Harpo is a Swede, born one Jan Harpo Torsten Svensson in Stockholm, although he bears enough of a resemblance to the similarly-named Marx Brother to make it seem like he had an on-top-of-it personal manager. "Moviestar" was a 1975 boffo hit for him in Europe. It was one of those distinctively European pop hits of the time so indigenous to its home continent that it never got past our freedom rock borders, which were defended by the Van Zant and Allman families and a few distilleries. It's a great song, though. The hook sounds suspiciously like the one fellow Swede Jens Lekman devised for his 2007 song "The Opposite of Hallelujah." Also, this is one of two songs I like that mention the name of Ingmar Bergman. The other one is "Sweden" by The Divine Comedy, who I've given enough space to here lately. Say, perhaps our next theme week should be "Music About Movies." Or "Music About Ingmar Bergman." Whatever sounds good to you; I've been shooting blanks for theme week ideas since mid-October. There's a suggestion box in the foyer, use it.
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