I’m pretty sure that my biggest regret of 2019 will be not going to a GT40 show.  Reading reviews and watching rubbish quality YouTube videos is just not the same.

Being a GT fan in Guernsey (a small British island in the middle of the English Channel) is somewhat of a strange situation.  “Why do you listen to foreign music?” “How did you discover it?”  I can’t even begin to think of how many times I have been asked this over the years.

The year is 1993 and my 13 year old self had just discovered that Per was in a band before Roxette.  With my limited resources, being on a small island and no internet meant that finding any way to check out music by the ‘band with the weird name’ was proving very difficult.

Fast forward a couple of years to 1995 and I am a paid up member of the Official Roxette Fan Club with their quarterly Roxette Reviews (remember those?).  Long story short and thanks to a penpal, I soon received a mixtape of GT’s songs. Looking back, some of the songs that was included on this mix tape was random.  Songs like “December 24” and “Tuff Tuff Tuff”.  Not exactly big hitters.  Not that it mattered.

Immediately being hooked on the songs and being very determined to find a way to listen to more, I ordered a copy of the newly released Halmstads pärlor, closely followed by the Kompakta Tider boxset.  All these years later, I can’t remember where I ordered these two releases from!

Years go by, my Swedish skills slowly improve after listening to the GT albums over and over (and over) again, annoying anyone which got in my car around that time.  The GT25 tour thundered across Sweden and I made a pact with myself that I would make every effort to go and see the next tour, should there be a next tour.  Luckily there would be.

2013. another new album and another massive summer tour. My first, and only, Gyllene Tider gig happened at the mighty Ullevi.  And I absolutely loved it!  It may not have been the biggest show that GT did at Ullevi, but it will always bring back special memories for me.  Plus, we got Marie F singing “När alla vännerna gått hem”!  A perfect way to finish off the evening.

And here we are.  The end of the journey.  The end of the final tour.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend any of the shows on this final jaunt around Sweden, but I’m already waiting to pre-order the DVD / BD – you can’t have too many copies of “Sommartider”…

Just for fun, here are my top 10 GT tracks.  Not in any order because it would be too hard:

“Faller ner på knä”
“Det är över nu”
“Billy”
“Dag att tänka på refrängen”
“Vänta på mej!”
“Händerna”
“En sted vid en sjö i en skog”
“Tio droppar regn”
“(Dansar inte like bra som) sjömän”
“Ljudet av ett annat hjärta”

Going back to my earlier questions.  “Why do you listen to foreign music?” and “How did you discover it?”  Well, the final one is easy – I discovered GT via Roxette (obviously).  The first question is a bit harder to answer.  I don’t think of these songs being in a foreign language anymore – I’m too used to them.  Per’s knack for writing pop tunes and melodies like these (as well as his solo career and Roxette) is a part of me. These songs are engrained in my brain now.  Gyllene Tider may be over, but these songs will most certainly live on forever.

Tack så mycket Mats, Micke, Anders, Göran och Per!

GT40 for 40

Which song have we voted the top Gyllene Tider song ever? Following on from our Marie and Per ’60 for 60′ countdowns, we thought it would be fun to get the Daily Roxette crew around our virtual table again, listen to the whole back GT catalogue, discuss and vote to find out which song is our favourite.  Of course, there were some very different opinions from the group (especially from Thomas) but, generally, we all agree on the final list.  Number 40 will be revealed tomorrow and we’ll continue the countdown every other day until the victorious song is revealed.  

What is your favourite GT-song? Let us know in the comments below!