Music For People In Trouble is a 12 x 12 inch hardback photobook featuring photos and lyrics by Susanne Sundfør. It is available to order on demand through Blurb.
Buy now →“I spent a couple of years seeing the world through the lens of my camera. I did this because it felt like a more appropriate way to engage with my surroundings. I didn’t want to talk to people or to be emotionally altered by what I experienced or saw. I wanted a lens to serve as an active interpreter as I went on my way. It was a sort of protection, creating a distance between myself and what was outside my body, but also a continuously creative process, a visual stream of consciousness, where I was constantly framing whatever I laid my eyes on.
I took photos of myself in hotel rooms on tour, of friends and strangers in their homes or in places I visited, of nature and cities I came across accidentally or intentionally. I decided I wanted to make a collection that would tell a parallel story to what I was composing for my album. My environmental concerns were intertwined with my spiritual searching, going to places like Nepal and the Amazonia to capture beautiful but fragile nature, and exploring cities like Las Vegas and Pyongyang, with their opposite cultural and political ideas and ideals, in a quest for depicting some sort of common thread in human existence. The places and people I found inspired my music, and my music in its own time created new guidelines for motives I was searching for, or moods I wanted to express visually.
I wanted the photos to be viewed to the accompaniment of the music and the lyrics. This photo collection is the result of my endeavours.”
A small amount of proceeds from the book will go towards Sansegården Olavsbråten, a regenerative farm based in Noresund, Norway. Following previous posts online about climate change, Susanne will also be making a personal donation to the farm.
Mantra
I’m as lucky as the moon
On a starry night in June
Looking down on a lagoon
I’m as lucky as the moon
I’m as clever as a crow
In a yellow meadow
Making all the flowers glow
I’m as clever as a crow
I’m as mighty as a shark
I roam in the dark
I might scar you with my mark
I’m as mighty as a shark
I’m as empty as the earth
An insignificant birth
Stardust in a universe
That is all that I am worth
Reincarnation
Do you believe in
Reincarnation?
‘Cause I thought I saw your soul
Flashing and dancing
On the horizon
In shades of jade and emerald
I’m a bad girl
‘Cause I turned the bad world
Into a crystal pearl
And we were loveless
It was pure bliss
Something I’d never felt before
I might be crazy
But, baby, lately
I don’t believe the news
They say it’s ending
To stop pretending
To start looking for the clues
A glass cylinder
Where we can linger
It might take us to the stars
I won’t be missing
Your tender kissing
‘Cause the light will wipe out all the scars
Good Luck, Bad Luck
Good luck
Bad luck
That’s what he said
Freeloader
Wisdom from the books
He never read
Frightened
Delighted
By his request
To stay one more night and then
Put it all to rest
Double
Trouble
Neither to blame
One wins the round
But we will both
Lose the game
But as he
Moves closer
I cannot help but ask:
“If in a different world
Would our love forever last?”
The almighty scientist
Says most of the universe is empty
And gods don’t exist
Well,
Maybe that’s where
Our love ends up
No Holy Grail
Just an empty cup
The Sound of War
Leave all the silverware
‘Cause you won’t need it where
You are going tonight
Dust on the china
The spiders take over
Without your gracious hands
Chaos remains
The clock the sole reminder
Leave this ghost town
Before they burn it down
Before they take the crown
Before you hear the sound
The buzzing of the drone
Verdict unanimous
Dawn will turn to dust
As the snow falls down
Your footsteps on the ground
Are lost in the silence
We will no longer fear
Sirens and despair
Our songs live on
In the era of stone
A red, blinking Zion
‘Cause you won’t need it where
You are going tonight
Bedtime Story
Because you never meant it when you said that it’s alright
Because it wasn’t really ever what I had in mind
The damages are clear
You take the pain
I take the fear
Oh, what’s the devil but a good negotiator
Because I always meant it when I said it would go wrong
Because I always thought my life would be a sad song
The future is conveyed
You know the chord
Before it’s played
Oh, what am I but a bad storyteller
And when the nights are cold and strange and all the birds are gone
And all the oil has been spilt and left us on this earth alone
I’ll think about the time
You reassured me
You were mine
Oh, what is love but a frail, little dream catcher
Undercover
Don’t trust the ones who love you
‘Cause if you love them back
They’ll always disappoint you
It’s just a matter of fact
Don’t love the ones who trust you
It’s just not in your heart
You’re a teasing little twister
They are dancers in the dark
Oh, but
I wish I had a lover
Who’d keep it undercover
And we could live our dreams
We’d sail on golden wings
I wish I had a lover
Someone who wouldn’t bother
To tell me what to feel
To tell me what is real
It’s not a lot I’m asking for
They’ll kiss you in the evening
Devils in disguise, and
Love you till the morning
Then vanish before your eyes
A walking disaster
Can also master
A graceful posture
But where’s the dignity when
I wish I had a lover
Who’d keep it undercover
And we could live our dreams
We’d sail on golden wings
I wish I had a lover
Someone who wouldn’t bother
To tell me what to feel
To tell me what is real
It wouldn’t even matter
If you didn’t even bother
To be more than a lover
Oh
It wouldn’t even matter
If I didn’t even bother
To believe in a forever
No
No One Believes in Love Anymore
No one believes in love anymore
They threw away the keys
No one knocked on their door
You reap what you sow
No one knocked on your door
Pain is pleasure
And then just pain
Chasing the thunder
Then lost in the rain
Yourself to blame
You are lost in the rain
The skin so enticing
The thrill of the sting
Then drops the stinger
And the spinning begins
The world has gone off the hinges
And the spinning begins
A downward spiral
Punctured balloon
Disfigured and pale
Looking up at the moon
We’ll all get there soon
Looking up at the moon
The Golden Age
The fading temple bells
Calm the waves
The world rocks carefully
The sand draws its constellations in the moonlight
The clocks turn back time
To greet the Spring, while
Abandoned dolls in the seaweed
Dream with open pearl eyes
Among whales snoring
Dark frequencies into the night
We dream of stones now
All the softness is gone
Salt alters all that remains
It shapes pebbles and thirst
It carves up your body
So that you too will vaporize
And the rain will carry you out to sea
Slowly
I wake from a dream
To be in another dream
Where everything
Moves with the beat
Of a resonating drum
It rings louder and louder
And longer and longer
All the way to the border
And back to when we were young and out of our minds
Slowly
I fall into a dream
As if it is just as real
As breathing
In and out
With my beating heart
It beats louder and louder
And longer and longer
All the way to the border
And back to when I was young and out of my mind
Mountaineers
Jumbo jets spiralling down like vultures of the stars
Soaring above barren lands of boiling tar
The liquid rainbow spills an ocean of scars
Among the buzzing of a million cars
And looking up at a heaven of fireflies
I cannot help but marvel at the beauty before my eyes
Neck deep in black water
Swimming in the soil
Of your wasted oil
What it is
What it means
Now I know
We’ll never be
What you need
No
What we are
What we want
Will never change
We won’t abide by your laws
Anymore
What we are
What we want
Will never change
We will break through your walls
Unstoppable
Wild wolves