The tribute performance that brought Emmylou Harris to tears
Sweden’s Polar Music Prize is a prestigious international honour, often described as the “Nobel Prize of Music”, and its list of recipients, or “laureates”, includes everyone from Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder to Ennio Morricone and Yo-Yo Ma. Still, the annual awards show in Stockholm doesn’t tend to produce many viral videos outside of Scandinavia. A notable exception came in 2015, when one of the honorees of the night, American country music legend Emmylou Harris, found herself unexpectedly moved to tears by a tribute performance from an up-and-coming Swedish band that was determined to show her how much she’d meant to them.
These days, First Aid Kit is no stranger to audiences around the world. The folk rock outfit has played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury twice, and their last two albums – 2018’s Ruins and 2022’s Palomino – each reached the number three spot on the UK charts. The group is led by Stockholm-born sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, who’ve been singing together their whole lives and recording together since they were teenagers. Over time, their songwriting abilities have proven as dependable as their exquisite harmonies, building a loyal and passionate fanbase. Back in 2015, though, it was primarily the influences behind those harmonies that landed the sisters on stage at the Polar Music Prize.
While First Aid Kit had certainly had some success by that point, they weren’t necessarily a household name in the UK or US, even among fans of similar-minded acts like Bright Eyes or Fleet Foxes. In Sweden, of course, it was a slightly different story, as the sisters had already scored two number one albums in their native country with 2012’s The Lion’s Roar and 2014’s Stay Gold. On those early records, Johanna and Klara had also firmly established themselves as keen admirers of one Ms Emmylou Harris, often noting in particular how much they’d been inspired by the records Harris recorded in the early 1970s with the late Gram Parsons.
It was Parsons who’d helped steer a young, folky Emmylou into the world of country music, setting the course for the rest of her incredible career. And on the night of that career being celebrated with the Polar Music Prize, it proved more than fitting that First Aid Kit was there to play a song celebrating the way Harris and Parsons sang together.
With the titular legend herself sitting in the audience that night, the Söderberg sisters introduced their song ‘Emmylou’ with a personal story.
“When we were 14 and 16, we discovered the music of Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, and it was quite the musical revelation for us,” Klara said. “We were so inspired that we wrote this song, which is about the joy and magic of singing together with someone that you love.”
“And we never ever thought that we’d play this in front of you!” added Johanna, who then received a long-distance air kiss from a smiling Harris. “It’s an incredible honour. Thank you so much for all the inspiration.”
While the compliments were moving, it was the song ‘Emmylou’ itself that left its namesake holding back the tears and eventually wiping more than a few from her face. Aside from being a lovely pedal-steel country tune a la Gram, it’s safe to assume that the words also evoked thoughts of those early days singing with Parsons, a great talent who died long before his time in 1973 at the age of 26. Harris was only 25 at the time herself.
The chorus of ‘Emmylou’ goes like this:
“I’ll be your Emmylou and I’ll be your June
If you’ll be my Gram and my Johnny too
No, I’m not asking much of you
Just sing, little darling, sing with me“.
It’s not every day that you get to make your hero cry out of appreciation for your own tribute to her. But the performance struck a chord, and 14 million views on YouTube followed, with fans of both Harris and First Aid Kit enjoying a pretty close-to-perfect moment.
