Sidetrack 2

It seems to be the year of dying. But as a writer of obituaries pointed out: a lot of famous people are actually old so expect more of it.

In any case, it might surprise some of my friends that over the years I have become a fan of boxing. This as I, at least I hope, is known for my stance of non-violence. And whatever you say of boxing, non-violent it is not.

You can argue forever (and believe you me people do) who was the best boxer ever and so on. Mike Tyson had a punch like noone else, the Klivenko brothers were (are, they still alive) simply massive. Rocky Marciano. And so on.

But Muhammad Ali will be remembered as "The Greatest". For his style, his attitude, his political choice of rather going to jail than to fight in Vietnam. His comebacks. If you can, find "When we were Kings" and watch it and you get an idea.

He then fought with Parkinsons for many years. But still, shaking and with slurry speach, managed to appear at various functions. A true fighter to the end.

And yesterday I read about the passing away of someone else I admired. Some of you may never have heard of Freddie Wadling, a singer from Goteborg, Sweden. We moved in the same circles for a while and  I have quite a few CD where he sings. And boy could he sing.

He was odd, different. And to be honest always looked frail. He was known to, at least years ago, believe in magic and his flat was full of odd objects.

I would never have thought that he would become what you might call popular, to me he was too on the fringes for that. But somehow he did. In truth he could sing anything, out of that frail body came anything from a raging roar to a whisper. Or (and have I been looking for a recording of that) when he suddenly during a concert started singing "Mackie the Knife" in the best version I have ever heard. He did things like that, suddenly changed and confused whatever band he was performing with.

In one of his last videos he sings about depression and getting out of it (I will put a link, even if you don't understand the language). In English the title is something like "Now we get up from the floor" and the banner at the end says "We need to be open about it".

Ships, Blue For Two

Eye of a Storm

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