Cornelis Vreeswijk – “Visa I Vinden” (Song In The Wind).

Hiya people! 🙂

Today, I have a beautiful Cornelis Vreeswijk song for you (or Swedes would say a Cornelisk song, Cornelisk is an adjective and I like it because it shows how he really is a huge and recognisable part of Swedish culture. I think this is one of my favourites. We could say nowadays that it is so beautifully emo. 😀

It is a very sad and beautiful love song, and if we’re talking Cornelis and love songs, of course we’re also talking Ann-Katrin Rosenblad, to whom he most often dedicates his love songs, and other of his songs often mention her too. If you’re not yet in the know, Ann-Kat(a)rin Rosenblad was his fictional muse, based on the real life one – Ann-Christin Wennerström. – This comes from his debut album – “Ballader Och Oförskämdheter” (Ballads And Rudenesses/Impertinencies) from 1964.

I even managed to translate the lyrics (go Bibielle!!! I guess it’s my fourth Swedish-English translation if I’m counting right) and they surely do tell you what the song is about, but I wonder if it’s just me who feels that the English lyrics are way clunkier than Swedish. Perhaps it’s because it can’t be otherwise, or maybe I could do it better, I don’t know. If you speak Swedish and read this, lemme know.

Also, honestly, ever since I’ve first listened to this song (which was like… 2016 I guess?) and then understood its lyrics fully, I’ve never really figured out what’s the deal with the “sieve” in the lyrics (see translation below). I thought maybe this word has more meanings in Swedish or it’s some idiom or something, but when I was translating this today I couldn’t find anything like that. So I still don’t know. Maybe it means that she was so selective in love or didn’t retain her emotions for long, meaning that she easily fell out of love, or something? I found out that sieve can symbolise virginity, because of a vestal in ancient Rome who proved her virginity by carrying water in a sieve and not spilling any of it. Cornelis read a whole lot and we could say that he was quite nerdy, and there are mythological references in some of his poems and songs. But here it doesn’t seem very likely to be the case. Yeah, I was the best in my class at poem analyses but have always felt like I’m not very good at it actually. 😀

 

I’m singing a song in the wind,

And hope the wind will bring

This song to my beautiful one’s cheek,

And sprinkle it in her ear,

And move her heart.

I have been to many countries,

And not been to many more.

I guess I could stop going,

If you ask me to do so.

And lovingly look at me.

But wish me luck on the journey,

When I now pull away from you.

And the reason, Ann-Katrin, is this:

I cannot stay,

Where I do not have your love.

I’m singing a song in the wind,

I’m singing a song in a storm.

My heart is like a granite,

My heart has lost its shape,

And my pain is enormous.

But listen to my march under the moon,

It swings in steady minor.

It does not fit on the gramophone,

It’s about you, you troll,

That your heart is a sieve.

Ida Redig / Alexander Rybak – “Visa Vid Vindens Ängar” (A Song At The Wind’s Meadows).

Here’s another kind of poetic cover sung by Ida Redig. The song was originally written and sung by Mats Paulson in the 60’s, and is quite a classic example of a visa, visa is a Swedish sort of ballad, it’s a bit like a separate Scandinavian music genre. This is a summer visa, and it has a very lullaby-ish feel to it, which I like. But apart from the version by Ida Redig, which is again quite different from the original, I’m also going to show you another one that I like even more than hers, and it is Alexander Rybak’s version. Alexander Rybak is the guy who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009, he has Belarussian parents but lives in Norway, he sings and plays fiddle, and he sang the song “Fairytale” at the Eurovision. I really like him, and even more so does Zofijka. Alexander’s version is more similar to the original, as well as longer than Ida Redig’s. It comes from his album, which is also called “Visa Vid Vindens Ängar”, and the album is entirely in Swedish, which is fun since his mother tongue is Norwegian. I’ve heard people saying that they don’t like that he has such a strong Norwegian accent on here, but I think it’s very nice! I also have the lyrics for you.

 

There goes a wind across the wind’s meadows

A curtain of tulle flaps

And I shall write a summer song

With sun and smell of flowers in the melody

I wanted to sing about Katarina

To wooden flutes and cymbal

But the tones of the wind become summer songs

I only listen in the birch leaves hall

There goes a wind across the wind’s meadows

A curtain of tulle flaps

And I shall write a summer song

With sun and smell of flowers in the melody

There goes a girl in the aspen grove

I have a yellowed photography

With the years she became a dream, a saga

A lonely wanderer’s sympathy

I wanted to write a little song

Where instants become eternity

But words become mute and tones deaf

And the song’s thought secret

There goes a girl in the aspen grove

I have a yellowed photography

With the years she became a dream, a saga

A lonely wanderer’s sympathy

There goes a wind across the wind’s meadows

A curtain of tulle flaps

And I shall write a summer song

With sun and smell of flowers in the melody

Kate Rusby – “Let The Cold Wind Blow”.

Hi guys. 🙂

Here’s another of my most favourite songs by Kate Rusby. I think it’s one of the most melancholic, at least musically, songs that I’ve ever heard, and the lyrics are also touching especially because of Kate’s expressiveness. The song is from the point of view of a ghost, who is witnessing that the love of his life no longer loves him and both she and the man she now loves live on his land. While I am not extremely fond of paranormal novels with ghosts or stuff like that, for some reason I find folk songs written from a ghost’s perspective very touching and interesting. I’ve shared another quite similar one in a way some time ago, it’s

“Nightvisitor” by Jim Moray.

I think they are both very evocative though in a bit different ways.