Cornelis Vreeswijk

Cornelis Vreeswijk (8 August 1937 to 12 November 1987) was a Dutch singer-songwriter and poet who lived and worked mainly in Sweden. He was born in the Netherlands and never took Swedish citizenship, yet he is regarded as one of Sweden's most influential and best-loved troubadours, and critics set him beside national poets such as Evert Taube and Carl Michael Bellman because of his poetic lyrics and his social commentary. His songs return often to love, poverty and substance abuse. His style drew on folk, jazz, blues and bossa nova, and it modernized the Scandinavian ballad tradition. His life was the subject of the 2010 Swedish drama film Cornelis, directed by Amir Chamdin. He belongs in the atlas as a lyric poet whose texts were written to be sung.