Cornelis Vreesvijk

It was 1965 and I was with my dad at a Parlament election meeting in Kalix. The partyleader C H Hermansson was there and he had Cornelis Vreesvijk with him. Cornelis was 28 years old, had come to Sweden when he was 12. He was very famous for his texts and how he lived. Some people didn't like a fat Dutchman who drank and sung texts like The hen Agda, which was about a rooster who picked off Agda's feathers because he wanted to have her naked. Cornelis sung his songs in the meeting. Hermansson has said later that they were on tour all over the country, and once Cornelis disappeared in Umeå and showed up in Gothenburg. He had always problems with taxes, authorities and once he took home two women who was men when he examined them closer. He chased them out with a knife. He was prisoned for that. He was very respected in the end of his life, he died in cancer 50 years old. He never had money when he lived, but now his songs generate money, and a fund in his name gives money to an artist who has never got any prizes before and sings in Cornelis' spirit.

There are three national poets in Sweden, Bellman, Taube and Cornelis.

I am very glad that I was at that meeting 1965, but I didn't understand it at that time.