Hey people! 🙂
Last month, I shared with you Visa om ett Rosenblad by Cornelis Vreeswijk. Today I thought we could listen to another version of it, sung by Cornelis’ son Jack. If I had to say which version I like more I’d have a really hard time because I find them both really beautiful and gripping, each in its own way. I wrote the translation and shared some thoughts about the song in the post with the original version.
Jack Vreeswijk – “Visa om ett Rosenblad”
Hiya people! 🙂
Today I’d like to share with you a lovely, kind of bittersweet and very jazzy song from Cornelis Vreeswijk. The melody to this song was actually composed by Georg Riedel, who is a Czech-born Swedish jazz musician and who, after Cornelis’ death, released an album called Cornelis vs Riedel, with his arrangements of Cornelis’ poems, sung by his daughter Sarah and Nikolai Dunger, several of which I’ve shared on here in the past.
I like this song for quite a few different reasons, but I think mostly because, while it sounds like a very clear allegory of the oh so commonly occurring and depicted, classic theme in romantic relationships where a man manipulates a woman just to hurt her and eventually leave, over the years, as I’ve been listening to this song again and again, I have realised that it also works as an allegory for many other less obvious things, or has not so obvious mini allegories within it, though no idea if it was a conscious/deliberate thing on Cornelis’ part. Perhaps it’s just one of those things in which everyone sees something a little different, or the same individual sees something a little different in it with each listen. And then I’m pretty sure that, on a more personal level for Cornelis, Ann-Katrin Rosenblad (a character who frequently appears in his songs and poems), or her real-life counterpart(s) must also be present somewhere here, it must be about a “rosenblad” for a reason. Regardless, I like how sensitively all of these allegories are handled here. I also do really like it musically, even though regular people on here know that I am generally not overly big on jazz. The translation below is Bibielz. Bibielz had no particular issues writing it, because the original lyrics are quite easy and uncomplicated language-wise, so it should be more or less alright.
Once upon a time, there was a little rose petal
And the rose on which she grew was red
Then one day she fell off because the rose was dead
Then an icy wind passed by, then she was happy
Because the wind was a cheerful and fiery guy
Who was on his way from south to north
He blew her ear full of beautiful words
Come, sweetheart, said the wind, come
Then she got dizzy
She couldn’t resist what he said
She gave him everything he asked for
He brought her with him to a big rich city
Here will the two of us live, he said.
And she said yes
But the wind was an unfaithful specimen
Who only wanted to tumble around in the sky
He blew her away from himself, she fell down into the mud
Then he left the city in a hurry
And she stayed
Should you see a flower petal somewhere
Among rubbish and dirt in our happy city
Remember that she once was a beautiful rose petal
She once loved a wind and she was his
And the rose that she grew on was dead
And the wind whom she loved, he’s gone
Every night she walks into the room where I live
She is called a rose petal
And her colour is red
Hey people! 🙂
Since I had a yucky migraine yesterday, I’m only sharing yesterday’s song of the day today. I chose it to be a song from Maire Brennan’s first solo album, which is a real fight song. Apparently its original video has something to do with helping children, which is in line with Maire’s passion for helping them. I like the vibe of this piece
Hiya people! 🙂
The beautiful piece I’m sharing with you today comes from an act who’s relatively new to me, but ever since I’ve become aware of their existence I like their music a lot. I truly love long, complex pieces for harp, and this one perfectly meets my expectations. 😀 Hope you enjoy it too. 🙂
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.
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
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
I think they are both very evocative though in a bit different ways.
My Inner MishMash 