Cornelis Vreeswijk (8 August 1937 – 12 November 1987) was a Dutch singer-s… Read Full Bio ↴Cornelis Vreeswijk (8 August 1937 – 12 November 1987) was a Dutch singer-songwriter, poet and actor, born in IJmuiden in the Netherlands.
His first Swedish album, Ballader och oförskämdheter (Ballads and rudenesses), was released in 1964. His first Dutch album was released in 1972, after ten successful Swedish albums.

He emigrated to Sweden with his parents in 1949 at the age of twelve. He was educated as a social worker and hoped to become a journalist, but became increasingly involved in music, performing at events for students. His idiosyncratic humor and social engagement is still gaining him new fans. Cornelis Vreeswijk is often considered as one of the most influential and successful troubadours in Sweden. In 2010 a Swedish drama film, called Cornelis, was made about his life. It was directed by Amir Chamdin.

Cornelis Vreeswijk explained in one of his few interviews that he had taught himself to sing and play in the fifties by imitating his first idols Josh White and Lead Belly. His first album, Ballader och oförskämdheter (Ballads and rudenesses, 1964), was a hit which immediately gained him a large following among the emerging radical student generation. In this period he also played with Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson and his trio. His songs "Ångbåtsblues" ("Steam Boat Blues") and "Jubelvisa för Fiffiga Nanette" ("Joyful song for Clever Nanette") are classics from these recordings. His abrasive, frequently political lyrics and unconventional delivery were a deliberate break with what he was later to describe as a Swedish song tradition of pretty singing and harmless lyrics, "a hobby for the upper classes". Influenced by jazz and blues and especially by the singing style and social criticism of Georges Brassens, Vreeswijk "speak-sings" his "insults", and compels his listeners to pay close attention to the words.

His 1965 loose translation of Allan Sherman's masterpiece "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" remains beloved to Swedes as "Brev från kolonien" (Letter from the summer camp) decades later, and could be said to have passed into folklore.

A political singer with a bohemian lifestyle, Vreeswijk remained controversial in the sixties and early seventies, idolized by his fans but disapproved of by many others for his "rude" language and persistent interest in "unsuitable" people like prostitutes and criminals. Some of his records were blacklisted by the public broadcasting company Sveriges Radio. During this period, he not only wrote and recorded songs now considered classics, such as "Sportiga Marie" ("Athletic Marie") and several affectionate salutes to the ever less employable "Polaren Pär" ("My Buddy Pär"), but he was an actor on the stage, receiving considerable critical acclaim, most notably as Pilate in the Swedish version of Jesus Christ Superstar, and as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. He participated in Melodifestivalen (the Swedish preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest) in 1972 with "Önskar du mej, så önskar jag dej", which finished sixth. He also appeared in movies, including Svarta Palmkronor (Black Palm Trees, 1968), which was filmed on location in Brazil. Spending four months in Brazil began Vreeswijk's lifelong interest in Latin American music and social and political conditions, later seen for example in his Victor Jara album of 1978.

Later in his career, Vreeswijk was to gain increasing fame and a wider audience both for his songs and his other work. He published several volumes of poetry in his lifetime and left a considerable manuscript legacy of poems which have been published since. He also became an important musical interpreter of the works of other people, recording the songs of Carl Michael Bellman, Evert Taube, and Lars Forssell. His fresh, bluesy renderings of Bellman and Taube, who had up to then been classics belonging to the "harmless" tradition that Vreeswijk despised, were artistic and commercial successes which extended his fanbase. The choice of Bellman was significant: Bellman's lively, romantic, pastoral, drinking and sometimes bawdy songs have gained him the somewhat undeserved reputation of being a drunken womaniser. Vreeswijk may have enjoyed the association of being "something of a Bellman himself".

Vreeswijk's own best-known songs of the later seventies and early eighties tend to be dark in tone, like "Sist jag åkte jumbojet blues" ("Last time I Went by Jumbojet Blues", a metaphorical bad trip) and "Blues för Fatumeh", both addressing heavy drug addiction. Even though in this period Vreeswijk was a prey of tabloid scandal and was in the news for his drinking problem and his debts (about both of which he spoke with frankness) rather than for his achievements, he remained highly creative and productive and he is also known as the co-writer of the Hep Stars song "Speleman" which was released for their album Songs We Sang 68'

Towards the end of Vreeswijk's life his reputation soared again, aided by the televising of some highly regarded nightclub shows, and by Agneta Brunius' TV documentary Balladen om den flygande holländaren (The Ballad of the Flying Dutchman) in 1986. By the time of his death from liver cancer at the age of fifty, Cornelis Vreeswijk had become an icon of the Swedish music scene, and he was honored with burial at the cemetery of Katarina kyrka, a national cemetery in Stockholm. In 2010, Cornelis, a movie about his life, premiered in Swedish cinemas. Norwegian singer Hans Erik Dyvik Husby (previously in Turbonegro) played the role of Vreeswijk.

In 1966, the Dutch broadcasting organisation VARA invited Vreeswijk to the Netherlands. He translated several of his songs into Dutch, and wrote a couple of new ones. One of his songs, "De nozem en de non" ("The Greaser and the Nun"), was released as a single, without much popular success. His first Dutch album was only released in 1972, after ten successful Swedish albums. 100,000 copies of Cornelis Vreeswijk were sold, and the single "Veronica" became a big hit after it was picked up by the pirate radio station Veronica. His old song "De nozem en de non" was then re-released with much success. His later albums could not match the success of the first one, and Vreeswijk never achieved the fame in the Netherlands that he did in Sweden.

Nowadays, only "De nozem en de non" is still known by the general Dutch public. Vreeswijk still has some fans in the Netherlands, however, and in 2000 the Cornelis Vreeswijk society was founded.

One reason for his lack of popularity in the Netherlands was the impression that Cornelis Vreeswijk was a bit old-fashioned. Because of his long stay in Sweden, the Dutch pronunciation and idiom that he had learned to speak in his youth were out-of-date in the seventies and eighties.

Although he was fluent in both Dutch and Swedish, the latter became his primary language. His Stockholm-accented Swedish was famously witty and expressive, and in an interview he once suggested that the process of learning the language in his teens might have energized his use of it: "It doesn't just fall over you like when you're a baby and fed daily with words and food. You become freer, less respectful. ... Swedish is such a different language. Pure, distinct, beautiful. It has few synonyms. But they're many enough for me".

Cool Water
Cornelis Vreeswijk Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Ordna till dina glesa testar
låna min kam och tvätta din trut
dagen är slut
Festen är över fast alla festar.
Talet har tystnat fast alla talar.
Döden tar fatt dig i desssa salar.
Håll andan en kort minut
och smyg sen försiktigt ut.

Kan du förstå vad som här passerar?
Fattar du vad det är som sker?
Död är allting du ser.
Hur du än grubblar och kalkulerar.
Hur du än frågar och söker minnas,
kommer den stunden att åter finnas.
Gå härifrån. Jag ber.
Låt bli - drick inget mer.

Res dig. Se dig nu kring. Försiktigt!
Gå bort till dörren som gapar ljus.
Lämna ditt krus.
Det som ska göras ska göras riktigt.
Det som ska göras ska göras snarast.
Gå dit där ljuset syns vara klarast.

Glöm detta onda rus,
-Aldrig mer antabus.

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Cornelis Vreeswijk’s song “Cool Water – på Den Gyldene Freden” depict the end of a party and the realization of mortality. The first verse describes the aftermath of the party, encouraging those still drinking to clean up their empty glasses and quietly leave. The second verse speaks to the inevitability of death, asserting that no matter how much one thinks or calculates, death will always be the end result, and it will come for everyone.

The final verse is a call to action, urging the listener to look around the room and take in their surroundings before leaving. They are encouraged to leave their cups behind and to do what needs to be done as soon as possible. The final line of the song, “Never again Antabuse,” speaks to the singer’s own struggles with alcoholism and the need to abstain from alcohol.

Throughout the song, Vreeswijk uses simple and direct language to convey complex ideas about mortality and the consequences of excessive drinking. The overall tone is melancholic, but there is also a sense of acceptance and a call to action to live life to the fullest while one still can.

Line by Line Meaning

Ordna till dina glesa testar
Arrange your sparse hairs.

låna min kam och tvätta din trut
Borrow my comb and wash your face.

dagen är slut
The day is over.

Festen är över fast alla festar.
The party is over, even though everyone is still partying.

Talet har tystnat fast alla talar.
The speech has ended, even though everyone is still talking.

Döden tar fatt dig i desssa salar.
Death is coming for you in these halls.

Håll andan en kort minut
Hold your breath for a short minute.

och smyg sen försiktigt ut.
And then sneak out carefully.

Kan du förstå vad som här passerar?
Can you understand what is happening here?

Fattar du vad det är som sker?
Do you comprehend what is taking place?

Död är allting du ser.
Death is all you see.