Ok this is a rough draft of the documentary that was done by myself and Ester! It’s not perfect but I thought I’d post it up here cos a few ppl have been dying to at least have an idea of what Marie said in the documentary. Also if any native Swedes have time to make corrections, please feel free!

Here it is:

Text: September 11 2002 Marie Fredriksson was struck down by a brain tumour.
After 2 years, she is back.

After all that I have been through, it’s very special...that….I am so incredibly grateful for that… to be allowed to sit here...and so happy about that.

Text: Husband Mikael Bolyos filmed Marie’s work with the new album the last two years.

Marie: “When I got sick, the album became a type of comfort. I tried to immerse myself in the album, to play as much as possible. Perhaps that sounds strange, but I listened to a lot of music, to each word for strength.”

Marie is singing “The Change” at her kitchen table while Oscar plays with his toy sword, pointing it at the camera.
Marie: “Ok, let’s do it again. Oscar, we’re going to sing this one more time, okay?” Oscar puts his hand over the camera.

Marie: “I was supposed to tour with Roxette. There was so much fun ahead of us. Everything was going very well. And then after that... on that day, Micke was supposed to work with a friend and we would see each other later, he was still home. So about…twenty minutes later I lost vision in my right eye. Then it just disappeared. It was a little strange. I wondered, “What is happening?” I thought should go and lie down, and rest a while, but…then I don’t remember so much more actually, except that I heard Micke’s voice: “BUT MARIE!” – my name. I had hit myself so hard in the head that I’d had an epileptic seizure. I was totally destroyed - well maybe not destroyed exactly, it wasn’t quite that bad – but I was very badly injured. Then I was in the ambulance on the way to Karolinska. And then...the rest you know of course.”

“The Change”

Marie: “It was very important to me to write about becoming sick, and the shock that went with it… for this reason I wrote the song called The Change. And... that was naturally very hard, but it was a release to be able to write about that. I wanted to tell how I was really damn pissed off that I became sick, that I got fucking cancer!”

“The Change”

Micke: We had a long break during Marie’s operation and treatment, and later medication. Therefore we took it up again in the spring 2003 – or in the winter 2003 we took the recording up a half hour..(laughs) I mean half a year later, and recorded in periods, we wrote in periods, because we didn’t have all the material clearly yet.

Marie: “A few times I actually thought a while I wouldn’t have the strength to finish the album, that I would give up. I felt like I wasn’t able to. Therefore it was beautiful when I found the strength to get up and continue with it. And the more I got myself in gear, the more strength I got from it. Each one gave to each other. My strength became better and better the more we created.

“The Change”

Marie: “The fact that everyone knows who I am, I’m used to that. But to become sick in that situation, that was very hard. Very...what I should say?.. Everyone wants to know when you are famous. When that happens, it’s so macabre...So unreal.

“The Change”

Marie: “What I found most difficult was that people have so little respect. I found that really damaging. We had to hide ourselves away. The press was everywhere. A lot of people were running around our home. It made us insane. That was freedom. I was not able to go out with the children, without journalists who would have been everywhere and photographers. People who stood around and waited and waited to get a view to or a commentary, about it...yes how I felt or went myself like it now.”

Marie in the studio recording “April Snow”
….

Micke: “No album is written and recorded like this. One doesn’t record an album in this way... there an expression that is called: on life and death. We have lived with that….we lived with the shock through the entire recording. At the same time we were talking with a Neurosurgeon from Lund. Everything was upside down. Total internal chaos.

“April Snow”

Marie:“It took almost half a year before I to began to grasp what had happened. I was so blocked. But now I have come a long way. I am much happier, it goes much better, that I can speak about the illness on a totally different level. It’s doesn’t feel so hard now. Everything is actually okay.”

“April Snow”

Marie: “I feel twice as strong now, actually. And I can’t say why. I just am. It seems like the worst is over. And that feels really big. And I am so glad that I can say that.”

“April Snow”

Micke: “When we began with the recording, we had no clear strategy, what the concept for the album should be. Whether there was a red thread or whether it went only therefore to create songs, we just had fun playing But as Marie became sick, the red thread was suddenly there, because Marie and I had a need to write about that, what had happened.

Marie: “To start writing again songs...to write about what that happened in the lyrics and in silence. And then to start slowly to sing inside myself. And so it came back slowly. Therefore I think that the music was really a great support.

“2:nd Chance”

“2:nd chance” is about the fact that I got a second chance. When I got sick, I got also another chance to overcome it.

Recording 2nd Chance
Micke: that was the best one you’ve done
Marie: Yeah?

Marie: “Micke had been at my side during my illness all the time and he took care and this meant that I could overcome it as well as I did. I got from him an incredible strength. I am very proud of that.”

In the studio.
Micke is holding sheet music for “Mother”. Grins and points to himself. Points to “2nd Chance then points to Marie.
Magnus Lindgren: ”Marie Fredriksson? Not Bolyos?”
Marie: “No, Fredriksson is my professional name. So it’s always Fredriksson for that stuff. Bolyos is my... private name.”

“All You Gotta Do is Feel”

Marie: “The first time that Micke and I met was one of the most powerful events in my entire life. I had travelled so much with Roxette. I was rather – I have always been rather lonely, actually. Therefore when we met it was an really incredible experience, for the love was total and it was so instant, like a click of a finger.”

Recording “All you’ve Gotta do is feel”

Magnus: Do do do do
Marie: … all you gotta do is feel

Marie: “I had met Micke once before so I knew who he was, but I didn’t really know him, so to speak. And then we met at the hotel, it all came together and I was so happy to see him.”
Micke comes in the door with the kids and says “Boopboop!” and Oscar copies.
Marie: “In the middle of my recording and exactly as I was talking – what should I say?Amazing! You exactly came when I spoke about you!”
Micke: “Telepathy! Are you feeling okay?”
Marie: “Yes, very well. Lots of fun. When are they coming?”
Micke: “They come in about a half hour. So take your time, no stress. Bye!”

Marie: “Bye! What? Yeah, exactly when I was talking about him! That was a little spooky!”

“2:nd chance“-

Marie: “That day I met him it was like a film. The same day, that night, we became a couple. Tt was very fast.”

“2nd Chance”

Micke : “We met in Sydney, it was like finding your other half….. it felt fantastic.

Marie: “After we met, he went to New Zealand because he was travelling around, and I went home. So we talked morning and night, because of the different time zones. So, the telephone rang, the telephone rang….how expensive the telephone bills were, I won’t say…”

Marie: “It ‘s like we are speaking the same kind of language. If the music is involved we use exactly the same language.We understand each other perfectly. We have the same taste – it is so simple if we are both working with the music. It is so natural.”

Micke: “I am married to a very good composer - Marie.”

Marie: “It’s a lot of fun. That is lovely. It was clear between us.

Micke to the musicians: “sovereign. Really good.”

“The good life”

Marie: “I wanted to shop in the city and be by myself. I had to go on living. That was simply so. We can’t just do nothing. We must be able to live a normal life. You can’t just hide yourself.”

Photographer: “Marie, Could you please move just little in this way??? Stop, stop, stop...very good!!!

Marie: “When it happened, when I became sick... I went through so many treatments, very heavy and hard treatments, that I lost all my hair. And that clearly was hard, because everyone stared at me and I looked so sick. But I thought I looked cool, I looked so raw! I’ve always liked short hair, so it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t think it was so bad to lose all your hair. And then of course it came back! I’ve always had short hair. No big deal.”

“The good life”

Marie: “We are sitting here in the East, chatting a little. And we are on the way to the studio, then we’ll meet Kjell, Li, Dimberg, Åsa and who else? We will play six songs of our new album. My first English solo album! Fantastic, I think. And then we’ll find out if it’s a master work. Just wait and see!!”

Marie: “I love to sit in the peace and quiet with the piano, But I haven’t done so much more than sit here at home and write some songs. I appreciate so much when I listen, I hear, and I sing with the energy. There is much more energy here than what I did before. Therefore I believe actually that my musicality had changed. It became much, much more raw.

Marie (at the restaurant): (singing) “I love to live, love to live, love to live, yeah!” We are very busy at the moment. It will come out brilliant!!!

“Love 2 live”

Marie: “One of the hardest things about this illness was that I had to learn to read and count again. I must practice every day, and hang with that. It’s quite hard. But... it will pass, I believe that. It just takes time, it’s a process.”

“Love 2 live”

Oscar: “I’m Oscar and this is my friend Karl. …… Komper”

Marie: “The children helped me very much. Micke helped me very much. Thank God that they have been so strong. For that was my biggest strength, very clearly.

Oscar and Karl sing Har Kommer Alla Känslorna

Marie: “The best of that is the fact that I still had the laughter all the time. I had the laughter even when I didn’t feel like laughing sometimes. It returned and the fact that I could laugh and smile again helped”

“Many times”

Marie: Playing Table in the Sun on piano “Table in the Sun, I am incredibly happy about it for it’s the last song that I wrote for the album. And it really described these last two years. Therefore it seems to be a good end to the album, I think. With this song, yes. End of the album and…yes. It feels very good to be able to finish with that one, I think.”

“A table in the sun”

Marie: “I am in contact with God every day. It is always very warm and very big. When I was little, my oldest sister, Anna-Lisa, died in a car accident and it was very hard to believe that God existed. So it took a long time for me to like God after that happened. But, ah, it went slowly, it took a very long time to like God. But slowly I became friends with God more and more, and now it has become a warm and wonderful support; I think.”

“A table in the sun”

Marie: “I have always been a very strong person, I knew what I wanted. But as soon as I became sick, this strength collapsed. But after it was all over, then along came a new strength that I never felt before. It was completely exceptional. I don’t know where it came from, but it came, thank God.”

“A table in the sun”

Marie: “When I became sick, it became so natural for me to begin to paint again. But not watercolors - but rather (draws with her hand, trying to remember the word)…coal, yeah! And that fits me perfectly. With the coal it goes so well! It goes goes quickly, it goes so fast! It’s so violent. You get it all over your fingers! It’s an intense art form, I think.”

Marie holds up a picture: “This is my young years, you could say! A very happy time, damn cool. This is early, early Roxette-time. Uncertain, incredibly uncertain. Per had his wife Åsa, they had their thing. But I was alone, and I found that time really hard. We travelled so much, and all my friends were at home, I never saw them because I was of course the away all the time – from friends and family and such. Therefore I was very much alone or felt lonely. Therefore, that was a period that was hard, I think.

“The change”

Marie: “This is when I became sick. That’s hard, because there are two sides: (covers one side of the drawing) this is healthy (covers other side) – and this is sick. Two sides of me. But I have always had, because I am a Gemini and that was very clear when I became sick.

“The Change”

Marie: “What was so powerful about “The Change” was, when it came - the entire text, there I got such a spiritual feeling, a shocking spiritual power. And...that was magic. I had never really experienced that before, what happened, but that... It was another world. Very clear. I wrote the text, wrote the song very quickly. And afterwards, it felt like it had written itself, as if someone else wrote it. It was therefore a little strange.”

“The Change”

Micke: “There is one song I can’t listen to and that is The Change with a symphony orchestra. That text Marie wrote and melody was exactly how I felt too.”

Marie: “It’s two sides all the time. It’s very hard but I’m also thankful that I’m alive.”

All the time it is like there are 2 sides; one which is damn hard and tough as one can say to be really grateful to live. It is hard and one think that it is a pity, but at the same time one can think that it is beautiful that people care about you, about how you really feel, that they care for you; so it is possible to speak about the cancer without become scared to death; everyone knows it; it was written in every newspaper; one must learn to be used to it and to live with it.
It went so quickly really; it was very good but it was so special that my happiness came back; it was so great. The joy came from nowhere. (she sighs) In all of this there is also the strength. It is so tough, but there is so much strength in it. It is really fantastic! So it feels like happiness comes back in another way, in a more simple way now and I cannot explain it. The happiness came back and I am so grateful that I can experience it again! (she laughs) it is also possible to laugh... Why not???