Between 1850 and 1920 about 25% of the population of Sweden emigrated to North America. Among these emigrants were all four of my grandparents. The most popular song on the Swedish American Hit Parade for many years was Hälsa Dem Därhemma (Greetings to my Homeland). I can remember many Sunday afternoons in the 1950's when my parents and my father's sister Alice and her husband Nils Palmquist (who emigrated to the US when he was 20 years old) and other relatives would gather around the old Waldorf upright grand piano. My sister took piano lessons for a number of years and she would usually play while the others would sing old Swedish songs.
The story this song tells is that of a sailor who on a dark and quiet night hears the wing beats of migrating swallows. He asks the swallows to fly day and night until they reach his homeland and there greet the land and his family for him. Imagine the emigrants over a hundred years ago who left their homes for America knowing that it was very likely that they would never see their homeland or family again. How difficult that must have been, and how it is not surprising that Hälsa Dem Därhemma was so popular.
