His "Summer in P1" is about music and politics, just like his own life still does. When he towards the end of the program briefly reveals that he has Alzheimer's, it comes as a surprise.
Mikael Wiehe thinks he has been lucky, so far he remembers most things except names. But during the farewell tour in 2022, he felt a new nervousness when he was going to go on stage. Instead of contacting a doctor, he got help with tuning the guitar and other practical things. If he was sick, he didn't want to know until after the over 70 performances.
When he finished, he went to the doctor and got a message that he could relatively quickly accept.
Two months after I got my diagnosis, I thought I was feeling so incredibly well that I called the doctor and asked: are you sure?, he says on the phone from his home in Malmö.
I consider it a blessing that I'm feeling as well as I do. I suffer more from hearing poorly than from my Alzheimer's. It will get worse, but it's going slowly.
Music and Politics
Björn Skifs got ahead of him by going out with his dementia diagnosis, he notes now. Mikael Wiehe has strangely enough never met Skifs, even though they both, as young people, were in Swedish Radio's pop band competition. Mikael Wiehe in his brother's band "The Moccers" – who came last – Björn Skifs, as a professional guest artist, was so nervous that he cried.
I thought it was so strong, he went on stage and handled his task, and it's probably the same thing you hope for now, in a different time and situation, it's about showing "manliness", if the expression is allowed.
Every day before 10 am, he works on his music – is it the best brake medicine? Maybe, he thinks himself. The song "But the captain has gone ashore" is about his new life and will be included on a forthcoming album.
Crossword
In 2005, he had a kind of blackout on stage and realized that working on translating lyrics had become a need and a kind of necessary rest from concert life – he still translates and compares it to solving crosswords. These days, "Mikael Wiehe's American songbook" is also coming, where he has collected as many of his translations as possible of, among others, John Lennon, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, but above all Bob Dylan's songs.
The Swedish Academy has a poet's grant that they award – I hope I'll get it now that I've translated a Nobel laureate. We'll see.
Do you feel stressed?
All good songs are about death in some way, "The Girl and the Crow", "Titanic", he says and mentions the one he gave to Lasse Stefanz: "I'm going to live until I die".
Born 1946. Occupation: Musician, singer, lyricist, composer, and translator of, among others, Bob Dylan's songs.
Career: Was a forefront figure for Swedish prog music in the 1970s. Had the group Hoola Bandoola Band together with Björn Afzelius and Peter Clemmedson.
Most famous songs: "The Girl and the Crow", "Titanic".
Future plans: Release new album and autobiography (with another writer) for his 80th birthday next year. This fall, he will participate in the Book Fair in Gothenburg.
