Approaching the work of Anders F. Rönnblom's from scratch must be a daunting task for someone who never did before – his discography is moving towards a whopping 40 albums at the time of writing! Just about everyone with such a long creative stretch has artistic dips, but Rönnblom's output has been strikingly consistent. His lesser albums are good, and there are some merely great, but most of them are simply brilliant. At 79 in 2025, he's still as active as a recording artist as ever before, and not only that: for the last decade or so, he has made some of his best albums ever.
Steeped in the American beat poetry tradition with names like Allen Ginsberg, Richard Brautigan and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, he has carved out a completely original niche of lyric writing within the Swedish language. It's as if he watches the world from his own sidelines, always with a sharp vision and often with a spiky wit. A serious admirer of Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Little Feat and The Grateful Dead, his musical sense is just as precise and precious.
Educated at Konstfack, the university of arts and design, Rönnblom has also worked as a graphic designer and he has provided artwork for books as well as record covers for artists such as Monica Törnell, Neon Rose, Telge Blues and Cornelis Vreeswijk to name but a few. He began playing music in the late 1950s and made his first appearence on a commercially distributed record with Bob Major & The G.I:s in 1964, an EP for which he wrote all four songs.
Although he was never an obvious part of the progg movement, he wasn't shunned by it either. ”I was on commercial labels, just like Pugh, Bernt Staf, John Holm and Ola Magnell,” Rönnblom told me in 2017. ”But the music movement still let us into their venues, the so called music forums. True there was a rigid nucleus of strongly politically charged journalists and concert promoters centered around the Musikens Makt magazine, but even if they didn't write a lot about me, I had no problems getting gigs. I even played at Gothenburg's Sprängkullen which was considered one of the movement's seats of honour.”
Then again, he's never been part of any movement. He had a few hits in the early 80s, and his biting 1980 Christmas song ”Det är inte snön som faller” (inspired by The Rolling Stones' ”Sympathy For The Devil”) is a perennial favourite to everyone who despise the commercialized hysteria of that particular December holiday. But he's always been satisfied with being a maverick. As he put it on his 2015 album ”The Subliminal Solo Inferno”: ”Who the hell wants to be beloved by the people?”
This piece will include Anders F.
Rönnblom's 70s output only. His albums ”Rapport från ett kallt
fosterland” (1980), ”Vit flagg” (1981) and ”Krig & fred &
country music” (1982) would of course fit within the time frame of
the blog, but they're more in a new wavish vein (comparatively
speaking). All wonderful albums, among his finest, but not quite
progg blog material.
Din barndom skall aldrig dö (Decca, 1971)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **
I have a fetish for debut albums. It's something special watching artists' first steps, hearing their first voice and knowing it was the seed of the future.
”Din barndom skall aldrig dö” came out in 1971. Pugh Rogefeldt's ”Ja dä ä dä” was only two years old, Kjell Höglund's ”Undran” was released the same year as ”Din barndom”, as was Robert Broberg's ”En typisk rund LP med hål i mitten”, the first of his where he really displayed his special outsider talent. In short, Swedish singer/songwriter pop/rock was only in its infancy, and there was still room for original expressions because there were yet no fixed reference points. ”Din barndom skall aldrig dö” is one important piece of that puzzle.
The album title means ”your childhood shall never die”, a beautiful title that says a lot about this lovely, touching album's overall mood. It has a naivité but the innocence comes with a fledgling worry that it might not stay that way forever. There's a kind of a Peter Pan quality to it, but a Peter Pan with a beginning identity crisis.
The title track is an eternal fan
favourite, but there are so many great songs here. ”Hon håller ut
över vintern” is a cross pollination of The Beatles and Big Star.
”Kärleken är död” echoes of Paul McCartney's early countryside
recordings and is a wonderful song. But my favourite song here is the
final track, the seven minute ”Mamma hjälp mig” with Dylanesque
imagery and desperate underpinnings further emphasized by a
distortion-drenched guitar solo soaked in escalating panic.
”Din
barndom” has been reissued a couple of times, most recently as a
lavish 50th anniversary 3CD set with one disc being the original
album, the second being new recordings of unfinished songs from the
period finally finished in the early 2020s, and the third one being
other artists covering the entire original album
.
Ramlösa Kvarn (Epic, 1972)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **
I count ”Ramlösa Kvarn” among
Rönnblom's top 5. The songwriting's more focused, the lyrics are
stronger, the melodies are more precise and the arrangements are
richer, with tastefully applied horns, tablas, accordeon, vibraphone
and even an electric sitar on ”Ta väl hand om Louis”. An
all-star cast of session players back Rönnblom up, and he himself
sings with greater confidence than before. There's not one bad track
here, and although the songs are varied, the album's very cohesive –
a tight and carefully pieced together unit. Oddly enough, demon
producer Anders ”Henkan” Henriksson appears as a musician but not
as a producer. It was in fact produced by Claes Dieden, formerly of
60s pop band Science Poption, but he did a great work making the many
elements gel. A masterpiece, up there with period Pugh, Mikael Ramel
et al.
Måsarna lämnar Gotland och hela Sverige tittar på (Epic, 1973)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **
The third album has the slightly unwieldy title meaning ”the seagulls leave Gotland and all of Sweden is watching”. After the majestic ”Ramlösa Kvarn”, the follow-up was perhaps destined to be a disappointment. I said already from the start that Anders F. Rönnblom hasn't made any bad albums, and ”Måsarna” does have qualitues, but it's just not on the same level as much of his other stuff.
Again released on Epic Records, the framework is very different from the predecessor, with a smaller ensemble opting for a jazzy and even funky sound. I get the feeling that Rönnblom deliberately tried to change push his songwriting forward not to repeat himself, and while that signifies a great visionary artist and should be applauded, choosing a slightly bluesy groove based mode doesn't work out that well. The standout track is ”Ulla Hau” with a vibe not dissimilar to Dylan and The Band's ”Planet Waves” which was released the same year.
Still, this might be one of Rönnblom's albums most easily accessible to a non-Swedish listener because of its international style.
A lesser known Rönnblom related album
from 1973 is ”Glas” by Marita Mejstam for which both he and
Hawkey Franzén contributed several songs. Although some songs are
OK, it's a more commercial sounding pop album and mostly interesting
as a footnote to Rönnblom's own releases.
Alternativ rock'n'roll cirkus (Epic, 1974)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **
Third and final Rönnblom on Epic
Records, and while not another ”Ramlösa Kvarn” it's definitely a
step in the right direction after ”Måsarna”. The songs are
sharper and the rock oriented sound is a lot more becoming to them. A
great addition is drummer Pelle Holm, known from especially Scorpion,
Resan and Kebnekajse. His loose, open kind of playing is very
important to how ”Alternativ rock'n'roll cirkus” turned out. I'd
even go as far as to call him the most important element here as I
suspect it's his presence that inspires the other players (including
Rönnblom himself) to open up a bit more than they did on ”Måsarna”.
I like how the album sounds, but the specific song I like the best is
curiously enough the most atypical one here, the brooding and oddly
claustrophobic ”Guds rosor”.
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **
After his stint with major label Epic he took a break for three years until 1977 when he scored a deal with Tyfon Records. Not known as a rock imprint, their output up to his signing consisted of particularly bad dance bands and budget albums of nameless artists covering hits from the last few years. The only other rock act they had was Rhapsody, so I suspect Tyfon's ability to market music of even the smallest merit was limited. Which might explain why ”Det hysteriska draget” is one of the rarer Rönnblom albums from the 70s. Which is a pity, as it's a return to form with plenty of great songs and inspired performances.
Rönnblom explains in his liner notes
for the double CD reissue of the two Tyfon albums that he
rediscovered Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks around that time, which
inspired him to enrich the instrumental palette. A horn and string
arranger, Jonny Blomqvist, was hired to give the album a fuller sound
– a successful move that gave the album an extra push. As he
explains: ”'Draget' became the album that 'Alternativ rock'n'roll cirkus' should have been.” Also, the lyrics turned darker.
Rönnblom's earlier lyrics often had a romantic gleam, but now torn
souls and broken people entered his lyrical world. That makes ”Det
hysteriska draget” one of his most multifaceted albums up to then.
Komedia – En tripp nerför Tarschan Boulevard (Tyfon, 1978)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: ***
The modus operandi for the second Tyfon album was vastly different to ”Det hysteriska draget”. The drums were dragged out to the centre of the studio with all the other musicians standing around ”as if it was a rehearsal room gig” as Rönnblom puts it. Overdubbing and meticulous studio work was the order of the day, but producer Börje Forsberg wanted a raw and unpolished sound. Rönnblom's newest songs were too intricate for this method, so instead he had to present simpler and more straightforward material. And that's what you hear on the album.
And what an album it is! Hands down his best since ”Ramlösa Kvarn”, – better even! It certainly is much grainier than ”Det hysteriska draget”, and the no frills songs are in-your-face, almost like a documentary in music. The title track is among the best songs he's ever written with an ominous guitar line running through the verses, while ”Dom rätta kretsarna” captures the bleak mood of Sweden in the late 70s. But there's no point in singling out particular songs because they're all great. Easily one of the best Swedish albums of the era, still sounding fresh and vivid no matter how dark the colours of it are. Simply another masterpiece.
The 2CD reissue of ”Komedia” and
”Det hysteriska draget” features bonus tracks collectively named
”Garagesekvenser”. Songs Rönnblom kept on deteriorating cassette
tapes but musically good enough to save for posterity, so as with
”Din barndom skall aldrig dö”, he recorded them anew in time for
the reissue. Essential stuff, although it would have been great
hearing what they would have been like if recorded properly during
his Tyfon years.
”Vem har satt mina änglar i bur?” initiated a new phase in Rönnblom's career, a five album stretch for Mercury Records. A slicker album than ”Komedia” with the occasional influence from country music and old rock'n'roll. That had been part of his music already before, but it's a bit more obvious here. It's a good album; the title track and the lilting ”I ett snöfall” are fine songs, and there are a few more pleasant moments, but overall it feels a bit like an in-between album, like he's going somewhere but not quite sure where. As I decided to cut off at the end of the 70s, his next album ”Rapport från ett kallt fosterland” (subtitled ”Vem har satt mina änglar i bur, volym 2”) isn't included but it's a punchier and better defined album.
* * *
I tend to think of Anders F. Rönnblom's discography as book, with his various phases being chapters and each album is a set of pages in each chapter. In that regard, he's a Dylan, or a Peter Hammill – artists to grow with. Anders F. Rönnblom is indeed one of those. But I also realize that something vital is lost if you don't understand his language. A great songwriter for sure, but the lyrical dimension is a great part of why he's enriched my life so much.
Din barndom skall aldrig dö full album playlis
Ramlösa Kvarn full album playlist
Måsarna lämnar Gotland och hela Sverige tittar på full album playlist
Alternativ rock'n'roll cirkus full album playlist
Vem har satt mina änglar i bur? full album playlist
Det hysteriska draget:
Side A, part 1
Side A, part 2
Side B, part 1
Side B, part 2
from "Komedia - En tripp nerför Tarschan Boulevard":
Komedia
bonus:
Marita Mejstam - Glas full album playlist
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