Nå skruva Fiolen

Nå skruva fiolen is Epistle No. 2 in the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's 1790 song collection, Fredman's Epistles. The epistle is subtitled "Till fader Berg, rörande fiolen". It is both about and mimicking the rhythm of playing the violin. The scholar Lars Lönnroth comments that Bellman used the resemblance of a cello to a woman's body, certainly pretending to play it as such for laughs, while the use of words like "screw" in the lyrics was similarly explicitly obscene. The Bellman interpreter Fred Åkerström recorded the song on his 1974 album Glimmande nymf.

Epistle

Music and verse form

The song has three stanzas, each of 17 lines, with a cello interlude before the 15th line. It is in time, marked Andante. The rhyming pattern is ABBBC-ADDDC-ECEC-FFC.
The source of the melody is unknown, but a variant is printed in Bellmans Poetiska Arbeten with the timbre Marche. The musicologist James Massengale comments that the melody printed there does not fit the rhythm of the text on the third and fourth lines, so it may be closer to the source than Bellman's adaptation of the tune.

Lyrics

The song was written between July and September 1770, making it one of the early epistles. The composition is subtitled "Till fader Berg, rörande fiolen". The lyrics portray and mimic the rhythm of playing the violin. Bellman's biographer Paul Britten Austin notes that where epistle No. 3 perfectly captures the sound of a horn with its minuet melody, No. 2's melody "is exactly a fiddler's", as "no hornist could conveniently play this tune". He remarks how different the two are "in style, tempo, rhythm, even instrumental tone-colour". Epistle No. 2 uses "swift flitting words" like "Kära Syster, hej!" to suggest the bowing of the violin, while the song begins with the "Vivaldi-like upbeat" of "Nå!", in his view placing the listener instantly on the dance-floor.

Carl Michael Bellman, 1770	Paul Britten Austin, 1977
Nå skrufva Fiolen, Hej! Spelman skynda dej. Kära Syster, hej! Svara inte nej, Svara Ja så bli Vi glada. Sätt dej du på stolen, Och stryk din Silfversträng;	So screw up the fiddle, Come fiddler, quick, I say! Dearest sister, hey! Never say me nay, Say but yes and we'll be jolly. Sit down, man, don't dawdle, caress thy silver string;

Reception and legacy

Lars Lönnroth writes that Bellman had the cello play the role of Ulla Winblad's body; contemporary instruments, and indeed his own cittern, were topped by a small carved head of a woman, above the tuning pegs. On the intervention of the cello in each stanza, marked "V:cllo" in the text, he states that Bellman certainly pretended to play the instrument, lewdly gliding his hands up and down its body and making everyone laugh. He puns on "skruva" also in Epistle 7, Fram med basfiolen, knäpp och skruva, "Som synes vara en elegi, skriven vid Ulla Winblad's säng, sent om en afton". Its opening lines are "Fram med basfiolen, knäpp och skruva, V:cllo --- skjut skruven in; pip och kuttra som en turturduva V:cllo --- för makan sin". Lönnroth comments that the ambiguity about the instrument here turns to explicit obscenity.
The Epistle was recorded live in Stockholm's concert hall by Cornelis Vreeswijk, Fred Åkerström and Ann-Louise Hanson as the first track of their 1964 folk music album Visor och oförskämdheter. Åkerström also recorded the song on his 1974 studio album Glimmande Nymf, where it formed the first track. His guitar and vocals were accompanied in his group's arrangement by Katarina Fritzén on flute and vocals, and Örjan Larsson on cello; the recording omits the last stanza. It was recorded, too, by Bosse Forssell on his 1999 album Porträtt av Bellman. The Epistle is sung in English by the tenor Torsten Mossberg, accompanied by Jonas Isaksson on guitar and Andreas Nyberg on violin, on the 2020 classical album Är jag född så vill jag leva/Am I Born, Then I'll Be Living.