Björn Wiman: Jimmie Åkesson Spoke a Rare Truth About Culture

The Muppets’ cheerful theme song began life as a German cabaret number released just two months before Nazi Germany invaded Poland. For Björn Wiman, that unlikely connection reveals how culture can entertain, distract and expose a society at the same time.

In his column, Wiman reflects on the familiar melody from The Muppet Show: “It’s time to play the music / It’s time to light the lights.” Many Swedes of a certain age carry the tune in their musical memory, where its jazzy, theatrical cabaret style still prompts an instinctive smile.

Anne Sofie von Otter’s new album, “Berlin! Berlin! Berlin! Kabarett und exil,” provides the answer to the song’s origins. The Muppets’ signature tune was originally called “Musik, Musik, Musik!” and appeared in the 1939 film “Hallo Janine!”, a German mistaken-identity comedy starring dancer Marika Rökk. Rökk was one of Joseph Goebbels’ favored stars in the entertainment industry of the Third Reich.

Wiman describes the light cavalry of music and film as a tool for projecting optimism and preventing the home front from sinking into melancholy. For many Germans, he writes, escapism became a way to live and survive. As the war drew to a close, songs such as “Es geht alles vorüber,” or “Everything will pass,” helped drown out the sounds of the front and bomb-damaged cities.

He praises von Otter’s recording with musicians from Berlin’s Komische Oper as a cultural achievement. The album focuses mainly on music from the years before the war and brings together romantic ballads, political satire and burlesque dance music. Wiman says it captures the conflicting aesthetics of the Weimar era and shows how culture functions in a society standing on the edge of an erupting volcano. He frames the discussion against speculation that the Sweden Democrats could enter government, arguing that the consequences for Swedish cultural life would extend far beyond more concerts by Fröken Snusk.

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It’s time to play the music / It’s time to light the lights