Ingen tid för Kärlek in a documentary of the infamous Johnny Bode. Most of us who are familiar with him know about him for one reason only: he’s the man behind Bordellmammas Visor — the pornographic schlager songs immortalized on record in 1968. I’d guess that songs like Runka mig med vita handskar på (“Wank Me with White Gloves On”) and Mutta-spricka-polka (Not sure if that’s even translateable) have in some way lodged themselves into the Swedish national psyche. Many might deny it, but many, many people have some sort of relationship with those songs.Especially thos at my age. And I believe even the younger generation might think that it’s “fun”. Of course, nowadays there are many artist that profile themselves to be vulgar or on the verge of being pornagrafic lyric-wise.
In some context you could say that Johny Bode actually pawed the way for some kind of shock rock. Except it was not rock and it was purly by lyrics, not theatrics.He should also be mentioned as one of the forefathers to the naoorw subgenre “Köns-Rock”. Again. not excatly rock, but more schager nished. But the songs are well written musically and the lyrics, despite it’s content usually have a story in them. It’s not just vulgarity for it’s own sake.
I knew a bit more than that about Johnny Bode before I saw this documentary. I knew he was a notorious liar and mythomaniac, and that his life hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. I picked up even more — and in a very entertaining way — from the excellent podcast Snedtänkt with Kalle Lind. One of the episodes is entirely dedicated to Johnny. It’s incredibly fascinating to hear how Johnny, who I would argue had real talent, kept ruining everything for himself again and again. The anecdotes are simply fabulous.
I have to give the podcast some extra credit too — if it hadn’t been for that episode, I wouldn’t have started looking into Johnny Bode again and discovered this documentary, which I hadn’t heard of before.
He’s a truly interesting character, and I absolutely recommend anyone with even the slightest curiosity to dive into the story of this true original. I dare say we’ve never had an artist quite like Johnny Bode — before or since. It’s a touching life story, though one that frequently makes you burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all.
Ingen tid för Kärlek follows a person in search of answers to who Johnny Bode really was. Like most people, his first encounter with Johnny was through those infamous dirty songs. Whether that’s true or just a convenient setup for making the film is unclear. One of the highlights is that the film includes one or two interviews with Johnny himself — just audio, but still. Most importantly, we get a lot of insight from Lillemor Dahlkvist, who, at the end of Johnny’s life, seems to have been the only friend he had left. This is somewhat remarkable, considering he broke his promise to keep her anonymous when she lent her voice to his pornographic records.
Ingen tid för Kärlek as a documentary can be viewed in several ways. On one level, Ingen tid för Kärlek paints a portrait of one of the greatest eccentrics in Swedish history. But it’s also the story of a tragic life. Personally, I feel a great deal of empathy for what he went through — even if, to a large extent, he only had himself to blame. In my opinion, he was a brilliant composer with a divine voice. I’d love to see a full release of Johnny Bode’s complete works.
If you know nothing about Johnny Bode, this is a truly excellent introduction. If you already know a bit, it might not be quite as engaging. I, for one, would have liked it to go a little deeper. But you can’t have everything. We should just be grateful that the Johnny Bode Society exists and keeps the legend alive.
