Kristian von Svensson

"En självklar estradör i både mellansnack och visleveranser"

Sydsvenska Dagbladet

5.    In Black & White

Words & Music by Kristian Svensson

Am                                      E

I was born Miss Nilsson 1875

       Dm                        E                                   Am

Me and my brother changed last name to Thüring

       Am                                             E 

He helped me get my studio when I was 25

        F                      E                    Am

The year the 20th century was dawning

           G                                                            F

There is this thing 'bout photographs that just has got me hooked:

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Frozen moments that will keep on looking like they looked

                         Am

In black and white

I had gotten married but I did good on my own

So I shocked the man when I divorced him

When single with an income I became a citizen

So in a sense that mess was reinforcing

But if your right as voter all depends on what you got

Of course you want to change the way the law reads quite a lot

In black and white

In 1917 the riots raged outside my door

I guess I should just have been taking pictures

Instead I raised my voice and spoke to the desperate and poor

And instantly became the protest fixture

I pleaded everyone to be as calm as they could be

And wrote the crowd's petition for authorities to see

In black and white

As long as I'm alive I won't forget what happened next

When rightwing papers called me "troublemaker"

I guess that's just a name they call someone who dare to act

In order just to silence and to break her

But I gave 300 speaches before the accomplishment

Of being signed in as the first female in parliament

In black and white

Now that I am old the moving pictures all have sound

The movies, like these times, have many colours

But there's a certain quality to good old black and white:

You see where lines are drawn and cross each other

It is the 1970's and time for me to leave

I was born in old days that will always be percieved

In black and white

I was born Miss Nilsson 1875...