Visa

Visa (plural visor) is the Swedish ballad tradition: a strophic, narrative song, usually self-accompanied on guitar or lute, in which the text leads and the melody serves the story. Its canon descends from *Carl Michael Bellman*'s 18th-century Fredman songs through the sailor songs of *Evert Taube* and the poet-singers of the early 20th century. Revived in the 1960s around Stockholm's Vispråmen Storken club by *Fred Åkerström* and *Cornelis Vreeswijk*, the modern visa admits social satire, translation and original writing while keeping the lone singer and the well-made text at its centre.