Are you serious? En popgrupp från Skellefteå i Västerbotten?

I remember reading in the early seventies -- and I hasten to add that I’m talking about the early seventies, people, not my early seventies -- a novel by Ira Levin called This Perfect Day. The always-nearly-reliable Wikipedia calls it “a heroic science fiction novel of a technocratic dystopia” and adds that it is “often compared to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World.”

I would just like to point out here that the title of George Orwell’s book isn’t Nineteen Eighty-Four, it’s 1984. I’m just sayin’.

The Swedish-language Wikipedia, however, says that “This Perfect Day är en popgrupp från Skellefteå i Västerbotten, bildad 1987. Gruppnamnet är lånat från Ira Levin’s science fiction-roman En vacker dag från 1970” which according to Google Translate means “This Perfect Day is a pop group from Skellefteå in northern Sweden, formed in 1987. The group name is borrowed from Ira Levin’s science fiction novel A beautiful day from 1970.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to understand why achieving world peace is such an elusive goal.

A few years earlier, Ira Levin had written Rosemary’s Baby and a few years hence he would go on to write The Boys From Brazil as well. All three of those books kept me turning the pages.

In many ways, This Perfect Day is similar to Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, published in 1967. I remember seeing Michael York as Logan in the 1976 movie version and having a feeling of déjà vu. To be fair, I suppose if I had read Logan’s Run when it first came out, the feeling of déjà vu would have occurred when I read This Perfect Day. That’s life.

On the first page of This Perfect Day the following poem is printed, along with an explanation that it is chanted by children bouncing a ball on a playground:

Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei,
Led us to this perfect day.
Marx, Wood, Wei and Christ,
All but Wei were sacrificed.
Wood, Wei, Christ and Marx,
Gave us lovely schools and parks.
Wei, Christ, Marx and Wood,
Made us humble, made us good.

I could just see those children bouncing that ball and chanting this poem. I was hooked. I had to find out what it meant and why they would do such a thing. I also was intrigued by the face in the book jacket illustration: it had one green eye and one brown eye.



I’m not going to tell you what happens in the book; you’ll have to find out for yourself.

Anyway, when the poem popped into my consciousness this morning out of nowhere (well, okay, out of my dim, distant past and my incredible brain’s long-term storage), my next impulse was to compose a little poem of my own using four names chosen completely at random.

Here it is:

Frances, Ian, Neil, and Shirley,
Stayed up late and rose up early.
Ian, Neil, Shirley, and Frances,
All but Neil wore underpantses.
Neil, Shirley, Frances, and Ian,
Couldn’t believe what their eyes were seein’.
Shirley, Frances, Ian, and Neil,
If anyone could ever deserve the harsh punishment
that one day will be meted out to Neil at the Old Bailey, he’ll.



Now if I can come up with a book to go along with the poem, I just know I will make a fortune.

Especially if I also form a popgrupp.