Love Me Like A Viking - Man In Plaid

By Laurie Bolivar - From The Album "Songs From the Front Room"
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“Love Me Like A Viking” was written in March 2020 while I was isolating at a remote cabin along the Bay of Fundy. It was the first thing I had written in years. I had been waiting to be inspired to write again and I had several aborted attempts but hadn’t finished a song. I was so relieved when one finally tumbled out.

The inspiration came a few months before, when I was renovating a spare room in our house. My stepdaughter had written on the walls because we knew we would be taking them down and I remember looking at all the sayings and being impressed by the sentiment. I looked at these inspirational statements she had written for herself and thought: this kid is some kind of Viking. She wants to go out into the world and do what she feels is right without regard to what society might think of her. I’ve heard the term “Viking” used to refer to people who do that. The line “Love me like a Viking” began to mean: love me in an undivided way, without the thought of consequences or influence from the outside world.

With that percolating, I had to leave for the cabin. I could hear on the radio that the first wave of Covid infections was landing people in hospitals. Healthcare workers, grocery store workers and truckers were being applauded for their sacrifices. I began to think of the sacrifices their spouses and families make each time those people go out , not just their own lives, but the security of those back home. And now it seemed it wasn’t just first responders but ordinary people with ordinary jobs that were essential but suddenly carried risk.

Eventually, I came to think that those people’s spouses might support and resent that sacrifice at the same time. They might feel like, “Go do what it is you do, but when you get done, I need you too and I need to be the focus.”

But, of course, when you read the words, it has a playful side, like this could be about sexual cosplay. “Love me like a Viking, like a fighter, like a nurse...." You can imagine the costumes. So, dark and light at the same time.