Dagens Arbete 150218
By: Anna Tiberg
One Saturday an emotional 15-year-old girl stepped into a workshop hall in Sundsvall. She sang for several hours until all concerns had passed. In the presence of the machines Helen Sjöholm dared to meet herself.
We were 17 years old and on our way to school. My friend Anna told me in a whisper that her older sister had visited an audition. I was not allowed to say anything but it seemed like her sister would get a role.
– In a musical by Björn and Benny.
I saw colorful ABBA-men in flared tights before my sight. This was in -94 and my only reference came from photos of Waterloo in The Eurovision Song Contest of -74. Björn and Benny. Were they even real?
One chilly October evening a few months later I was awakened by a dry voice that ended the television news. “And we can report that tonight a new star was born”. A photo of Helen appeared. In the role as Kristina från Duvemåla she sat singing on a swing.
Sure you could dream. But this was so far ahead of Idol and other filmed talent shows. In our world you shouldn’t believe that you were someone. Could it actually happen? That an ordinary big sister from Sundsvall stepped over the slush, the bus station and the town mountains? Was transformed into a natural phenomenon that shone so bright that it was advertised on TV?
– I still pinch my arm sometimes, I can actually not believe that I’ve been through all that, she says twenty years later.
The big sister who broke through is sitting opposite me at a table and gulps down green tea. Is a little bit stressed. “Things are shamelessly good for me, had twins late in life, not completely healthy right now, but am doing well, a little gratitude on a cloudy day…” She has sick children at home, the father will soon need to be relieved and tonight she’ll work, do a leading role in a long and demanding play of Jonas Gardell’s “Livet är en schlager”.
It could of course have been different. Just a year before the star label she had, at 24 years old, decided to give up.
– I felt that I can’t handle this business. This is not a job for me. It’s in my personality that as soon as I encounter resistance I back down.
Helen had begun studying cultural sciences in Stockholm, “ran around looking at old cottages at Skansen” and drawn a line over all dreamy artistic ambitions. But as though life were a Hollywood movie Benny Andersson called. Two years earlier he had accidentally seen her perform with a theater association and asked her to attend an audition.
– It was a horror. I had only been to the occasional audition before and immediately felt “I don’t get this role”. But now they knew who I was, I felt seen. Then when I got the role, I realized it was an opportunity of a lifetime. Do it now, or never. Then you go all in. I have always been an expert at having back-doors, ways out. Now I understood that I couldn’t have that.
What are they about, these back-doors?
– They are a way to protect yourself. If this doesn’t work… well, I’ll probably do something for real later, I’m testing this just for fun… that’s how I’ve acted as a person throughout. And it can be both good and bad. Bad because if you don’t dare to focus and say, “I want this”, then maybe there won’t be anything. But it’s good that it never becomes too important for you, she says and pauses with her tea.
– It can be dangerous when it becomes too important.
“I ate candy in bed and cried from exhaustion the entire Mondays.”
It probably became a little bit dangerous too, after the premiere of Kristina. The years before she had supported herself by cleaning classrooms and restrooms. She sung a lot, in choirs, musical theater, local bands, had gigs at both the ICA opening in Härnösand and at home coming day in Klimpfjäll. This was heavier stuff. A fundamental starring role in a multi-hour long performance that was played six days a week. After the international press and cheering ABBA fans from Australia a playing period of nearly five years remained.
– I was inexperienced, could not let the job go. I ate candy in bed and cried from exhaustion the entire Mondays, and then it started all over again. It was hard. But also useful to go through, because after a year we played fewer days a week, I had time to come back and feel that this works after all.
Helen’s parents use to say that she has been singing since she was two years old. Early on they put her in a choir so she would use up all her energy.
Her dad had a metal workshop and when Helen was a little older she earned some money by cleaning there. Went with the swab in the working barracks and listened to the radio, drinking in music. On weekends it was empty and different in the workshop. Otherwise she liked the sounds. The welds, the pounding, metal sheet that was cut. Used to go there after school and talk to the guys. Playing secretary and be enclosed by the heavy scent of copper, iron and aluminum.
Then the break time came. The childhood farewell and the teen heat. Over the teacup we unite in the memory of the harsh world commonly known as junior high school.
We were referred to the same block. A gray giant with large, sad windows. Höglunda, the Mårran of the school world. In her corridors you thought less than ever that you were someone, and the dreams that unlikely germinated, you kept silent about. The wrong kind of jeans could mean the end, an old style cardigan was enough for Mårran, she could catch sight of you and freeze you to ice.
– I was not bullied. But I could feel lonely in the harshness. I had no best friend in the way many have at that age, I floated between different gangs or spent the time by myself.
Then the music was the softness. Municipal music school, the choirs, the piano at home. She learned to play in her early teens, sat at the keys as therapy. Sang about unrequited love. To herself and others.
And one Saturday during her cleaning round in the metal workshop she made a powerful discovery: The voice grew in there. Sounded against the stacked metal sheets, copper, iron, filled the hall. She remained there for hours. Continued next weekend and the next. When her classmates went to concerts in Stockholm she spent the weekends in private, with the grade shears and the folding machines as company.
– It was a way to rest from everything else. I have always been like that. Need a lot of time for myself. Then I could handle the tough things in school and all the questions that arose. It was my way of expressing myself to myself.
Maybe the Sjöholm expression was mounted then and there. The one which is known as heartfelt, sensitive, dramatic. “It’s like watching a black and white picture being coloured when you sing”, academy member Horace Engdahl said last summer, when Helen performed lyrics he had written in the television series Babel. “You have turned my scribbles into art”. “But, oh oh,” she replied. Rolled her eyes and shook it off. As she usually does. It can be dangerous when it becomes important.
I remember how she, after getting the role of Kristina, swished through the kitchen in Anna’s home. She said that she had had “a great bit of luck” and such, it sounded as if she had experienced something that could happen to anyone. Or rather, should have hit someone else. Helen Sjöholm is still not the self-aggrandizement type.
– There is something keen and a bit tiresome about my expression, she suddenly says over the cup of green tea.
– Like “Oh god, what is she doing”.
That’s a narrative way? The way you sing. Some people sing just beautiful, you sing in a way that give the lyrics meaning. How do you do that?
– I can also get stuck in that, you want it to sound good. But I think it has to do with my interest in theater. And it has to do with the words, words have always been important. I chose music precociously, back in my teens. Loved chapbook and sad songs. The ballad song tunes are at the base, I can take on jazz and musical, but I don’t have a classical voice and no pop or soul voice.
Given how little she claims to be able to do she has covered a lot. After the emigrating epic she did other major musicals of course, sang in Benny Andersson Band, artist collaborations, solo albums and concert tours. But also revue, theater and film roles like “As it is in heaven”.
She says she has chosen with her stomach. What could be fun, would it suit her circumstances, could it also be a challenge?
This summer she turns 45 and maybe she should even be a little cocky and confident. Gaze down over the slush from her place in the sky. But Helen Sjöholm says she has no interest in being a star in her spare time. She hasn’t bothered with the celebrity world, “and then it doesn’t bother about you” and she is “not interested to signal the artistry in other ways than on stage.”
When she works, she goes in fully and seriously, just like in front of the folding machines in the metal workshop in Sundsvall. The rest of the time it’s nice to still have the back-doors left.
– I’ll find something else if it doesn’t work. It’s just music after all.
Helen Sjöholm Granditsky
Age: 44 years.
Family: Sound engineer David Granditsky. Two sons and a daughter: Ruben, born in 2007, and twins Samuel and Johanna, born in 2011.
Awards in selection: Grammies in 1997, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2012. The Golden Mask in 2003 and 2009. Honorary Doctor at Mid University in 2012.
Interview reproduced and translated with permission from http://da.se
Original article http://da.se/2015/02/rosten-vacktes-i-verkstan/