Dan Lundberg’s book Singing through the Bars offers a thorough account of the (male) prison song genre in Sweden. Based on the archive collections of the Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research (SVA) but also new research conducted in the context of the project “Voices from Outside” (SVA), it examines the development of the genre in the 1960s and 1970s in light of a surge of interest by archives, record companies, and the media, as well as public debates concerning the Swedish correctional system. His carefully constructed, multi-layered (though at times repetitive) account brings together a wealth of archival material and a theoretical discussion of such notions as cultural heritage, archive, and identity formation.

The collection of prison songs and prisoners’ interviews by a research institution (SAV) and the release of recordings in the mid-1960s and ’70s—a time when prisoners were considered unworthy of visibility in most parts of the world—constitutes a remarkable case study. Published during a rising research interest in cultural practices in prison (for instance, Áine Mangaoang’s research on Norway and the Philippines, and Benjamin Harbert’s work on US prisons), the book is useful for musicologists, ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and others. It also provides a kind of genealogy of music practices in Scandinavian prisons, with Norway featured prominently. Lundberg is careful not to paint a misleading picture: despite music-making activities, Swedish prisons were far from idyllic.

Defining prison songs as songs about prison experience and crime written mostly—though not exclusively—by prisoners, Lundberg proposes two main categories. These work well for the arguments he wishes to make, but are nevertheless crude groupings—something he acknowledges—based on lyrics and speaking subject. Firstly, the “Voice of the Individual” songs refer to older “popular narrative songs.” Personal, sentimental, and often bitter, they talk about loneliness, longing for freedom, and fate. Secondly, the “Voice of the Collective” songs refer to songs from the 1960s and ’70s. Using prison vernacular, they are socially and politically conscious, defiant, and occasionally critical of the institution of prison. Unlike the first category, they do not often use existing popular melodies but newly composed music, and are more professional. For Lundberg, this change is indebted to public debates calling for prison reform, a theme echoed in this repertory. It is also directly linked to the collection of prison songs in the mid-1960s that shapes and creates this new category of prison songs.

Herein lies one of the book’s most important contributions: it shows how the way we collect and archive material shapes the material itself, conditioning not only the way we understand it, but also the living music tradition. This is a process he calls “cultural heritageing” or “archive loop.” This newly emergent homogeneous category of prison songs inevitably left out other kinds of songs, such as love and erotic songs, drug songs, and popular hits. The production of the album Kåklåtar is a telling example of this process. When Gunilla Thorgren, who worked for MNW record company, asked well-known prisoner singer Lennart “Konvaljen” Johansson to collaborate on the album while in prison, he sought material in Elisabeth Skarpe’s 1970 essay on prison songs; many of the songs he sang did not fall under the “prison songs” category, but included popular songs, among others. Acting as a kind of producer, Thorgren eventually chose more politically pronounced and newly composed songs for the album, leaving out most of his initial suggestions—a good example of Ludberg’s “cultural heritageing” argument. As one reads about Lundberg’s two categories of prison songs portrayed in recordings and archival collections, one wonders to what extent this newly standardised genre looped back to shape and condition the music practices and choices of ordinary prisoners in their daily lives.

Drawing on sociological studies on identity formation in prisons and ethnomusicological theories concerning music-making and identity, Lundberg’s analysis shows how the repertory of prison songs offers a sense of coherence, forging a common identity. Readers will appreciate the story of Lennart “Konvaljen” Johansson as a voice from below so to speak, but generally a discussion of “agency” and how this is reclaimed through music is missing. Admittedly the material Lundberg is working with is vast; however, moving beyond the discussion of lyrics and adding oral (hi)stories would empirically ground the ways in which music forges (imaginary) communities in prisons. A more detailed discussion about interview methodologies (pp. 139–140) also would have been useful for those currently engaged in such research, addressing the many ethical risks entailed (e.g., the reproduction of power structures and retraumatisation) and the inability of the interviewer to directly confront contradictions/discrepancies during the interview; for instance, the fictionalised autobiographical narrative presented by “Konvaljen” raises evaluation issues concerning oral history for Lundberg. A theoretical approach grounded in trauma/memory studies and social anthropology would help understand such challenging moments and the coded messages they carry. To be fair, Lundberg does not profess to address these issues. By mapping, analysing, and theorising the development of the prison song genre, which he sets as the book’s main objectives, his book paves the way for new studies based on prisoners’ testimonies about music in Swedish prisons as they emerge from below.