Regin Dahl (1918-2007) was a Faroese poet and song composer, living in Denmark the most of his life. After high school he studied Nordic Literature and Music in Copenhagen for some years but never graduated. From late 1940s until his retirement in the early1980s he worked as a literary consultant at Wivels Forlag and later Gyldendal in Copenhagen.

No one knows how many songs Dahl actually composed since he did not commit a single one of them to paper. However, thanks to recordings sessions arranged by Faroese students in Copenhagen in the 1970s and other private recordings a total number of 439 songs from Dahls hand have been preserved.

A great number of Dahls songs – composed to texts by Faroese poets – have become part of the national heritage of the islands both as community songs and as part of the standard choir repertoire in arrangements by other Faroese composers.

About a third of Dahls songs are composed to texts in other languages than Faroese – primarily the other Nordic languages but also German, English and Latin. Where most of Dahls songs to Faroese texts seem to have been intended for community singing and/or choir arrangements, many of his songs to texts in ‘foreign’ languages have a more developed piano accompaniment and are closer to the classical lied.

In all his songs Dahl demonstrates a uniqe talent for adapting the melody and ‘tone’ of the song to the ‘tone’ and rythm of the language of the text. His Faorese songs have a clear ‘Faroese’ sound and feeling, and in the same way his Swedish songs sound ‘Swedish’ etc.