sundays for Ed and family was church (where the first hymn sung was invariably “Holy Holy Holy”) then a visit to Uncle Harold’s house for an after-party.
Ed’s math representing the Sunday pattern: “Holy Holy Holy” + Uncle Harold = “Uncle Holy”
4. Julia: The name of my grandmother “Julia” is how we refer to her guitar which was refurbished and made playable by our East Coast ‘cousin’ Roger Jorgenson in the year 2020. The guitar is a solid 110+ years old. This song “Julia” is one that John Lennon wrote in loving memory of his mother. The name of the song sure fit (!) – so I arranged this instrumental version of the Beatles’ “Julia” in loving tribute to Grandma Julia and “the music on the hill.”
5. Ja Vi Elsker: It is with this recording that I become a bona fide, genuine, for-real guitar player. Some might ask: “But Grant, you’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years… Why does this recording suddenly make you a real guitar player?”
By my early 20s (in the early 1990s) I had practiced my way into being quite a proficient classical guitar player. As I learned new pieces, I’d debut them for my dad in a sort of private concert recital. If the music and performance struck him a certain way (usually after a fiery piece of music with a degree of difficulty to the playing) he’d review my performance as follows: “That was pretty good there… But can you play “Yaviyelsker?”
Recognizing it as something Norwegian, I asked him: “What’s a “Yaviyelsker?” Initially, he declined to explain. Eventually, at the final chord of one of these classical music reveals, he finally elaborated saying that “Yaviyelsker” was actually “Ja Vi Elsker (Dette Landet)” (translated – “Yes, we love this land”) – a Norwegian national song considered be the Norwegian national anthem. The “Yaviyelsker” mystery had been solved! …Though I would not actually hear the song for another 30 years.
It is not until now – with the ease of finding any song on Spotify and the ease of shopping any sheet music online that I finally realized I could execute on mastering this “Yaviyelsker.” Here it is in classical arrangement with a melody-only break in between (because sometimes, the melody is all you need).
Composed by: Rikard Nordraak - Classical guitar arrangement by: Roberto Garcia
6. A-Viking, in Reel Time: As I composed this fiddle-sounding tune (or reel), it had me recounting that as the Vikings embarked on their “World Tour” one of their first stops was Ireland. The bashing, smashing chorus section echoes their swashbuckling sea journey and the (ahem) rollicking good time they had when they got there. Depending on the source you read, a probable origin for the name “Vikings” had to do with the language of the time where to go “a-viking” was to go on a long journey. This is for those Egerdahls adventuring back to Egerdal this summer!
7. The House on the Hill (I Can Take You There): This song is a celebration. An exclamation of love and appreciation for our family and its history starting with Hans and Julia up on a hilltop in Egerdal, Norway. Given our family’s immigrant story of roughly 100 years ago, I think it is exceeding special that we are still able to pinpoint the very town, the very hill and the very house from which all we Egerdahl’s sprang.
A few historical notes on the 1st verse (the Egerdal house story in a nutshell):
- “The timbers arrived by boat at the beach” – The timbers mentioned here were from another house out on an island that had been dismantled. Hans and Julia bought the materials from that house, receiving them on the beach in Egerdal and walking them up the hill (the community helped with that effort). The house was so successfully reassembled that it (mostly) still stands today 100+ years later in 2022.
- “There was music on the hill” – This line is a reference to the gatherings that were had on the hill when the work of carrying timbers and/or building were completed for the day. Julia would get out her guitar and others would join in with voice or their own instruments. Entertainment options in 1920s’ Hamarøy were limited - so it was a big deal that there was “music on the hill!”
- “All the little children dancing around” – A lyrical tribute referencing the kids that had their formative years on that hill in Egerdal: Henny, Gladys, Harold (my dad), Ottar and Hulda.
NOTE: You can find the town of Egerdal and “the hill” easily on Google Earth by searching for “Egerdalselva” (translates to “Egerdal’s River”). If you look at the satellite photo very closely (see the zoomed image from the yellow box below), you can still see the roof of the house just outside the trees! My family referenced this satellite image to guide us to the house when we visited in 2019.
Photo from my family's visit to the house on the hill in 2019.
