1. July 2025
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Songs Of My Life: Benjamin Rajani – Á Sigursferð

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

The Faroe Islands are definitely a special place to me. More and more, I also get into Faroese music. Most of you might think of their metal export Tyr when it comes to the island and music. In my newest Songs Of My Life posting, I present you a song, which has been very present to me since the beginning of 2024. It was also one my most frequently played songs on Spotify during the entire year. Here is my posting about Á Sigursferð by Benjamin Rajani.

 

Á Sigursferð – The Story of the Song

The author of the song is Benjamin Rajani. The Faroese artist nowadays lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. The nowadays roughly 30 years old artist (I struggled to find precise bio about him) already started to release music in 2016. His first EP To Be Torn was still in English and rather headed towards folk music. Thereafter he released a couple of gospel-alike tracks. In that time, he also moved towards releasing music in Faroese. The 2018 song 40 was his first release in his mother tongue. In 2019, he released Jesus Kærleikskongur (something like “Jesus – King of Love”).

However, after that, Rajani went on a more than three year musical hiatus in regards of releases. One reason for that was his studies in Psychology. He finished the Bachelor of Science at Manchester Metropolitan University with First Class Honors and later added a master at the University of Copenhagen. In early 2024, he released Á Sigursferð. While most of his songs are rather calm and personal, this song is not that characteristic for his songbook. It definitely comes with folk music vibes, but is also very rocking. The song is written and composed by Rajani himself. Hans Poulsen played guitars, synth and keyboard, while Tórður Dam Jacobsen is the drummer on the song. Being released on 3rd January 2024, the song was rather quickly added to some 1,000 playlists.

 

A Patriotic Song

The lyrics of the chorus are

Hetta lítla landið
– sterkt sum ættarbandið –
er á sigursferð.
Banka allar tjóðir,
hýrurin er góður,
tí at Føroyar eru her
á sigursferð.

Or – in English –

This little country
– strong as the family bond –
is on a winning streak.
Bank all nations,
the rent is good,
because the Faroe Islands are here
on a victory lap.

The song with a lot of national pride has been extensively used by the Faroese Handball Federation to promote their men’s national team, especially on social media. Together with another Faroese song, Aright by Danny & the Veetos (which has been already released in 2016 originally), Á Sigursferð became very popular. The Faroese national team qualified for the first time for an EHF Handball Euro 2024 and played their group matches at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin (now: Uber Arena).

 

Á Sigursferð – My Story of the Song

The Faroe Islands are a very special place to me. My very first trip there was in the early 2000’s. At that time, I still had to take the ferry from Denmark. During the last years, I have traveled there quite frequently, typically using Atlantic Airways’ flights from Copenhagen (CPH). On a very personal level, the island of 55,000 people and 80,000 sheep is simply like my relax place. I love hanging out in the nature, strolling through the small villages and vibrant Torshavn or simply watch the birds flying around. They even got my favorite ones – puffins 🙂

However, the Faroe Islands gained quite some popularity and attention due to a very different reason: sports. The former national soccer stadium Svangaskard always felt like a tough ground to play away matches at. Soccer national teams like Austria know it. However, since the 2020’s, the Faroe Islands more and more play a role in European sports. The first one which left quite a mark was KI Klaksvik, a soccer club from the second largest town of the majorly independent archipelago. In 2023, they even went for a sports miracle, qualifying to the group match phase of the UEFA Conference league. I already introduced you to their home ground Djupumyra and took you to a match at national stadium Torsvollur.

The Faroe Islands become a Big Handball Nation

While it is still quite a defeat for European soccer national and club teams to be beaten by the Faroese, they became huge in another sports: handball. The sports feels like a perfect one for the islanders: there is quite a dense available of sports halls. The sports facilities typically have an open door policy – so that you can go in and play whenever you like. It might also be a big factor that you simply need less people to play handball compared to soccer. Finally, they got a quite a golden generation in men’s handball. For example, Hakun West av Teigum and Elias Ellefsen a Skipagotu are two players who play major roles in the German Bundesliga. For the EHF Euro 2024 in Germany, the team qualified for a European championship for the first time.

The ladies followed later that year and played the their tournament in Switzerland. I introduced you to my experiences at Mercedes Benz Arena in Berlin (now: Uber Arena) and St. Jakobshalle in Basel. Recently, the women’s team even made it and qualified for the IHF World Championship for the first time. The tournament will be held in Germany and the Netherlands later in 2025. I am looking forward to support the teams at this occasion – and sing along to Rajani’s song several times.

 

Á Sigursferð – Spotify and Lyrics

Here is Á Sigursferð on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iqsiE10du27VTym6ryhqP?si=fc92e7b0123247f4&pt=72d131225e292de71e24b02a4aace0e4

You can find the lyrics here.

 

Songs Of My Life Playlist

I created a playlist with all the Songs Of My Life songs so far. It will be updated with very new episode:

 

Faroe Islands

Here are my postings related to the Faroe Islands:

 

Postings about Handball

Here are all my postings related to handball:

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