How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

Do you think that in the future we'll write our own novels, make our own movies, design our own games, and record our own songs, all for our own entertainment?

It would be a bit like going back into the past, before radio, when average human beings were inclined to create their own fun - charades and theatricals and singing at the piano - purely because there was little choice in the matter.

I ask only because my brother gave me a CD with a song that he wrote and recorded and mixed himself. A song complete with guitar and bass and drums and synthesizer and background vocals. A song about his middle child:

They're all sitting in the teacher's colored office,
Mommy sniffles at Daddy's tirade.
They're all looking over your latest test scores,
And they're wondering why you don't get better grades.

Torture me more, just keep on talking.
If I shut up we'll go home soon.
I do enough to get through this little school,
I've got stuff I'd rather do.

He's got a lotta potential.
There's nothing that he can't do.
If he would just work real hard,
he could be great one day.

I'm happy the way I am.
Just let me play my game.
Just two more minutes and I'll have a high score.
Why don't you leave me alone?

Your food's getting cold sitting on the table.
Your math homework oughta be all done by now.
Mommy calls you down to dinner once again,
She has to pull the power cord to wake you out of your trance.

I could just kill her,
She didn't let me save my game.
Three hours of my time just flushed down the drain.
I'm not even hungry,
I hate her nasty porkchops.
I've got stuff I'd rather do.

He's always known that the world will need his help.
Someday he'll be great, a hero among men.
The dream of glory burns warm in his mind,
But for now he's just trying to get through level nine...

There's more to the song, but you get the gist.

I suppose you'd have to hear the music and know my brother and my nephew in order to appreciate it all: my brother's pride and understanding and love for his 10-year-old son. But even that probably wouldn't be enough, you'd have to be me. Which is what makes the song so much more satisfying than the mass-produced kind.

I think it would be wonderful if, in the future, we wrote our own songs for our own entertainment.

The Swedish word for the day is självständig. It means self-sufficient.

- by Francis S.