Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.04.2010, Side 36

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04 — 2010
24
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Preserving quality
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Open daily for lunch and dinners
Special off er on Monday
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Elegant surroundings
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Music | Lyrics opinion | Graffiti
ThE SinKinG oF ThE REuBEn
JaMES
performer: Woody Guthrie
year: 1942
iceland reference:
“One hundred men went down to their
dark and watery graves,
When that good ship went down only
forty-four were saved.
T'was the last of October, they save the
forty-four,
From the dark, icy waters of that cold
Iceland shore.”
Metaphor: While both geographically
and historically accurate in the case of
the first US ship lost during WWII, there’s
something particularly tragic about being
drowned off the coast of Iceland. Some
versions say “cold, icy shore,” but Iceland
sounds more to the point. The shores are
as cold as the sea. And so, no doubt, are
the people.
My hEaRT STood STill
performer: Frank Sinatra
year: 1963
iceland reference:
“I laughed at sweethearts I met at schools
All indiscreet hearts seemed romantic
fools
A house in Iceland was my domain
I saw your eyes, now castles rise in Spain”
Metaphor: Pretty obvious here. Iceland is
cynicism and loneliness, but thankfully it is
just a state of mind. It only takes love to re-
move you to Spain where all is bliss. All you
have to do is believe, and there will be no
more Reykjavík. Originally composed for
the 1927 musical “A Connecticut Yankee,”
where the hero dreams himself to King
Arthur’s Court. Yes, everything is possible.
WaR nuRSE
performer: Bruce Springsteen
year: 1972
iceland reference:
“She was the reincarnation of the virgin
Mary
She was the hooker down in San Antonio
And although her heart was somewhere
in Iceland
Commanding the dawn patrol
Blessed in this blood and stitched in these
bones
The war nurse left us all”
Metaphor: A song from a bootleg of un-
released material, which includes lines
that will later appear on his debut. Bruce
here mixes the two “Iceland metaphors,”
the cruelty of war and the lack of love. It
is, however, unclear whether the titular
character’s Icelandic heart is better repre-
sented by the Virgin Mary or the San Anto-
nio hooker. The dawn patrol is still active in
Iceland and can be seen late on Saturday
evenings/early Sunday mornings through-
out the country.
MaREld
performer: Lars Winnerbäck
year: 2004
iceland reference:
“Ner faller löven
och bladen blir mull
Jag kanske åker till Island
Jag kanske super mig full
Jag är för fattig för London
Jag är för tyst för LA
Det finns en anda i Dublin
men den är skadlig för mig”
Metaphor: The singer proclaims his in-
tention to leave his native Sweden before
the end of summer. He is too broke for
London, too silent for LA. There is spirit in
Dublin, but one not very good for you. He
might go to Iceland to get drunk. Well, at
least it’s good for something. Skål.
yElloW SuBMaRinE
performer: The Beatles
year: 1966
iceland reference:
“Hljómsveitin er íslensk”
Metaphor: It is a little known fact that
parts of the Magical Mystery Tour movie
were shot in Iceland. It is even less noticed
that somewhere around 1.45 of Yellow Sub-
marine, you can quite distinctly hear some-
one say: “The band is Icelandic.” And in Ice-
landic at that. Could it be that the Beatles,
like James Bond, are actually Icelandic? Or
did they merely reuse old “Thor’s Hammer”
tapes and forget to delete them first. What
can it all mean? Iceland on the brain, or
something that got in there?
i’M on an iSland
performer: The Kinks
year: 1965
iceland reference:
“I'm on an island and I've got nowhere to
swim
Oh what a mood I am in
I'm on an island
I'm on an island since my girl left me be-
hind
She said that I'm not her kind
I'm on an island”
Metaphor: The Kinks played eight suc-
cessive concerts in Austurbæjarbíó in
September 1965. A couple of months later,
Kinks Kontroversy came out, featuring this
song supposedly written in Reykjavík. The
metaphor here is similar to the one em-
ployed by Frank Sinatra, ‘The Island’ (Ice-
land) as loneliness. In the next verse, the
island becomes tolerable, if only the girl
were there with him: “But there is nowhere
else on Earth I'd rather be if my long lost
little girl was here with me.”
iMMiGRanT SonG
performer: Led Zeppelin
year: 1970
iceland reference:
“A-ah-ahh-ah, ah-ah-ahh-ah,
We come from the land of the ice and
snow
from the midnight sun where the hot
springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our
ships to new lands
To fight the horde and sing and cry, Val-
halla, I am coming”
Metaphor:
The usual. Iceland as exotic paradise much
beloved of shouting longhaired men with
bare chests. The first two lines sound as if
lifted from a tourist brochure, until Viking
imagery takes over. The last two lines are
quite apt today: ”So now you better stop
and rebuild all your ruins / For peace and
trust can win the day despite of all you're
losing.”
Reykjavík is a city that keeps it se-
crets. All the best things about it are
hidden away off the beaten path. The
best food here is not in the fine res-
taurants, it is in the carts and little
shacks. The best book deals are in
the f lea market and small book-
stores, not in the obvious bookshops.
And so it is with all the best pieces
of art in Reykjavík too. You have to
pry those secrets out or blunder into
them blindly. The way I found myself
suddenly staring at Einar Jónsson ś
mind-altering sculpture "Outlaws",
in a forgotten corner off a busy high-
way with not a sign to mark it as one
of this island’s greatest works of art.
I guess that’s Reykjavík for you. First
exhibited in 1901, "Outlaws" marked
Einar's radical departure from no-
tions of sculpture at the time, to
blaze his own independent path. To-
day though, modern art in Reykjavík
seems not to be blazing very much at
all.
One might imagine that a land
this grand would inspire equally
grand works of art. Instead, grey
soulless concrete monstrosities erupt
out of the ground and tepid paintings
line the walls of the galleries. Intel-
lectually profound they may be, high
culture even, but they are no fun at
all. Indeed, the most enjoyable paint-
ings in the National Gallery are the
ones in the kids' workshop in the
basement. In this land of weird mid-
night colours and vibrant volcanic
hues, are dozens of canvases covered
with inane lettered scrawls really the
best you can do? Really, Reykjavík?
Where is all that colour, where is all
that life?
Remember, I said this city has se-
crets. Well, if you keep an open mind
and follow your feet, it turns out
you blunder right into it. Again and
again. Everywhere. It is all over that
abandoned plot off Skólavörðustígur,
it is half a street away as you stroll
down Laugavegur, it’s splattered on
forgotten walls by the seafront, it is
on the walls of official buildings by
Laufásvegur. Like strange wild f low-
ers, it sprouts where you least expect
it and it can just as tenaciously return
if you scrape it off. Evil clowns in
pink and green, silly grey cats with
attitudes, sprinting skeletons, devi-
ant fish, they are all out there and
more. All you have to do is stop and
look. A menagerie exploding in Tech-
nicolor somewhere near you.
Wait a second, you might say, this
is just graffiti isn’t it? The work of
nameless vandals who deface build-
ings with their meaningless carica-
tures. How can something like this
be profound, or even in any way
interesting? Well, think about that
question when you stumble across
the thought-provoking phrase "If..."
painted on a humble hydrant. Or
when you see Jacques Cousteau in a
diving helmet waving a f lag under
water on the side of the French em-
bassy. The most enjoyable, hilarious
and intelligent paintings in Reykja-
vík I’ve seen have been on the walls
of buildings.
Maybe all of this just says some-
thing about my mental (im)maturity.
Or maybe I just have a soft corner for
people who are unseen, unheard, yet
manage to brighten up drab corners
of the world without expecting rec-
ognition and cocktail receptions for
their art. Whatever it is, I’ll take that
witty cartoon instead of a pretentious
painting any day. Freedom, after all,
is the ability to say "to hell with that".
And nothing quite says "to hell with
the high brow" better than a simple
scrawl on an abandoned wall.
Arnar Vuþa is not an art critic. He
wouldn’t know a masterpiece if it
walked up to him and hit him on the
head, shouting, “I’m a masterpiece”.
Any artists who feel their work has been
slighted should know that he intends to
leave the country as soon as he finishes
that hotdog.
The iceland of My heart
aRnaR VuÞa
JÓi KJaRTanS
High and Low
Country as metaphor
There is no must in art because art is free.
- Wassily Kandinsky
Remember any songs about Iceland that we forgot?
Write us about it (nb - songs by Icelanders don't really count)!
If the purpose of art is to inspire, where is all that inspiration to be found in
Reykjavík? Certainly not in its art galleries. Wandering around the streets of the
city, it struck me that the best works of art in the city live on its streets.
Lately, we hear a lot about Dubai being the Iceland of the desert or
Greece being this year’s Iceland. Iceland, however, is more than just a
metaphor for economic stupidity. Songwriters have long used Iceland
to illustrate a variety of emotions and events. None of them good.
ValuR GunnaRSSon