Susanne Sundfør

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.

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“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.”

— Susanne Sundfør

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.

Lyrics

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

Listen to Music for People in Trouble