As an artist, Lasse Berghagen was not cool, tough, hip, exclusive or superior to his audience. He was quite the opposite – wide open, welcoming. He wore his stardom with a disarming modesty. He was able to carry his long, sprawling, dancing body with elegant grace and an implied awkwardness in a well-balanced mix.
His groove – which was strong but low-key – was a mix of accordion swing, a bit of pop and a disarming, cheerfully Swedish Latino twist (as in "An Evening in June" or the triumphant cha-cha-cha-figure that ends "Stockholm in My Heart").
He was an artist who didn't make anyone feel left out, stupid or uninitiated. On the contrary. Lasse Berghagen's basic message to his audience was – to borrow a winged phrase from the poet Göran Sonnevi, a rather different poet born from the same era – "we are not shit".
But Lasse Berghagen expressed it differently, of course, without anger, with playful music, almost childish, and a kind of pure friendliness in tone – also almost childish.
The strong sense of loss and loss that permeated the social changes of the 60s and 70s, he poetically encapsulated with a song about the teddy bear of his childhood named Fredriksson. The same year that ABBA, with sequins and platform shoes, made mellon their springboard to the world, Lasse Berghagen came second with a melodic song about a man who has been so affected by love that he has gone and bought himself an acoustic guitar to be able to express the unaccustomed feelings.
The sing-along at Skansen transformed Lasse Berghagen from a narrowly niched entertainment program to a softly swinging national fair, a national celebration in inclusion, where everyone really was equally welcome – and he was rewarded with an outstanding love from his large audience.