00:02
Joachim Svare
I picked a picture by Emil Nolde called Vesterhavsklitter. And I picked it because it represents something from my childhood. I have great memories from Vesterhav, which is the sea on the western coastline of Denmark. It's basically the Atlantic Ocean, right? I want to see something that gives me a strong feeling inside.

00:30
Joachim Svare
I remember from my childhood, me and my cousins, Thomas and Mette, their mom, my moster Inge Lise, and my granddad, we had spent several summers over there in a summer house. And my granddad loved the sunsets and we always walked down like it was five minutes from the beach, and we walked down there so many times and we were looking out over the ocean. And that picture, when I saw that, that's what it brought me back to.

01:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the National Gallery of Denmark and the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who've made a significant mark in the U.S.

01:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Joachim Svare, an Emmy winning musician and music producer based in Los Angeles. Welcome, Joachim.

01:31
Joachim Svare
Thank you so much, Tina.

01:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Before we start, I would like to let the listeners know that you and I have known each other for more than 20 years. We used to live in the same Danish community on Ethel Avenue in Studio City. We became close friends and we still are to this day.

01:47
Joachim Svare
Now the secret is out.

01:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes. And Joachim, let's start there. Tell us about this Danish community on Ethel Avenue in Studio City, which primarily consisted of a group of Danish musicians. How did it come about, and please describe the place and its atmosphere for the listeners to get an idea of what the place was like.

02:08
Joachim Svare
Okay. So that place— it had been such a joyful place for me to live. And I came over here in 1992 to study at a music school called Grove School of Music. And I came over here with a friend, and he's also still over here, Lars Bjerre.

02:26
Joachim Svare
We came over here around Christmas, and we had found a place out in the valley in a really bad area out by DMV in the center of San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles. And we were super happy, because two young Danish guys, we could see the mountains, and there was a swimming pool in the middle of the courtyard in the apartment building, and we could see some palm trees. 

02:49
Joachim Svare
So we thought that we had struck it rich there. We paid a security deposit, and when we came to pick up the key, the landlord lady, she slammed the door in our face and said, sorry, the apartment is rented out.

03:06
Joachim Svare
The school was supposed to start the next day. We didn't know what to do. So we got into the car we borrowed from a friend, and we got somehow guided from the universe. It took us up to a street called Ventura Boulevard, and we made a left turn, and then a couple of streets down, we made another left turn, and suddenly we saw this apartment building and it was almost like we heard this "aaaahhhhh" sound.

03:32
Joachim Svare
And we walked in there. As far as I remember it was night and we found the landlord and it was an old lady. Her name was Betty — her and her husband Jack. They were the landlords there and for some reason they liked us and there was an empty apartment and that started this Danish community.

03:51
Joachim Svare
We had friends who came over here and friends of friends. And suddenly at its highest, there were probably around 25 Danish people living in this little apartment building and you became one of them. And we had great parties. We had barbecues every night. We were drinking a lot of wine and beer and surrounded by friends. It was a wonderful time.

04:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And maybe describe the place itself, what it looked like and the environment. All the musicians gathered together. How did you help each other create job situations? What was it like, Joachim?

04:24
Joachim Svare
It almost became a family substitute, and I think that was the best way to describe it, like we were brothers and sisters and moms and dads to each other, and we helped each other when we were sad and listened to each other's stories when we were happy. And I think it was mainly moral support. Of course, we also had our fights and disagreements. But overall, it was a wonderful place.

04:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what did it mean to you to have all these Danes to surround you and Danish artists, musicians who influenced you in some way, maybe artistically. And what was that like?

05:00
Joachim Svare
Again, when I think back, it was like having my family. And I still miss that, like now I'm married and I have a house and dogs and stuff. But I still long a little bit after that feeling. I don't know if you remember that too, like the feeling of you could at any time walk outside your apartment and there would be somebody, a friend of yours, and you could sit down and have a talk about anything. That created a good foundation for a healthy mental state of mind and you always felt that you were going to be okay.

05:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Because Los Angeles can be a tough city to be in and move to.

05:42
Joachim Svare
It's a pretty rough place, yeah.

05:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What made you all settle in Studio City? And what was that part of LA like at the time? I'm thinking in terms of the music business back then.

05:54
Joachim Svare
Well, it is a little bit of a coincidence. Grove School of Music was in Van Nuys, which is not that far away from Studio City. So that's probably why we landed there and some of our friends from Denmark who had attended that school, we knew that they had stayed in that area.

06:15
Joachim Svare
And back then, there was an incredible live scene. There were so many bars and cafes where they had live music and it was like you could walk down the street and you could see some of your idols play. Like I could see amazing musicians almost every night, like a half a mile away, a couple of kilometers. There is a famous jazz club called The Baked Potato. And there were many other places that now unfortunately have closed. 

06:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And it is called Studio City for a reason, right?

06:51
Joachim Svare
Exactly. There were a lot of recording studios. There are still some of the great recording studios in that area. Studio City, North Hollywood, and Burbank, so.

07:02
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you created a studio too, with another Danish musician, Carsten Lindberg, and you called it Great Dane Productions, right?

07:11
Joachim Svare
Yes, that is correct.

07:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was it like in the beginning when you had a fairly big studio?

07:17
Joachim Svare
After we started over here, we got under a management contract and they helped us in the beginning. Then, later on, we started working out of a studio in Torrance, where a lot of the west coast hip hop was made and produced and mixed. All the old N.W.A. stuff, Ice Cube, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and many, many other records were made there.

07:45
Joachim Svare
And the owner of that studio, his name is Donovan Smith, he became a little bit of a mentor to me and my partner. And after a couple of years of working out of his studio, he was so generous, he let us use his B studio. We decided on going into partnership with him. So we built a studio. We found a great spot up in North Hollywood, behind a little taco restaurant.

08:15
Joachim Svare
We had the second floor in a building. I think it was like, maybe, I don't know, 1,600–1,800 square feet. So it was pretty big. And we were lucky there was a lumberyard next door. So they could literally drive all the stuff over with a forklift, all the 2x4's for the framing of the walls and stuff. So we just started. We built a studio from scratch and we had that place for 15 years or something like that. 

08:47
Joachim Svare
It's probably 8, 9 years ago we decided on closing it down because of how the whole record industry. And the business, it became easier and cheaper to work out of your home when everything became more and more computer-based, and we didn't need big mixing consoles and big tape recorders and big speaker monitor systems and all of that. So we closed it down.

09:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you had a Danish name, Great Dane Productions. Why the Danish name? Why promote the Danish part? And would you say that there's something particularly Danish in the way that you did business and maybe do business today?

09:32
Joachim Svare
Like the Great Dane Productions, that's pretty obvious. Like we are Danes and we are great. So we thought it was a fun name. And there's actually a little fun anecdote. We did a song for an artist named Monica with a producer based out of New York. His name is Ric Wake. And he was business partners with Taylor Dayne.

09:59
Joachim Svare
And she called our studio one day, and I think it was my business partner, Carsten, who picked up the phone and he said, Great Dane Productions. And she was like, What? I'm Great Dayne Productions. And it turned out that she spells her name d-a-y-n-e or something, right, so that was her Great Dayne Productions, being Taylor Dayne. We had a good laugh over that.

10:26
Joachim Svare
Regarding doing business in a Danish way, I think we as Danes, we always have an expectation of being treated fairly, which is not always the case, and especially not in the music industry. And that has taken us many years to figure that out.

10:47
Joachim Svare
It has minuses and pluses to do business in a Danish way. I think overall, I treat my clients very well and I don't want to rip anybody off. Now I'm trying to remember his name, Werner, who was the cartoonist who made the cartoon called Momsemore.

11:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Werner Wejp—

11:08
Joachim Svare
Werner Wejp-Olsen, yeah. Back in the days when I was a part of Great Dane Productions, we did some music for a comic strip he had made. And we had a talk about the Danish expectations when you do business.

11:24
Joachim Svare
And he said something that I think really hits the nail, that we are brought up to believe that in a business situation, there can be two winners. We go into an agreement with the expectation there will be two winners, and that doesn't always happen here. Which has kind of whipped my butt a little bit a couple of times. Many, many times.

11:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Many, many times. You still live in Studio City today, and you mentioned you closed the big studio, but now your studio is in your home and it is in a smaller space because the technology has changed, as you mentioned. How has the business changed since you arrived in LA in the 1990s, and how did you have to adapt to that?

12:12
Joachim Svare
Well, I came over here with the hope and expectation and the goal that was to work with major artists, which I have achieved too, like I've worked with a lot of great artists and had a lot of fun doing that. But then 15 years ago, everything became streaming and that was back when Napster came out, now we have Spotify.

12:34
Joachim Svare
And suddenly it became more and more difficult to make money unless you had a big single. So I wanted to steer in the direction of film and TV, which I started doing back then and which I've had great fun doing. And, it has also been a very well paying gig.

12:56
Joachim Svare
I have for the past 10 years, together with my wife, Jolene Bell, who is a very accomplished songwriter. We have been working almost exclusively for Nickelodeon and Netflix too. That has been extremely fun. And we have done a lot of work, like live action TV, but most of our work is in animation. We have done a lot of preschool animation.

13:23
Joachim Svare
Unfortunately, now, it is turning more and more into streaming. Kids, they don't sit at home and watch TV anymore. They watch their shows on their parents' iPhones, on iPads, and they watch a lot of YouTube, too. Unfortunately, the pay there is very, very little. The writers' strike in Hollywood, a big part of that is about how we are going to treat this whole streaming things where the script writers are not getting paid.

13:56
Joachim Svare
And that's the same with us songwriters and the music producers. We don't have a union, so it is very hard for us to strike. But I can see that my residuals have been going down steadily here over the past couple of years, so.

14:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Sorry to hear that. On a slightly more positive note, you have worked with artists like Monica, The Temptations, Monique, and Hanne Boel. What in your many years in the business stands out for you as being special? It can be certain experiences you've had or musical achievements or anything else that's worth mentioning. 

14:37
Joachim Svare
After we did that Monica single, there was a song called "Just Another Girl." I had a friend over, his name is Kim Wagner. He's another very well accomplished Danish musician, a great guy and a super talented musician and singer.

14:55
Joachim Svare
He was sitting in my living room and suddenly he shouted, Joachim! Joachim, come in! Your song is on MTV! That was great to see a song you did and there's a music video and Monica is dancing and you are like, holy crap, I did that. That's definitely one of my highlights.

15:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you have won an Emmy for your work. 

15:19
Joachim Svare
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

15:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, yes. Tell us what you won it for. And I would like for you to recall the evening when you won the award. Where was it? What was the experience like and what did it make you feel like when they called your name from the stage?

15:35
Joachim Svare
I actually have a video of it on my iPhone, so I can show it to you guys later, but we got nominated for the music to an animated short, which is a short little cartoon, called "Color Song Red." Jolene and I, we were discussing the morning of the show if we should go or not, because we were like, nah, we are probably not gonna win.

16:02
Joachim Svare
Because we were in a category with Sesame Street and some other big shows and we looked at it and we knew that Sesame Street always wins. So we were like, nah, Sesame Street is gonna win. We were like, well, but it's gonna be an experience. So I got dressed up, which as you know, I rarely do.

16:26
Joachim Svare
I put on a tuxedo — I think it was just a black suit actually. And Jolene, too, in a long dress and high hair and all of that stuff. And we went there, and we were sitting with the Nickelodeon crew. I was closest to the aisle, and it was Muhammad Ali's daughter who was up there presenting.

16:45
Joachim Svare
They went through all the nominees and I had no idea that we would win. So she went through all the songs, Sesame Street, all of that, and they played it up on a big screen. And then they gave her the envelope and she opened the envelope and she said, "And the winner is "Color Song Red'!" And you can hear me scream. Am I allowed to say what I screamed? 

17:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, you are.

17:10
Joachim Svare
Okay. I screamed really loud, "Holy shit!" I filmed my walk up through that aisle and you can see my camera is bouncing up and down and I go all the way up in her face and I rip the Emmy out of her hand and I say, thank you! And then I gave it to the person from Nickelodeon because she had prepared a speech. But it was very special. I think it's three years ago now. Two or three years. Fun times.

17:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Very fun times. Do you have a special relationship to that piece of music that you won the award for?

17:43
Joachim Svare
I like it. What's fun is that it's a Latin song. And now I always say that if you want good Latin music, well then you gotta get the Dane to do it. Because I've done a lot of Latin music since then, so.

17:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's funny. Did the Emmy win change your career in any way? And what do awards like this mean in the world of music here in the US?

18:07
Joachim Svare
It's a good, strong handshake. And unfortunately, I'm very bad at promoting myself, so I'm not very good at using it. But I can see that other people who help me and help my wife, we have been very fortunate that we haven't had to do a lot to get the work we have done over these past 10 years, because it's word of mouth, right?

18:38
Joachim Svare
Like, people know that we do great work. So when they need something, then it's like, Hey, let's get Joachim and Jolene to do it. And then they call us or they email us. So we have had nonstop back-to-back work. But I can see that in situations where the music supervisors we are dealing with, when they have to convince a production team to use us, when they drop the E word, Emmy, then it's always like, oh, oh, okay. Yeah, let's get them. So I think it helps.

19:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you've mentioned Jolene a few times and that you work together, your wife Jolene Bell. What makes you guys such a good creative team or make you work well together?

19:24
Joachim Svare
She is really a bulldog when it comes to work. When it also comes to work. No, I'm kidding. She's very good at understanding what exactly is needed. I think I'm just a hard worker. I sometimes ask myself what I do and what I can do. And I'm like, I don't know, but I get the stuff done and I can play many instruments now.

19:54
Joachim Svare
I kind of look at it like a construction that I have to build, right? I find the building pieces, and then I start molding the music, like the different instruments into what's needed. I yank it and I pound it with a hammer and cut it with a saw till we make something. And I think it's the same with Jolene. She is really good at creating lyrical content for the show. 

20:25
Joachim Svare
And the way it usually works is we get what's called a pitch sheet, we get a phone call or we get an email and they send us a page, like first you have to sign a contract that you will not tell anybody what it's about and all of that stuff. And then you receive a page that describes what's needed.

20:49
Joachim Svare
They often have some music references. We just did a piece of music for a show called Blaze and the Monster Machine on Nickelodeon, where they wanted a song that kind of has the vibe, like it's a Halloween song. So they wanted something with the vibe of Michael Jackson's "Beat It," because it sounds like Halloween.

21:13
Joachim Svare
So then I have to come up with a twist to make something that will make them feel that way. And Jolene, she is the lyricist and the melody maker. So she comes up with a melody and lyric that fits that. And we put it all together. We get a singer over and then we have a song. 

21:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Just real quick, which instruments do you play, Joachim?

21:38
Joachim Svare
I'm originally a bass player, but I mainly play keyboards now, and I play guitar, and I play different percussion instruments, and, yeah—

21:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
A little bit of everything. 

21:49
Joachim Svare
Yeah, I play a little bit of everything now, and if anything is needed, then I will figure out how to play what I need to.

21:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
A lot of people dream of achieving what you've achieved. What do you think it takes to make it in your field in the US?

22:03
Joachim Svare
I think the main thing is not to give up. There's a lot of rejection, like of the songs you get placed or in a show. Or whatever you do, if it's an artist or if it's TV. Like you write a lot of songs that don't go anywhere. And you have a lot of ideas that don't go anywhere. And you have to be really persistent and you have to be disciplined. 

22:32
Joachim Svare
You have to get up in the morning and even after you thought you wrote the best song in the world and people looked at it — A big thing is that when people criticize your work, they don't put kids' gloves on, right? It's just like, no, they didn't like it, or it was not right. And then you have to swallow that and then motivate yourself the next day or a half hour later. 

22:58
Joachim Svare
Sometimes, while you're writing a song and you have a session with other musicians or a singer or another songwriter, you get this email that the song you thought they would love and you were expecting that it would pay you some money that, nah, they didn't feel it. So, you gotta be persistent, and you have to force yourself to keep on working.

23:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And have tough skin.

23:23
Joachim Svare
And have tough skin too, yeah.

23:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have a lot of Danish art on your walls at home in Studio City, as well as Danish furniture and Danish design. How important is it to you to surround yourself with Danish art and furniture in your home here in the US?

23:41
Joachim Svare
It is very important. And I think it's also the older I get, the more I miss Denmark. I don't have any plans to move back to Denmark. I'm married over here. I'm an American citizen. But there's a lot of qualities in Denmark that I really miss. And it is everything from a great political system in Denmark to Danish quality and Danish design.

24:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you've been away from Denmark for many years and you've made Los Angeles your permanent home. You said you're not going back to Denmark. Tell us what makes you feel at home here. 

24:24
Joachim Svare
What makes me feel at home? It has grown to be my home. And it's your perspective of where you belong changes after you suddenly have spent most of your life at a different place. Even though I'm still Danish, and I feel very Danish, and I miss Denmark, and I miss my Danish friends, I have my roots here now. 

24:55
Joachim Svare
And I have three big dogs that I love and whenever I'm really depressed and I'm thinking about maybe I should go home or fly back to Denmark and live over there again, then I look at my dogs and I'm like, no, I cannot bring them on a plane, so I better stay.

25:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Which values do you think you've taken along with you on your road to success in the US? And which ones have you left behind in Denmark? 

25:26
Joachim Svare
For what I do now, since I do a lot of animation or music to animation, I can feel that everything I pull from is things that I saw on Danish quality kids TV when I was growing up. That's still, for me, my gold standard.

25:53
Joachim Svare
And funny enough, I pull a lot from Danish music. Like I was a crazy fan of Gasolin, and still, I'm not a great guitar player. Like they are real guitar players. I play guitar because I have to play guitar on the music I do. And when I think guitar, I think Franz Beckerlee from Gasolin, right?

26:18
Joachim Svare
So, I think my whole Danish, what can we call it, back catalog that I have in my brain of kids' TV, music, Hans-Henrik Ley, all of that stuff. That's things I use every day and I think the reason why it stuck is because it was really good quality. And it's almost like you see a picture that you really like, that it gets ingrained into your mind, right, or engraved. 

26:53
Joachim Svare
Like I have a PH Lamp hanging here in front of me. For me, if I should design a lamp now, that's what I would look at, right? Or, pull from.

27:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned you're an American citizen as well as a Danish citizen. Maybe this question is not completely fair to you, Joachim, but which passport do you value the most? Or maybe what does each of them mean to you?

27:19
Joachim Svare
If you told me that I had to throw one of them out, then I would throw the American out. And it's just because I'm Danish and I will always value that. I'm extremely proud of being Danish, but I'm also proud of my accomplishments over here. So I feel I deserve my passport, and like you, I think I can say that you are an American citizen too. 

27:43
Joachim Svare

And it gives you a sense of pride when you go to that inauguration and you feel that you are finally a real member of the society over here. So that gives me pride too. And I guess the side of me that's Americanized now is very proud of it being an American now too. So.

28:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have a different perspective on Danish culture and society as an expat who has lived abroad for many years. What do you think the Danes miss when it comes to their own understanding of Denmark? 

28:20
Joachim Svare
I think that has a root in some political discussions that I've had with certain Danish people who sometimes say negative stuff about Denmark and it can be about our healthcare system or whatever. It's like Danes don't know how freaking amazingly great Denmark is and what a great system and a great society Denmark is, especially when you live over here. 

28:51
Joachim Svare
I have decent healthcare, but my wife and I, we pay almost $1,500 every month for us to be able to go and see a doctor, things like that. I think that Danes don't understand. And I think our healthy view on gun control — Denmark is a very safe society. I know that things have changed a lot now. When I read Danish papers, I think, holy crap, it's bad, but still, you don't know what bad is, because it can be really, really bad.

29:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Joachim, if I spoke to you in Danish, which accent would I hear, and what is, you still speak Danish fluently, I know, what is your favorite Danish word and why? And maybe spell it for our listeners who are American or English speaking. 

29:47
Joachim Svare
My favorite Danish words, what would that be like? There's, of course, always the good old rød grød med fløde, which means red porridge with cream. But, can I say the good old hygge?

30:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, of course. And what does that word mean for you?

30:07
Joachim Svare
Hygge, spelled h-y-g-g-e. It is a word that a lot of Americans suddenly know now, because there is a lot of Scandinavian influence over here. If you watch HGTV, which is a network over here like a television station that shows home improvement shows and stuff like that, they show a lot of Danish design and talk a lot about the Scandinavian way of living. 

30:36
Joachim Svare
And suddenly people over here, like for many years, when you looked at furniture design and the way people decorated their homes, it was very heavy, like thick curtains and a lot of "diller daller" hanging everywhere. And now suddenly it seems simple and bright and open is the way people want to go.

31:02
Joachim Svare
And what hygge means is, I guess it basically means cozy, and it means having a cozy time. So you can invite somebody over for hygge. Would you like to come over to my place tonight? Then we can hygge us. Then we can be cozy and it means just having a good time. 

31:28
Joachim Svare
It means creating an environment that makes a good base for good conversation, for watching a good movie together. It's about togetherness, I think. I mean, you can hygge alone, too, but that means that you're together with yourself, and you're really enjoying that. Yeah.

31:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And I asked you about your accent. I basically wanted to know Where you are from in Denmark. Which part of Denmark did you leave behind when you moved to the U.S.?

31:58
Joachim Svare
I grew up outside Copenhagen in a town called Virum, very close to a lake. And it was a wonderful place to grow up. I remember my childhood, we were always outside playing, and in the summertime, we wouldn't come in when parents and grandparents called us and it was a drag that we had to come in and eat our dinner and all of that, it was like, uh, I gotta go in and have dinner now, so I can't play anymore. 

32:27
Joachim Svare
My Danish accent— I moved to Copenhagen when I was 17, so I'm probably, even though Virum was only like, I don't know, 12–15 miles outside Copenhagen, I think my accent is now Copenhagen.

32:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And expats are often split between two homes and cultures, and sometimes that can be a challenge. What are the advantages of belonging to two very different worlds?

32:56
Joachim Svare
I don't know what the advantage is. I think it gives me a good perspective. Like when I'm over here, I look at society and I look at behavior from my Danish point of view. And when I look at Denmark, I think I see it more from an American point of view now. And I think both places can learn from each other.

33:23
Joachim Svare
I think being Danish, you can probably learn that, you sometimes just have to go for it and believe in yourself. And I think the American society can learn maybe to humble down a little bit. That whole thing with, we are the greatest nation on earth, all of that stuff. Say that to anybody else and they will say the same, right?

33:49
Joachim Svare
So, I think it can be very healthy to put on your Danish cap sometimes and put on your American cap or glasses.

34:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my final question for you today, which I hope won't offend you. You're still a very young man, you're in your fifties. Where do you want to grow old? You kind of already said that. And if you don't mind me asking, where would you like to be buried? And what would you like it to say on your tombstone, if you have one? 

34:23
Joachim Svare
Ooh. 

34:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Something funny, I am sure, knowing you.

34:30
Joachim Svare
Yeah. I always tell my wife that she needs to drive down to Santa Monica and throw me over a cliff and then not think about it anymore. I think I'm gonna end up staying, like this is probably my forever home, forever ever home. And I think I'm going to get burned, but I'm so, what do you call it? I don't think there is anything else after this. So between us, I really don't care.

35:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Okay.

35:05
Joachim Svare
Of course I care a little bit, but the big bummer is that I don't think I can hover up above and see people standing being sad around my tombstone reading the inscriptions, right? If anything, I think just that Joachim was a good guy. And, I hope I am, like I try to be a friend to my friends and I try not to do too much stuff wrong.

35:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And I'm in a position to say that that is absolutely what you are. And on that note, to my very good friend, thank you so much, Joachim, for being with us here today. We appreciate that.

35:45
Joachim Svare
Thank you so much for having me. It was fun.

35:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm glad to hear it.

35:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Joachim Svare chose Emil Nolde's Vesterhavsklitter, or North Sea Dunes from 1936 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.