Eddie Meduza

Eddie Meduza (real name Errol Leonard Norstedt; 17 June 1948 – 17 January 2002) was a Swedish composer and musician working mainly in the rockabilly genre. Many of his songs were about alcohol, women, and cars, often with obscene lyrics. Sometimes they were also politically oriented, many aimed against the Swedish Government in power at the time Moderaterna-Centerpartiet-Folkpartiet and Swedish Social Democrats (Conservative respectively Labour-parties) and also against the Norwegians. He was also a popular performer of Raggare music. Norstedt's other identity was the far more vulgar E. Hitler.^[1] In this guise he generally recorded more dubious material from pure ridiculous recordings like "E.Hitler skiter" (a recording of himself move the bowels) to sexually explicit material. The E.Hitler recordings were only available through tapes, that customers had order by mail directly from his small sole proprietorship (during his lifetime, some of these tapes appear to have become copied to CDs posthumously). He did, however, have a certain deeper humorous line as well. For instance, did he joke about the in Sweden famous singer Carola Häggkvist, by his recording "Carolas pattar" ("Carola's tits")—which his fans presumably would hope to be very sexist—but that turned out to be an all instrumental recording? On tour (as Eddie Meduza) could he urge his audience to drink vodka, and become just as drunk as he usually was himself during his performances, to the tunes of his "Mera brännvin" ("More moonshine!" , would be the best translation).^[2]

He is remembered now mostly for his more explicit work, but many of his songs are very ironic and some contain clever, albeit unpolished, social commentary, and earn his music something of a cult following. Norstedt also recorded serious rockabilly songs with a distinct 1950s flavour in his own studio, called Studio Ronka^[1] (ronka or runka is Swedish slang for masturbation, similar to wanking in English). He played most of the instruments himself. He often got bad reviews from the press, notably Expressen journalist Mats Olsson, to which Norstedt replied by writing even more offensive songs, such as "Kuken står på Mats Olsson" (Mats Olsson has a hard-on), "Mats Olsson är en jävla bög" (Mats Olsson is a damn fag) and "Mats Olsson runkar kuken" (Mats Olsson is wanking his cock). He reportedly said that no matter what he did it was never good enough for the critics.^[3]

Despite this he was considered an accomplished musician and songwriter, in particular by Swedish record company executive Bert Karlsson who, with mixed results, tried to foster that talent in Norstedt. He never had a major breakthrough nor achieved any commercial success, and this is commonly attributed to his increasingly obscene songwriting. According to Meduza, he developed alcoholism in the late 1970s during periods of intensive touring. In 1981, he was convicted of drink-driving, and spent one month in prison. This jail sentence did nothing to reduce his alcohol consumption, and a year after his release, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Still, Meduza's alcoholism worsened, and a major health scare came for him in 1993, when he collapsed on his way to perform at a concert. He was diagnosed with ventricular hypertrophy (enlarged heart), and doctors warned him that he would die if he drank again. Meduza initially heeded his doctors' advice, changed his lifestyle completely,^[4] sobered up and started working out. By the late 1990s, Meduza's depression had worsened, and he relapsed back into alcoholism, which rapidly took its toll on his weak health. On 17 January 2002, Meduza died of a heart attack at his home in Småland in southern Sweden, aged 53. Meduza was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Småland Åsnen. He is survived by his wife and children.

Discography

See also

• List of Swedes in music

External links

• Official Web page (in Swedish)
• John-Johns fan-site (in Swedish)

References