The Advantage of Not Being a Tenor

“When I wake up in the morning on my sunny summer island and sometimes hear my two-year-old daughter Ann-Charlotte with her tiny childish voice, but in good sense of pitch, singing “Du lilla solsken som tittar in…” is it then strange to say that I sometimes think of my own childhood filled with singing…” This is how Jussi Björling begins his memoirs Med bagaget i strupen (With the luggage in my throat). Yes, there should hardly be any doubt about the fact that his daughter was born to become a singer. However, Ann-Charlotte was not very interested in playing the piano and didn’t begin with that until she was around ten years old. “I thought it was quite boring, but I learned to read music, of course,” she says. Jussi didn’t want her to take part in the music-and-song lessons in her school, but Ann-Charlotte admits that she anyhow sneaked in, because she liked it so much.