A Reeves Soundcraft Recording Disc contains two songs by the Order of Runeberg Choir:  Slumrande Toner and Vart skall jag köra hästar och vagn?  I did a slideshow audio for Slumrande Toner and posted it at Facebook earlier, yesterday I posted a slideshow audio for Vart skall jag köra hästar och vagn?  

 

Vart skall jag köra hästar och vagn?   was on the program at the April 30, 1955 Runeberg Songfest in Seattle.   This event was held at a Masonic Temple.

 

The song is not in the collected songbooks at the Scandinavian Immigrant Experience Archives and not on the internet.  Hasse Nygard shared a link to the three verses and the music through "Malax Bygden Forr och Nu" on Facebook.

 

It is possible that Order of Runeberg Choir Directors avoided the song  because of content.  A story had to be innocent of any wrong-doing, according to the principles of the Motion Picture Code established in the early 1930s.  Vart skall jag köra hästar och vagn?   is a song about a buggy ride. "The Surrey With The Fringe on Top" met the standard.  In Autumn, 1955, "Love and Marriage…" in a musical of Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, remained met the standard:  "...goes together like a horse and carriage.  Dad was told by mother, You can't have one without the other."

 

The buggy ride in Vart skall jag köra hästar och vagn?, is a duet about sexuality, and the couple portrayed is clearly not married.  It is possible that Order of Runeberg Choir directors avoided a song like this because of this content.

 

Much of the translation in the slideshow audio I did is from PLU Archives Director Kerstin Ringdahl.