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".
Elisabeth
Cornelis Vreeswijk Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
En vacker flicka bör mycket sällan gråta.
För det gör ögat skumt. Din vackra hand blir kall
Var gång du gråta skall. Och det är dumt.
Släpp ned ditt långa hår och låt din sorg bortfara.
Den kärlek som man får kan mycket sällan vara.
För det är kärleks lott. Den kommer och den far.
Elisabeth, sov sött och dröm om sånt som varar.
Din mamma verkar trött och sur. Och led på karlar.
Men se, det är på tok. Din pappa han försvann.
Snart hittar hon nån ann om hon är klok.
The lyrics to the song "Elisabeth" by Cornelis Vreeswijk are about consoling and offering advice to a girl named Elisabeth who seems to be upset and crying. The first verse asks why her eyes are wet and suggests that a beautiful girl like her should rarely cry because it clouds her eyes and makes her hands cold. The song goes on to advise her to let go of her sadness by letting her hair down and not holding on too tightly to love that may not last, as love comes and goes but the heart remains. The third verse seems to imply that her mother is unhappy due to struggles with men, but the singer suggests that she should not worry because her father left and her mother will find another man soon if she is smart.
Overall, the song may be interpreted as encouraging self-love and resilience, and not getting too attached to things and people that may not last. The singer seems to be trying to comfort Elisabeth and tell her that things will get better, and that she should not let her current troubles bring her down.
Line by Line Meaning
Elisabeth, varför är dina ögon våta?
Elisabeth, why are your eyes wet?
En vacker flicka bör mycket sällan gråta.
A beautiful girl should rarely cry.
För det gör ögat skumt. Din vackra hand blir kall
Because it clouds the eyes. Your beautiful hand becomes cold.
Var gång du gråta skall. Och det är dumt.
Every time you cry. And that is foolish.
Släpp ned ditt långa hår och låt din sorg bortfara.
Let down your long hair and let your sorrow go away.
Den kärlek som man får kan mycket sällan vara.
The love that one receives is rarely fulfilling.
För det är kärleks lott. Den kommer och den far.
Because that's the luck of love. It comes and it goes.
Men hjärtat har man kvar. Och det är gott.
But one still has their heart. And that is good.
Elisabeth, sov sött och dröm om sånt som varar.
Elisabeth, sleep sweetly and dream of things that last.
Din mamma verkar trött och sur. Och led på karlar.
Your mother seems tired and grumpy. And suffers from men.
Men se, det är på tok. Din pappa han försvann.
But look, that's nonsense. Your father disappeared.
Snart hittar hon nån ann om hon är klok.
Soon she will find someone else if she is wise.
Contributed by Penelope Y. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@thomasjordan4128
Slightly enhanced Google translate lyrics in English:
Elisabeth, why are your eyes wet?
A beautiful girl should very seldom cry
Because it makes the eye obscure.
Your beautiful hand will be cold
Every time you will cry.
And that is sad
Drop down your long hair and let your sadness go
The love you get can very rarely last
Because that's love's fate.
It comes and it goes away
But the heart is left.
And that is good
Elisabeth, sleep sweet and dream about what lasts
Your mother seems tired and cross.
And weary of men
But see, that's all right.
Your dad he disappeared
Soon she will find someone else
if she is wise
@hellhofer6943
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