In a recent post I made in which I mentioned Bygdekino (Norwegian mobile cinema for rural communities), fellow Hexbear Ram_The_Manparts referenced this song. I hadn’t heard it before but thought it was interesting. Perhaps a bit politically dubious (God knows I do Not have favorable views towards the Center Party!) but it’s still an interesting and very catchy glimpse into car culture and the position of city-country inequality in contemporary Norwegian pop culture. The song is in a very countryside Østfold dialect and has a lot of references to Car Things, and the lyrics are all written in eye dialect, so translating this song was a bit of a challenge, but I managed in the end!
Without further ado, the translation:
Driving my Datsun down in Fetsund
And my Porsche 'round down in Porsgrunn
Changing my timing belt[1] up in Jessheim
And rear window louvers[2] up in TrondheimSo put the pedal to the metal![3]
I’ve got a Mazda that’s totally sick[4]
From Romerike to Rælingen[5] and to Grebbestad[6] in a RenaultYeah cause we’re off to Elverum
Just to drive around[7]
Rolling our wheels from Gressvik to Os
20 inch rims and 3 inch exhaust[8]
Straight to Rakkestad
In a [Ford] Granada
That I found in Bondebladet[9]The countryside! Burning rubber[10] in the countryside!
I’ll never leave the countryside no matter what you do![11]
The countryside! Burning rubber in the countryside
Until I end up on welfare![12] I’ll stay here 'till I die!I’m that fat guy[13] on TV
Ain’t got a résumé[14], I roll in a [Volvo] PV
If you come from Harstad or Ørsta
Then you can call me any timeI don’t live in a coop, I inherited my home[15]
Ain’t got a Tesla,[16] I roll in an Opel
Shifting gears[17] in Gran and stepping on the clutch[18] in Kløfta
Burning rubber in Bø but ending up in a ditchThe countryside! Burning rubber in the countryside!
And I’ll stay here no matter what you do!
The countryside! Burning rubber in the countryside
Until I end up on welfare! I’ll stay here 'till I die!
Appendix: Namedropped car brands/models
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datsun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Granada_(Europe)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_PV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel
Appendix: Namedropped locations in Norway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetsund (town in Lillestrøm municipality; suburb of Oslo’s East End; known for its log driving museum.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsgrunn (second biggest town in Telemark County; the Porsgrunn/Skien conurbation is Norway’s seventh biggest city.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessheim (major town in Øvre Romerike district, closest major town to Oslo’s main airport.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trondheim (fourth biggest city in Norway; center of Trøndelag County; home of Nidaros Cathedral, where Saint Olaf, “Eternal King of Norway”, had his remains enshrined. Called Tråante in Southern Sámi.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romerike (district constituting the majority of Akershus County; the ancient tribe it’s named after was mentioned in Beowulf!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rælingen (municipality in the same general area as Fetsund.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elverum_Municipality (decently populated area for its location deep into Innlandet County, which is, well, inland.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gressvik (suburb of Fredrikstad in Østfold County. The Fredrikstad/Sarpsborg conurbation is Norway’s fifth biggest city.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_Municipality_(Innlandet) (I’m assuming this is the Os being referred to. Tiny place at the north end of Innlandet County!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakkestad (municipality in the middle of Østfold County. Very close to Hagle’s own hometown of Mysen in Indre Østfold municipality. One of the parishes is called Os, which might be what the previous namedropped location might’ve been.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harstad_Municipality (second most populous municipality of Troms County, which is located north of the Arctic Circle. Called Hárstták in Northern Sámi.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ørsta_Municipality (small town on the west coast, named after the Ørsta Fjord / Ørstafjorden.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Municipality (place in Innlandet County on the border with Akershus County. Known for the Sister Churches and Dynna runestone.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kløfta (town a bit south of Jessheim, known for its shopping center.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bø#Places (I’m not even gonna try to guess which one the song is referring to.)
Spelled in the lyrics as “reggreim”, more commonly spelled as “regreim”, colloquial shortening of “registerreim”. ↩︎
Referred to in the lyrics as “laksetrapp” (“salmon steps”); the formal term is bakrutesjalusi. ↩︎
NO: “gønn på!”, where å gønne comes from English “to gun” but is used in a completely different way. ↩︎
In Norwegian, rå (“raw”) is a common way of saying something’s cool, rad, sick, etc. You can even combine rå with other words to get things like råkul (“raw cool”) which is like extra cool. ↩︎
A bit of a weird line given that Rælingen is a part of Romerike, but whatever. ↩︎
Grebbestad is the only non-Norwegian locale mentioned in this song; it’s a small town in Sweden near the border with Norway. ↩︎
Å ragge, also called å råne, means to drive around aimlessly. It’s got a whole subculture attached to it. ↩︎
The Norwegian word for inch is “tomme”, related to EN thumb, but it’s contracted to just “tom” in the eye dialect lyrics to this song. ↩︎
Bondebladet, or “The Farmers’ Paper”, is the official newspaper of the Norwegian Farmers’ Union. It has a lot of classified ads and such. ↩︎
NO: å børne, from EN to burn. ↩︎
“Fløtternte’ fra bøgda, samma hvaru’ gjør” as it’s spelled in the lyrics; “flytter inte fra bygda, samme hva du gjør” as it would be spelled in a more standard manner, though even that isn’t a standard way of phrasing it. ↩︎
Å bli trøgda in eye dialect, or å bli trygda in a more standard spelling. Refers to folketrygden, known in English as the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme. I guess the point in the song is that the singer’s gonna drive fast cars until he’s too old or disabled to continue. ↩︎
A guy/dude in Østfold dialect is called en kæll, I’m pretty sure this is cognate with the more standard form en kar. ↩︎
NO: CV, short for curriculum vitae. This is also the term used in British English. ↩︎
The original lyrics referenced OBOS, Norway’s largest housing cooperative; and å ta på odel, referring to odelsrett, an ancient Scandinavian allodial title which has survived into modern Norwegian law. ↩︎
Norway has the world’s highest rate of EV ownership. Also, I somehow doubt that this guy is doing a jab at Tesla for the right reason! ↩︎
NO: å gire, from EN gear, refers to shifting gears. ↩︎
NO: å kløtsje, from EN clutch, refers to stepping on the clutch pedal. ↩︎
It’s embarrassing in hindsight how long it took me to figure out that fløtternte’ meant “flytter ikke” (“not moving”). I kept thinking fløtternte’ was “flytter den til” (“moving it to”) since den (“it”) often becomes an enclitic -'n in colloquial Norwegian — as does han (“he/him”) for that matter — and te is a dialectal form of til (“to”). However that interpretation didn’t make any sense in context: “moving it to from the countryside” is just ungrammatical.
After wading through some ““AI”” hallucinations because this song is literally the only ever use of the word fløtternte’ in the history of humanity, I eventually managed to piece together that -nte is in this case a reduced enclitic form of ente, which is the Østfold form of inte, which is a dialectal form of ikke (“not”). Another dialectal variant of ikke is itte because you simply can’t have enough highly divergent dialectal variants of extremely basic function words, can you?!
So yeah. Staysman says “harnte” where I say “ha’kke” (“don’t have”). This must be how people from Kanto feel when they hear someone say ～へん instead of ～ない. Though I suppose in English as well you have isn’t versus ain’t (funny coincidence how similar that sounds to ente, huh!).
Another interesting thing I think I’ve mentioned in a different post is the reduction of du (“you”) to 'ru in e.g. hvaru instead of “hva du” (“what you”) in this song. It’s very similar to the “flapping” sound change in American English.
This song was really fun for my language nerd brain! Dialects just make me happy idk. Also was fun to hear the namedropping, made it close to home.
Got the best negation words folks! Ikke, ikkje, ikkji, inte, ennte, ette, itte, ittje, ittj, kje, kji (iirc ive also heard kkji? Like k-kj-i. But i could have also been mishearing things and the first k belonged to preceeding word), and all the other variants i havent heard or have forgotten lol
I remember meeting someone named Are, but she was from a town (i dont recall where) where the r was a tap. She had to explain every time she introduced herself to someone that her name was Are not Ade, cause pretty much everyone, from egersund to hammerfest¹, couldnt differentiate between tapped r and d.
¹ im being hyperbolic here, but it was most people from what she said