Carl Michael Bellman, Swedish poet. He was known as an entertainer and satirist in the 1760s and achieved fame through court patronage. A gifted poet and writer of c 1700 poems, he was a parodist, re-using popular melodies, but his bold verses and his metrical patterns created a new song form. He generally drew on existing melodies, including French airs, dances etc, but recomposed them and may have written some of his own.

Bellman's songs were widely admired throughout Sweden by the 1770s, but his earthy character made him unacceptable to much of Swedish society: he was rejected as unsuitable by the family of Wilhelmina Norman, the woman he had first intended to marry. He eventually married Lovisa Grönlund in 1777, and their union produced four sons. Bellman remained active in his songwriting activities and lived in fairly affluent circumstances until 1792, the year of King Gustav III's murder. Thereafter, Bellman's fortunes quickly declined and his final years saw a return of financial difficulties and was then plagued by deteriorating health. Some of Bellman's best songs can be found in the collections Fredmans Epistlar (1790), Bacchi Tempel (1783), and Fredmans Sånger (1791). Bellman died in Stockholm a week after his 55th birthday, in 1795.