Röda Bönor (1976)

Röda Bönor (which means both Red beans and Red chicks) is considered to be the first girl band in the Swedish music-political movement in the 70s, and one of Sweden's first feminist bands. The band existed from the mid-70s to the early 80s and released two full-length albums, of which this self-titled one was the first.

This was a record I rescued from my parents' collection when they were about to get rid of all their vinyl albums. One might suspect that this album was my mother's. Looking purely from a musical angle, this is not my thing, but it's fun as a time document. The Swedish prog music of the 70s was not like the international version (King Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant etc). Instead it was a musical-political movement (left, of course) where bands sang songs about socialism, a fair and just society, fought for society's forgotten people and despised the factory owner. This scene consisted of two kinds of bands, according to me, those who had their message as priority one and where musical know-how was secondary, and bands which had a balanced priority between political messages and musical quality. An example of the latter could be Nationalteatern, which has created many songs and albums that are real classics today. Röda Bönor I would spontaneously sort into the first group.

The messages on the record are the women's struggle - gender equality  - and the socialist struggle, prioritized in that order, as I see it. These are two questions you can quite easily sympathize with, but as I primarily listen to music for an auditory beauty experience, I don't like the songs. They have stripped down arrangements, the sound is relatively dry and primitive, and there is honestly not much that appeals to them. It's a mix of own songs and some traditional, with newly translated lyrics. Lots of harmonies in the singing.

The song lyrics about the socialist struggle feel pretty outdated today, and it's with a inner smile I hear these messages. The perspective has somewhat shifted, and the struggle is done in a different way today. But the lines about the women's struggle feel more current, although I rarely hear these thoughts delivered so coarse and straightforward as on the album. You would blush if you knew. But that's fun! The 70's seems to have been more radical and the struggle more aggressive. I grew up in the 70's, but the will to fight doesn't seem to have spread to me. Maybe it was color TV that got in the way.

Röda Bönor was formed in Lund, where I lived in the 90's for some time. For some of these years I lived in Smålands Nation, a building with student dorms, at the time the socialist-communist center of the town. Surely, Röda Bönor would have been a popular album. But to me, this is primarily a time capsule from an era that is gone, when the leftist struggle was more important, and a real hope of change existed. But musically speaking, it's not much to have. No good songs.


Tracklist

Page A
1. Oh Carol 2:19
2. Sången Om Ann-Marie 4:33
3. Diskoteksjakt 3:49
4. Kotten1:02
5. Nya Songes 3: 3
6. Det Ska Bli Slut På Rumban 4:45
7. Skärp Dig Ann-Marie 2:03
8. Faellesang1:42

Page B
1. La Lega 3:33
2. Sången Mot Familjen 2:37
3. Denna Karl 3:43
4. Kärlek4:30
5. Vaggsång 1:00
6. Sången Om Kvinnans Otäcka Roller 6:20