Story Behind The Song

A Nobel laureate, Harry Martinson is one of Sweden's most important writers and poets. Jan Alm has set his poems to music and has worked in close collaboration with Amy Elizabeth Wheeler to help her learn and convey the nuances of Martinson's poetry to Am

Song Description

The Martinson Project ís a collaborative effort between Swedish composer Jan Alm, American soprano Amy Elizabeth Wheeler and musicians from the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and the Gothenburg Opera, under the direction of the GSO's Principle Violinist, P

Lyrics

(The Rhinoceros)

I was like gray granite.
I was born to be a giant swine with armored leather and two nose horns.
In pjonka va banda.

I ate fresh grass, water bamboo shoots and river mussels?

I charged at all of them like a locomotive.
They screamed to embarrass me
?look! the Savanah?s locomotive?
I killed them with a Pansar?s terror
With a Pansar?s dread.

I didn?t know what a locomotive was, but I understood I must be a locomotive.
A locomotive with pjonka va banda.
I charged at them with ptjom banna

There, where flamingos waved away the flies that piercingly visited my little eyes,
I charged at them with djam bva bamu
There, where the skull of an Oryx antelope had bored his cork-screw horn into the earth,
I charged at them with njamkan ganza
There, where mud swells up from the river like a spring.

I charged towards them with my entire leaden body, my solid armored obesity.
I took them by the forehead
Their screams collected like spit in my ears,
I took them by my nose?s root, an itchy-for-death ax,
Divided them with my sharp, shearing, heavy bite
Filled of fear for them, yes, filled of fear for them
In ptjom banna! with djam bvabamu! with njamkan ganza!