Flashback: 1985 World Crisis

By Miles Hardwick Barleycorn III, Esquire

Step back with me, if you will, to a magical time in world history:  1985.  While many Americans were achieving unprecedented financial success, the world at large was in chaos.  Wham was only a year away from breaking up, forever robbing music of songs about being woken up before leaving.  The Chicago Bears were about to win their only lonely Super Bowl in their entire pathetic 100 year history.  Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev was horribly disfigured when a mutated Chernobyl pigeon with 3 glowing butts took a radioactive dump on his head.  But none of this prepared the world for what was about to go down in Sweden…

Agricultural Disaster

In a misguided attempt to triple lingonberry crop production, Sweden’s Minister of Agriculture, Hjëurgen Flëurgen-Juërgen, purchased 13 trillion gallons of popular Scandinavian energy drink, Gjatörade, in order to once-and-for-all obliterate the lingonberries’ thirst for electrolytes.  The entire crop was lost.  Horrified, he turned to the country’s president, Juërgen Huërgen-Flëurgen.  All night they crunched they numbers, but ultimately it was determined that there was nothing they could do to avoid disaster:  millions of Sweden’s children would soon be forced to eat meatballs and mashed potatoes with some other mildly-sweet berry.

A Plea For Help

Before announcing the disaster to a stunned populace, Sweden’s leadership attempted to seek help from their neighbors to see if national chaos could be averted.  They asked Finland and were suggested a revolutionary yet wholly unsanitary way to store their lingonberries in a warm, dark bodily crevice.  They turned to their friendlier neighbors to the west, Norway, and while they sincerely wanted to help, they just couldn’t affjörd it.  They considered asking America’s Aaron Rodgers for help, but he was only 13 months old at the time and, ironically, still not speaking to his parents.

The Power of Music

Dejected, they realized their last hope was to get in touch with the Swedish Hairmetal Community.  They put the call out to Fluërgen Juërgen, virtuoso keyboard player from the nation’s 13^th most popular metal band, Klörf Klörf.  He accepted the responsibility but requested songwriting help from Europe’s uber-famous frontman, who now went only by one name:  Juërgen.  For hours they sat around aimlessly fingering keytars, trying to come up with words to describe how they could change the world together if only they tried, but nothing came.

Then, in a fit of inspiration, Juërgen, out of nowhere, sang the lyrics that would forever alter the course of human history:

Together we can change the world

Together we must try

Swedish history was made, and they knew it.  After a good, long cry and some quick Aquanet touch-ups, Fluërgen and Juërgen set about assembling the most devastatingly talented group of Swedish metal acts the world had ever seen in at least 4 years.  Swedish Metal Aid was about to release “Give a Helping Hand”, and no one was ever going to be the same.