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".
Nancy
Cornelis Vreeswijk Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Hon hade gröna strumpor och hon var alltid kär
Och hennes far var domare, han hade katafalk
Var gång de döda drog förbi, så blev han blek som kalk
Så blev han blek som kalk
Det var så länge sen Nancy pratade slang
Hon hade inga flätor mer och hon sprang på restaurang
Hon sa att hon var kär i oss, för elva år sen, minst
För elva år sen, minst
Det var så länge sen Nancy var som så
Stiletten under kudden, och telefonen på
Men den som gick ibland förbi och sa att han var kär
Fick aldrig något ärligt svar, och hennes far var där
Och hennes far var där
Och nu är domar'n slut, katafalken far
Han har förlorat Nancy, det vet jag att han har
Men minns du Nancy när hon var helt ensam ibland män
För du var en utav oss då, för länge, länge sen
För länge, länge sen
The song "Nancy" by Cornelis Vreeswijk tells the story of a girl named Nancy who used to be very different from how she is now. The lyrics describe Nancy having green stockings and always being in love. Her father was a judge who would turn pale as a sheet every time a dead body would pass by. Nancy used to talk in slang and work at a restaurant, but she never let anyone win or be the first one out. She claimed to be in love with "us" (perhaps referring to the people she worked with) eleven years ago, at least.
The lyrics also mention Nancy keeping a stiletto under her pillow and having a phone nearby. However, if someone walked by claiming to love her, she would never give an honest answer because her father was always there. The singer then mentions that Nancy's father has passed away, and Nancy has lost him. He asks the listener if they remember Nancy when she was all alone with men because they were a part of her life a long, long time ago.
Overall, the song seems to paint a picture of a girl who has had to hide her true feelings and desires because of her strict father. The song is nostalgic and speaks to the idea of things changing and people growing apart.
Line by Line Meaning
Det var så länge sen Nancy var såhär
It has been a long time since Nancy was like this
Hon hade gröna strumpor och hon var alltid kär
She wore green socks and was always in love
Och hennes far var domare, han hade katafalk
Her father was a judge, he had a funeral bier
Var gång de döda drog förbi, så blev han blek som kalk
Every time the dead passed by, he became as pale as chalk
Det var så länge sen Nancy pratade slang
It has been a long time since Nancy spoke slang
Hon hade inga flätor mer och hon sprang på restaurang
She didn't have braids anymore and she worked in a restaurant
Men ingen fick va först av oss, och ingen fick ha vinst
But no one could be first among us, and no one could win
Hon sa att hon var kär i oss, för elva år sen, minst
She said she was in love with us, at least eleven years ago
Det var så länge sen Nancy var som så
It has been a long time since Nancy was like that
Stiletten under kudden, och telefonen på
A stiletto under the pillow, and the telephone on
Men den som gick ibland förbi och sa att han var kär
But anyone who walked by and said they were in love
Fick aldrig något ärligt svar, och hennes far var där
Never got an honest answer, and her father was there
Och nu är domar'n slut, katafalken far
And now the judge is done, the funeral bier goes away
Han har förlorat Nancy, det vet jag att han har
He has lost Nancy, I know he has
Men minns du Nancy när hon var helt ensam ibland män
But do you remember Nancy when she was all alone among men
För du var en utav oss då, för länge, länge sen
Because you were one of us back then, a long, long time ago
Contributed by Grace W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
PK
on Deirdres samba
Woman !!!
Staffan
on Djurgårdsmässa (live)
Detta är inte en text av Cornelis utan av Nils Ferlin. Det gör den inte sämre.