A guest on one of our Port Adelaide tours pulled me aside to divulge one of Adelaide’s most random facts. There’s a Swedish sea shanty set in Port Adelaide, written decades ago and still performed today.
We love it when guests bring us these little gifts. So we went digging, and honestly, this one’s a beauty!
The song: Karl-Alfred och Ellinor
The song is called Karl-Alfred och Ellinor (in English, “Karl-Alfred and Ellinor”). Its full subtitle translates to “A sailor’s adventure on the third floor of a house in Port Adelaide”. The Swedish national media database records this officially.
The story follows a young, wide-eyed sailor named Karl-Alfred, fresh off his ship in Port Adelaide. He wanders into a theatre and catches the eye of a woman named Ellinor. In true sailor style he follows her home to a flat on the third floor of a house on Victoria Street. But it doesn’t end with romance. Ellinor’s “invitation” turns out to be a set-up for a robbery, and Karl-Alfred only escapes by lobbing his wallet at the crook’s head and bolting.
It’s a classic old-world sailor’s cautionary tale, the kind swapped over rum in every port from here to Sweden itself. Port Adelaide would have heard a hundred versions of this story in real life being a wharfie hub. You can check out the lyrics here.
The inspired songwriter
It turns out that the song wasn’t created by the artist our guest outlined, but by his father Evert Taube. It was first published as a poem in the Christmas issue of the magazine Söndags-Nisse in 1918, then included in his first songbook the following year. Taube first recorded it himself in 1921.
Evert Taube wasn’t just a songwriter – he remains a key figure of 20th century Swedish culture. Sweden still marks his birthday every year with Taubedagen (Taube Day), held annually on his birthday of 12 March. He was a troubadour, poet, painter and storyteller and is still so beloved. Calling him a big deal is probably an understatement.
But it is his son most people know today. Sven-Bertil first became famous for singing his father’s songs. His version of Karl-Alfred och Ellinor became a genuine hit in Sweden, and charted on the Swedish national countdown in 1972 and 1973. But he built his own career as an actor also. English-speaking audiences might recognise him from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo! So both Taubes, father and son, are woven through this story.
Did a Taube actually set foot in Port Adelaide?
Before he was a songwriter, young Evert Taube really did go to sea. In 1908, at 18, he was sent to work as a deckhand on the steamship Australic. It sailed via Cape Town and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to Australia. Twenty years later, in 1928, he sailed again, this time on the Mirrabooka, on a voyage that took in South America, the United States and Australia once more.
Did either voyage actually call at Port Adelaide? When I looked into the Australic there’s some conflicting information. Online research confirms the Australic came to Victoria Quay (Fremantle) around 21 July 1908, then known to have gone to Melbourne and Sydney in August. South Australia’s state records show that an ‘Australie’ docked in Port Adelaide on 31 July 1908… my guess is that the cursive writing of the time has confused the archivist and ‘Australie’ is a typo for the Australic. So I’m banking on the fact that Taube did set foot in Port Adelaide. Take a look at the photo – what do you think?
What we do know is that the Australic was constructed to establish the first regular, direct shipping trade routes between Sweden and Australia. And Taube spent real years as a working sailor on multiple ships bound for Australia, which makes the poem feel less like an invention and more like something stitched together from things he’d heard, or perhaps lived, on the docks.
Port Adelaide today
Victoria Street from the song may or may not still exist under that exact name. The original poem could be talking about either Victoria Street in the nearby suburb of Queenstown, or Victoria Road that runs from Outer Harbor along the old wool and grain route to the Birkenhead wharves – a nice echo of the trade that first brought sailors through our port. My personal bet would be on Victoria Road.
When you’re wandering the Port with us, spare a thought for the sailors who passed through here with a lighter wallet and a good story to tell. Somewhere in Sweden, more than 100 years ago, someone was writing it down!
Flamboyant forever,
Katina
PS: Got a story like this about the Port? We’d love to hear it – contact us, or tell us on tour!
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