Oslo rings a tribute
The Norwegian capital will pay respects by playing a Motörhead tune at Oslo City Hall
Photo: Rama / Wikimedia Commons.
Lemmy from Motörhead in 2011.
The Local
Iconic Motörhead frontman Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister was laid to rest on January 8 in Los Angeles with a star-studded memorial service followed by a raucous celebration of his life on the Sunset Strip. Half a world away in Norway, the rock legend is receiving a most subtle, but longer-lasting, tribute.
The carillon in Oslo City Hall’s bell tower will be playing Motörhead’s 2015 track “Electricity” every day at 6:00 p.m. through May 31 as a tribute to the revered rocker.
The tune, taken from the band’s final album Bad Magic, has joined a daily line-up of songs that also includes John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Nine Inch Nail’s “Hurt,” and the Super Mario Brothers theme.
The Oslo City Hall carillon is the largest in the Nordics with 49 bells. They play a different tune every hour between 7:00 a.m. and midnight. The only songs to never change are Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s “Morgenstemning,” played every day at 7:00 a.m., and “Vektersang,” played at midnight.
Lemmy, one of rock and roll’s great survivors, was diagnosed with cancer on December 26—two days after his 70th birthday—and died on December 28.
Motörhead’s long-time drummer Mikkey Dee told Sweden’s Expressen that the singer willed himself to die after the diagnosis. “When he went home he said, ‘I’ve had a good run, f*** it,’ and then more or less laid down and died,” Dee, whose real name is Micael Kiriakos Delaoglou, said.
This article was originally published on The Local.
It also appeared in the Jan. 15, 2016, issue of the Norwegian American Weekly.
