Pop Songs in English, Written by Native Speakers of Swedish

ABBA.

If you were in the land of the living in ’93, you’ll remember a song called “All That She Wants,” by the Swedish band Ace of Base. I don’t know anybody who resisted that song. I, who usually hate songs like that (porny-poppy, slick, computer-generated), bought the CD and sang along with it happily. I can still play it on the guitar twenty-five years later.

I’m about to say something that has been said many times. The power of that song resides in a mistranslation. Not a mistranslation—better say a slippage. The chorus of the song goes (and I’m doing this from memory):

The intended meaning was “All that she wants is another lover” (so watch out, you sensitive boy who might foolishly fall for her). But of course, no native speaker