Skipperlaks – When the Absurd Becomes Music

Michael Staun explores absurd humour, unexpected imagery and playful songwriting in Skipperlaks, from Alkohol i blodet and Møjn Møjn Møjn to Skål og Hurra.

On absurd humour, strange stories and the art of surprise

Why must song lyrics always make sense? Why must a story be logical, and why should words necessarily take us where we expect to go?

In Skipperlaks, we have a soft spot for the absurd, the offbeat and the unexpected. Our songs live somewhere between sailors’ songs, down-to-earth humour and pure nonsense.

And that is entirely deliberate.

Painting pictures nobody expects

When I write lyrics for Skipperlaks, I am not necessarily trying to tell a story that follows the rules of reality.

Quite the opposite.

What interests me is when words create images the listener never saw coming.

Why write about a beautiful sunset when you can write about the Pope with a red guitar?

It is about creating pictures that listeners have to imagine for themselves.

And sometimes things become so absurd that the absurdity itself is what makes them funny.

From Calcutta to Cuba in a Tesla

In our song Alkohol i blodet (Alcohol in the Blood), the story begins with a trip to Calcutta on a flying carpet.

Soon we find ourselves in a Tesla heading for Cuba, where the car is traded for an old dented tuba.

The tuba is filled with mojito, and from there the story takes off.

Does it make sense?

Not in the slightest.

But you can picture it, and that is exactly the point.

Rhymes and the sound of words are allowed to carry the story forward. Sometimes the next line appears simply because one word sounds funny alongside another.

A sailor gone astray

In Møjn Møjn Møjn, a sailor travels to Tyrol to learn to play the fiddle.

Missing the sunshine, he rents a gondola and sails to Southern Jutland, where he finds love.

It is a love story, but certainly not a conventional one.

Here, absurdity is woven into the storytelling itself. Everything is told as if it were perfectly normal, even though the events are completely illogical.

Three wise men from Brøndby Strand

In Skål og Hurra (Cheers and Hooray), we take the familiar Danish Christmas hymn Et barn er født i Betlehem (A Child Is Born in Bethlehem) as our starting point.

But in our version, the three wise men come from Brøndby Strand, sail in a rubber duck and follow the star to Aabenraa.

There they find Jesus in the manger wearing lederhosen.

He offers them smoke and Christmas schnapps, but gets a beating in return.

It is a mixture of Christmas tradition, parody and absurd humour.

And because the melody is so familiar, the unexpected lyrics become even more surprising.

🎧 Listen to Skål og Hurra on Spotify

When the rhymes decide the story

Playing with words is a central part of my songwriting.

Sometimes the story does not dictate the rhymes. The rhymes dictate the story.

One word leads to another, and suddenly you find yourself somewhere you never imagined.

It creates a freedom in which imagination does not have to obey the rules of reality.

Perhaps that is precisely why these ridiculous stories work.

The absurd does not need explaining

One of the most important things for me is not to explain the joke.

If a sailor sails from Tyrol to Southern Jutland in a gondola, then that is simply what he does.

No explanation is needed.

Listeners can create the pictures in their own minds.

Of course, Skipperlaks is also about music, parties, beer and singing together. But behind the cheerful melodies lies a real joy in playing with language and challenging expectations.

Why paint a picture everyone has already seen when you can paint one nobody ever imagined?

Discover Skipperlaks · Listen to Skipperlaks on Spotify

Michael Staun – Skipperlaks