Grief has spread its heavy black wings over me and Secret Service.
On Friday, February 4, 2022, my dear friend and lyricist Björn Håkanson passed away after a short illness.
With his peculiar poetic feeling, he wrote the lyrics to my melodies on the first three Secret Service albums.
I think of his ingenious lines: "Oh Susie we were much too young", "Ten o'Clock Postman, give me your letter", "Broken hearts can turn to stone", "A face just barely true, shadows in blue. A flash in the night". Or my favorite line: "I gotta find some detectives who work for a dollar a day" from Crossing A River. The list of quotes from his poetry is long.
When I had a new melody that I had sung on a cassette tape, I used to go to Björn's small apartment to play it. Björn started walking around in circles in the living room and sometimes took out books from his big bookshelf to find inspiration. After a while I used to get tired and layed down on his couch and was half asleep waiting for him to finish his lyrics. Every now and then he woke me up with questions. He could not sing so well but he wanted me to test sing any line of text he came up with.
Once he wanted to hear if I liked his chorus text suggestion "I sang Jessica"
I said: "Björn. It sounds nice to sing but is it really original with a new girl name as the title after Oh Susie?
Björn walked around on the floor for a while again and then came up with the genius! What do you think about this Tim: "Ye-Si-Ca"?
Such was he, the master of lyrics!
In the middle of the grief, it is a small consolation that the lyrics to the next Secret Service single You Stole My Heart is written by Björn Håkanson together with me and my daughter Josefin.
Tim Norell, Secret Service
Ps. You stole my heart will be released on February 25.
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