Calendar (New Style) Act 1750
This week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme asks us to find a song written or performed by someone born in September.
For me, there was one artist I knew I wanted to choose.
Avicii.
And apparently choosing only one song was asking too much of me.
So this Sunday you’re getting two:
🎧 Wake Me Up
🎧 Hey Brother
Yes, we’re still hanging around in electronic dance music territory.
After Culture Beat, Infinity and Loona, anyone who has followed my recent Song Lyric Sunday choices probably isn’t surprised anymore.
And judging by the lovely comments I’ve been receiving, some of you might even be starting to enjoy my trips into dance music.
I’m watching you, Jim. 👀
Tim Bergling — Avicii
Avicii was born Tim Bergling in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 8, 1989.
He became one of the defining artists of electronic dance music, but what made Avicii particularly interesting was that he wasn’t afraid to take EDM outside its expected boundaries.
Folk. Country. Bluegrass. Soul.
He found ways of bringing completely different musical worlds onto the same dance floor.
Perhaps that’s one reason I’ve always enjoyed his music.
My own musical taste has never understood boundaries either.
Music doesn’t need to stay in its assigned little box.
Neither did Avicii’s.
Wake Me Up
In 2013, Avicii released Wake Me Up, featuring the wonderful voice of Aloe Blacc.
The combination was unusual at the time.
Acoustic guitar, folk and country influences, soul vocals…
…and EDM.
When Avicii first presented his new musical direction at Ultra Music Festival in Miami in 2013, the reaction wasn’t exactly universally enthusiastic.
Some people didn’t know what on earth he was doing.
Then Wake Me Up became one of the biggest songs in the world.
Sometimes doing exactly what people don’t expect you to do is what makes something special.
Wake Me Up was written by Tim Bergling (Avicii), Aloe Blacc and Mike Einziger, guitarist with Incubus.
That also means Avicii doesn’t merely fit this week’s theme because he was born in September — he actually helped write the song I’ve chosen.
But underneath that irresistible beat, Wake Me Up has always felt like much more than a dance track to me.
It’s about searching.
Growing.
Finding yourself.
Trying to understand where you’re going while you’re still travelling through life.
When we’re young, we sometimes imagine that at some mysterious point we’ll become adults and suddenly understand everything.
I’m still waiting. 😂
The older I’ve become, the more I’ve realised that most of us are simply figuring things out as we go along.
There isn’t always a map.
We make mistakes.
We change direction.
We start again.
We take roads we never expected to travel.
And somewhere along the way, we discover pieces of ourselves.
Perhaps that’s why Wake Me Up has stayed with so many people.
You can dance to it.
But you can also hear yourself in it.
Hey Brother
My second choice is also from Avicii’s 2013 debut album, True.
Hey Brother.
And once again, Avicii decided that musical genres were apparently merely suggestions. 😂
This time he brought bluegrass and country influences into electronic dance music.
The distinctive vocal belongs to American bluegrass singer Dan Tyminski, known for his work with Alison Krauss and Union Station.
Hey Brother was written by Tim Bergling, Ash Pournouri, Salem Al Fakir, Vincent Pontare and Veronica Maggio.
So Avicii co-wrote both of my choices this week.
But Hey Brother reaches me in a completely different way.
This one makes me think about family.
Brothers and sisters.
The people we love.
And not necessarily only the family we’re born into.
Life has taught me that family isn’t simply about sharing DNA.
Sometimes people enter our lives and become family because of the years we’ve shared, what we’ve survived together and the knowledge that when everything goes wrong, they will still be there.
Family is showing up.
It’s loyalty.
It’s standing beside someone when life becomes difficult.
It’s knowing who will answer when you need them.
And it’s being willing to do the same for them.
That’s what I hear when I listen to Hey Brother.
Two Songs, One Journey
That’s why I couldn’t choose between these two songs.
Wake Me Up makes me think about the relationship we have with ourselves.
Who am I?
Where am I going?
Who am I becoming?
Hey Brother makes me think about the people travelling beside us.
Who stays?
Who catches us when we fall?
Who would we walk through fire for?
One is about finding yourself.
The other is about finding your people.
And perhaps we need both.
The Man Behind the Music
There is, of course, sadness attached to Avicii’s story.
Behind the enormous success, Tim struggled with the pressures of fame and touring as well as serious health problems.
He retired from touring in 2016.
On April 20, 2018, Tim Bergling died at only 28 years old.
Far too young.
After his death, his family established the Tim Bergling Foundation, which works particularly with the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.
I think there’s something especially poignant about that legacy when you listen again to music filled with questions about life, belonging, love and finding your way.
Music Outlives the Moment
Maybe that’s ultimately why music matters so much to me.
A song can begin as something we simply dance to.
Then twenty or thirty years pass.
And suddenly we’re hearing something else inside it.
We’re hearing the people we once knew.
The person we used to be.
The roads we travelled.
The people who stayed.
The people we lost.
And the places where, somewhere along the way, we found ourselves.
Avicii made electronic music capable of filling enormous festivals and dance floors.
But he also made music capable of making millions of people feel something deeply personal.
So for an artist born in September, I couldn’t choose anyone else.
And I certainly couldn’t choose only one song. 😂
🎧 Wake Me Up — Avicii featuring Aloe Blacc
🎧 Hey Brother — Avicii featuring Dan Tyminski
Two songs.
Two very different messages.
One extraordinary young artist.
And a musical legacy that is still very much awake.
Tim Bergling
8 September 1989 – 20 April 2018 💜🎧
And Jim…
Don’t think I haven’t noticed you surviving all these weeks of dance music.
The glow sticks are getting closer. 👀
Wake me up lyrics video :
Hey Brother Lyrics video :
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
My new song “Silenced,But not broken ” is on all streaming platforms.
Lyrics video :
https://ditto.fm/silenced-but-not-broken
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