I shared with you a song by Zen Café a while back, and in that post I mentioned that I also really like the solo music of their vocalist – Samuli Putro. – So here’s a song by Samuli Putro for today, coming from his 2009 album Elämä on Juhla (Life is a Celebration).
I haven’t been able to find a reliable translation of this song, but I translated it with Deepl to be able to tell you anything about what it is about, and it seems to me to be about wanting to start your life afresh, doing something different somewhere else, because there are so many possibilities. So the lyrical subject encourages the person to whom this song is addressed to move with him to Berlin and get a flat there, because it’s so nice and they could work and live there and come back to Helsinki on vacations etc.
I posted an announcement on here on Saturday that I’d be away on a camper trip, and while on it, I happened to listen to a lot of Finnish music while riding. And it keeps niggling at me that while I generally like a lot of Finnish music that I hear, I feel that I still don’t really know a lot of it, and rarely end up actually sharing something Finnish on here, which results in a gross underrepresentation of Finnish music in my song of the day series despite Finnish is one of my favourite languages. So I thought it’s time to share something Finnish today, and I chose a song that I really like and have a good associations with, though I also generally really like this band and it’s very possible that I’ll be sharing more of their music in the future, sooner or later. We shall see.
Zen Café is a band that I discovered thanks to the amazing programme in Polish Radio 3 called Strefa Rokendrola Wolna od Angola (Rock’n Roll Zone Free of English) which I have mentioned a couple times before because I’ve made some interesting discoveries thanks to it. It’s a programme where you can hear only music in languages other than English, and the vast majority of the time also other than Polish, except for some special occasions when Polish-language songs of foreign artists are played. And this song was the first one by Zen Cafe that I heard. I was finding myself a bit on the crossroads language learning-wise at that point, wondering which language should I actually start learning now that my Swedish was on a decent enough level for me not to need to devote my whole attention to it, and the two strong contenders were Welsh and Finnish, so I was definitely on the lookout for Finnish music then, and checked out more of Zen Cafe’s music and listen to them to this day and like a lot of their songs.
The band is actually no longer a thing really, well they haven’t disbanded officially but went into an indeterminedly long hiatus over ten years ago. It was formed in Turku in the 90’s. Its name is the idea of the band’s bassist Kari Nylander, based on Robert M. Pirsig’s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Their vocalist, guitarist and lyricist – Samuli Putro – has released a lot of solo music since the band’s hiatus has started, and I really like his solo albums as well. Aside from the aforementioned Nylander and Putro, part of the band right before the hiatus was also Pete Parkkonen.
Sadly (also for mé because I can’t speak Finnish just yet) I haven’t been able to find a reliable, logical-sounding, properly grammatically English translation of this song, but what I was able to figure out of those not very good ones that I found as well as with the help of my multilingual friend Deepl, it’s about the lyrical subject’s relationship with, well, a woman without history, or perhaps not necessarily relationship but at the very least it seems like he’d be happy for one to develop. He’s also very curious about her past, and generally who she might be and what sort of life does she have.
I thought I’d share some Finnish music today for a change, because while Sámi music is now better represented on my blog than it used to be, there’s still few Finnish songs on here. Haloo Helsinki is a great rock Finnish band and as far as I’m aware they’re pretty popular and chart-topping in their motherland. Finnish radio stations that I’ve listened to definitely like to play them. I have already shared one song by them in the early days of my blog. A couple years ago (guess it was 2018) I had a phase where I was listening to Radio Suomipop all the time. My computer was away being fixed, and I had some bad Finnish music cravings and found that radio station in the stations catalogue on my Braille-Sense which can play Internet radio. I didn’t have an iPhone or anything like that back then yet. And, discovered a LOT of cool Finnish pop via this station, their playlist was just so extremely repetitive, and this song was among their particular favourites as it seemed. I haven’t listened to them in ages now but I wouldn’t be surprised if they still played it like every hour. 😀 I originally really liked it just like pretty much everything from Haloo Helsinki, but Radio Suomipop made me feel really fed up with it, and it took some time before I could listen to it again with a fresh mind. 😀 It’s also a bit funny for me as a Polish speaker because during my Suomipop phase, Sofi heard this song once while being in my room and she claimed that there’s a Polish swearword in the chorus. I’d never paid any attention to that, but once Sofi said that I too started hearing it very clearly, even though what she’s actually saying is korvamaton which means priceless in Finnish, at least according to DeepL. DeepL also claims that the title of this song means either unknown or stranger. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find an English translation for you, or actually the only one I did find seems to have a broken link or something. But I fed DeepL the original lyrics and it seems to be something about how we all have different backgrounds and experiences and are in a way strangers to each other and about fear and stuff like that.
The song i want to show you today, as well as the artist singing it, are both new to me. I just heard it for the first time last week and I liked it a lot. As you may know, I don’t speak Finnish myself (yet) but DeepL claims that the title of this piece can be translated as either Clean or Pure Water, I don’t know which word is closer to the original. I found no translation of the lyrics, so I again asked DeepL for help and it seems like it’s about one’s relationship with God, or, more exactly, how God is still by our side even when we repeatedly turn our back on Him or curse Him, yet still, at the same time, the lyrical subject has some doubts, as he or she seems to be asking over and over: “Can You hear me?”
Quite as I was expecting when I first saw her name, Venla Edelmann is daughter of Finnish singer and actor Samuli Edelmann., and I have also found this song sung by him, so maybe it was him who was first? The lyrics to this song were written by Samuli Laiho, who is a musician himself as well.
Time for some Suomipop, or simply Finnish pop, if you prefer! 🙂 This singer whose song I want to share with you today is very popular in Finland, particularly as a former member of the band PMMP but I think she’s widely recognisable due to her solo career as well. Her full name is Paula Julia Vesala, although apparently she used to go by Paula Anneli Kivivuori, she’s originally from Kärsämäki, and aside from being a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with a degree in music, she has also studied drama and is a playwright and actress. She used to be in a relationship with the vocalist of The Rasmus (also a very successful Finnish band whose song “In The Shadows” achieved success also in other countries, to be honest that’s the only thing I know them for 😀 ) Lauri Ylönen.
I am not crazy about her music, but I do like most of it and I think it’s nice to listen to. I generally find most Finnish pop that I have come across very nice to listen to even if I don’t necessarily fall in love with a lot of Finnish pop songs to any spectacular degree.
Let’s listen to Finnish rap today, for a change! I’m not big on rap, unless it just expresses something that I also feel strongly about, but I sometimes like to listen to rap in either some “weird”, that is rarely heard, languages in which I don’t understand a word, or in “my” languages, especially those which I still am not learning yet because that’s more interesting to speculate what it might be about and I don’t have to bother if it has some incredibly stupid lyrics. I just like to hear how rap sounds in various languages that I don’t speak, and it seems like I’m not alone because I’ve come across people who do the same just out of curiosity. 😀 And I don’t know what it is about Finnish, but I think that out of all my favourite languages, this is the language that rap sounds the best in. It just really fits this genre. More, imo, than metal does, which is commonly associated with Finland so much.
The sad thing is that I don’t really know much about this song at all, nor the artists who made it. I believe that Sana, or Sanna Rönnberg, is quite a popular young pop and rap singer in Finland and that she is from Espoo, but I know nothing about Maya Paakkari. Google claims that haava means wound in Finnish, and from the very broken translation of the song that I was able to get out of it it does seem to be true, but in general I wasn’t really able to make out of that translation enough to be able to say anything constructive as for what this song is about, other than likely some kind of difficult or hurtful relationship and being wounded as a result, but even that’s very much a guess. But I like this song regardless and have liked it for a few years already, so I thought maybe someone else will like it too and will like how rap sounds in Finnish.
Let’s leave all the folky stuff for today and listen to some Suomipop (Suomi means Finland in Finnish, just in case you are confused 🙂 ). I quite like listening to some Finnish pop rock stuff like this sometimes, and I believe Samae Koskinen is quite a recognisable artist in his country. This song comes from his 2015 album “Henkilökohtainen ennätys” which apparently means Personal Record. I haven’t been able to find a translation of the song, although I do know that myrsky means storm in Finnish. I tried getting Google Translate to tell me something about what this song is about but I wasn’t very successful at this as hardly anything of what Google threw back at me made sense, so that I wonder whether this is written in some sort of slang or maybe even a dialect…? that would be interesting, I honestly don’t have a clue what’s the situation like in Finland regarding dialects and how diverse the Finnish language is. I know they do have a lot of contractions though in colloquial speech so perhaps it’s simply that what Google didn’t understand. What I did figure out is that the lyrical subject in the song is called Storm by people, and apparently he agrees with it and considers this appropriate, and I guess most of the song is about why he indeed is like a storm, but I didn’t understand much out of Google’s nonsense and I could well be wrong even about what I think I did understand from this patchy translation. Still, at least with this kind of music, I don’t think it’s necessary to understand the lyrics to be able to enjoy it, and I think it’s a pretty cool song.
Let’s listen to yet another, beautiful and cute lullaby today. It was written by a Finn of many talents – Tapio Rautavaara (1915-1979) – who was a successful athlete (javelin thrower and archer) and then (also successful) singer and actor. Some of his songs, from what I know, were quite big hits at the time of his career. While I don’t really feel them musically all that much as they just don’t stand out to me I guess and are totally not my thing, I like the lyrics of some of them, which are often humourous, sometimes a bit ironical and often have a fair bit of wisdom in them, in which they remind me of Cornelis Vreeswijk. Their political views were also very similar from what I know. It is not surprising then, with that similarity, that Cornelis Vreeswijk actually did an album consisting of Rautavaara’s songs that he – Vreeswijk – translated to Swedish. The album is called “En Spjutkastares Visor” (Songs of a Javelin Thrower) and was released in 1980. Among these songs is “Sininen Uni” in Finnish, or “Den Blåa Drömmen” in the Swedish translation, or Blue Dream in English – a lovely lullaby about the Sandman, or Nukkumatti in Finnish, or John Blund in Swedish (blund means close your eyes and is the imperative form of the verb blunda).
Sandman is one of my most favourite folklore characters, next to Jack Frost, selkies, changelings and some others, because I love sleep and dreams and I just really like the concept of the Sandman, so I instantly fell in love with this lullaby when I heard it for the first time and understood well enough (in Vreeswijk’s version).
Thanks to Spotify, a couple months ago I also came across a cover version in Finnish sung by Suvi Teräsniska and Arttu Wiskari, which speaks to me more than the original. And I thought that, because Finnish is just as beautiful a language in my opinion as Swedish, and because it’s interesting to hear how the song sounds in its original language, I would share this Finnish version too, and also I just plain like it, unlike the original.
I don’t speak Finnish (yet), so I don’t understand any of the Finnish lyrics, but I tried my best at translating the Swedish translation into English for you. I got Google to translate the Finnish one for me out of curiosity and it doesn’t seem like there are any huge differences between the two language versions, perhaps except for that, according to Google, the Finnish Nukkumatti “devours ice cream” whereas John Blund is better and gives you a sleepy cookie.
On December 6, Finland celebrated its Independence Day. Unfortunately I couldn’t celebrate it on here at that exact day, as I was an anxious mess and didn’t feel like writing anything, but I listened to a lot of Finnish music and though that, to commemorate the independence of Finns, I’d share something in Finnish, especially that there’s not very much Finnish music on here. It’s a nice pop song that I’ve been liking this year. I couldn’t find a quality translation, but as far as I know, the lyrics are about a woman who was in a great relationship in which she felt truly alive, but she has now moved to a different city, her life evolves around work and sleep, and she is missing that relationship and is feeling the emotional hunger for it.
Yesterday I said that I listen to a lot of Finnish pop lately. Well, here is one of my recent favourites. I was thinking for quite a while whether I’d prefer to show you the normal version, or the acoustic one, as I like both, but in the end I thought I like the acoustic more in this case, so I’ll share the acoustic. Olivera is a Finnish artist that is very new to me but I am hoping to explore more of her music. By the way I had no idea that the name Olivera is used anywhere outside of countries like Serbia or Macedonia, would never think it’s used in Finland, that’s interesting. Not that it wouldn’t sound right in Finnish, it just somehow surprised me.
After sharing with you one song by Maija Vilkkumaa, I wanted to discover some more Finnish music, and listened to a lot of it. As a result, I thought I’d share with you another Finnish song, by another well-known female artist in Finland called Kaija Koo. Her style is a bit similar though she’s been around in the music industry for a decade or so longer and the feel of her music has been changing a lot over the years. This song is in collaboration with a Finnish actor and musician Reino Nordin. Sadly, I couldn’t find a reliable translation for this one, and am not even 100% sure what the title means, so that’s a little bit of a disappointment, but Finnish music is great anyway!
Time for something Finnish! I’ve been familiar with a lot of Finnish folk and some Finnish rock – at least the classic stuff, some metal and some modern bands like Haloo Helsinki – for quite a few years. But last year I’ve actually got a bit of a craving for Finnish music for a while and wanted to explore more of it. The problem was, it was that unfortunate time when I was without my laptop for a month so it was a little bit difficult to achieve. I managed to find an Internet radiostation though, called Radio Suomipop, where they broadcast almost only music (and ads, loads of them!) and only in Finnish, and only the most recent pop. So I could actually get quite a good glimpse of what was big in Finland at that time. The station was incredibly repetitive as is often the case with such things, but oh well, at least I had my Finnish music, I was fed up with it quite quickly, the best way to get rid of such a craving. Nevertheless, I came across some cool artists thanks to them, or – as was the case with Ms. Vilkkumaa – could hear some of the artists that I did hear about before but never felt like they were my style so hadn’t actually listened to their music at all before. I do like Maija Vilkkumaa, and some others that I thought I wouldn’t, even if I’m not in love with their music.
Maija Vilkkumaa has been well known in Finland since the late 90’s-early 2000’s, and while she can be heard frequently on Suomipop, her music is actually classified as something like poprock. The song I want to show you seems to be her newest one, unless I’ve missed something more recent, and it is this one that I heard at Radio Suomipop last autumn and was hearing approximately every 2 hours. 😀 But I haven’t listened to Radio Suomipop since then, I much prefer the luxury of choosing it myself what I want to listen to, so I’m no longer fed up with it, and I think it sounds quite nice. I am still wondering if I’m going to show you something from her older repertoire tomorrow or not, we shall see.
The good thing about Finnish language songs, at least those more popular ones, is that they usually seem to have English translation somewhere in the Internet, even if the lyrics are really bizarre, as is often the case with Finnish music and Finnish anything, they seem to like the bizarre and I like Finns for that. 😀 I wish it was like this with other “rare” languages too. I guess Finnish people also like to understand the lyrics in music more than many other nations, as in 20th century it was apparently a thing for them to create covers of English language hits in their own language, so perhaps they understand that other nations might also want to understand their lyrics. Anyway, thanks to this, I was able to find the translation of this song, so here it is:
What country would you be
Argentina for me
What instrument
Theremin
What song
Pistoolisankari
[(Pistol Hero) a song by a Finnish rock band called Dingo]
Which would you give up if you had to
Sex or booze
Oo oo oo but you don’t have to
You say don’t go yet, you don’t have to leave
Nothing’s waiting at home, except for mess and silence
Happy families play Afrikan tähti
[(Star Of Africa) a Finnish board game)]
Oo oo oo and there is no us
And I know I shouldn’t
I swore I wouldn’t stay
But I am the loneliest in the world
So I pour the glasses full of bubbly wooo
And it’s like a blanket on us
Yeah you always come and you always go and never stay wooo
I’m not your only one but I’m here now
I’m not your only one but I’m here
What film
Matrix
What crime
Well murder
But if you got caught and were in Texas
An electric chair it would be
Wishing for mercy but that would be in vain
Oo oo oo there is no mercy
And somewhere mothers take their children to day-care
One time I always did my best
Not now
Misguide me
And I pour the glasses full of bubbly wooo
And it’s like a blanket on us
Yeah you always come and you always go and never stay wooo
I’m not your only one but I’m here now
I’m not your only one but I’m here
And when I leave
I know that of course
You won’t be calling after me
And in the corner of the street I’m keying your car
But it doesn’t make it easier
So bye
And until the next time
And I pour the glasses full of bubbly wooo
And it’s like a blanket on us
Yeah you always come and you always go and never stay wooo
I’m not your only one but I’m here now
And I pour the glasses full of bubbly wooo
And it’s like a blanket on us
Yeah you always come and you always go and never stay wooo
Wow! :O I didn’t know they have their special day too. 🙂 How great! Happy National Day to all Sweden Finns out there in the world! I love both Sweden and Finland, so both these nations and both these languages are dear to me, and I find the Finnish Swedish accent very endearing and cute, one of my favourite Swedish accents or dialects actually.
In Sweden, you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting somebody Finnish or of Finnish heritage. Almost everybody knows somebody with a Finnish connection. In fact, there are so many Finns living in Sweden that they have their own commemorative day. And today is that day.
Today, 24th February is ‘Sverigefinnarnas’ Day, (Sweden Finns Day) – the day that celebrates the roughly half million people who live in Sweden and have Finnish as their mother tongue.
So why are there so many Finns in Sweden?
There has been a long history of emigration between the two countries, especially in the border regions of the north. However, a larger emigration happened when 70,000 young Finnish children were evacuated to Sweden during WW2. 15,000 are believed to have stayed and an unknown number to have returned as adults.
Then, in the 1950s and 1960s the migration from Finland to Sweden was considerable, chiefly…
The song for yesterday (as it’s well over 1 AM already here and I’m soon going to bed with Misha 😀 ) is by Finnish band called Poropetra, whom I got to know via my friend Jacek from Helsinki about whom I’ve written here multiple times already. He was a great fan of them and showed their music to me saying that “this is something perfectly for you”. At first I thought he was joking, I mean when I heard them, because in fact my first impression was that their music is… quite funny, like awkward, I don’t know how to put it really. I dont know, there’s still something funny about it for me. It just made me laugh back then and still does sometimes. But he was serious, and in time I realised that indeed I like them, despite that I thought they are funny, in a little weird way. Their songs also often regard various old Finnish deities and such (like this one), while I am Christian, but after consulting this with my Mum it seems to me that it’s not in such an invading way, and I guess there’s nothing wrong with their music from the Christian point of view. Why do I like them? Because they sound so weird, because the founder member of the band – Juha Jyrkäs – plays kantele (it’s such a Finnish harp, kind of, it’s called harp but as you can hear it sounds differently, more clangy) and does throat singing or overtone singing, because they sing in Finnish, because their music is a blend of two genres I like – folk and rock, – and probably I could also find something else as a reason why I like them, so you have to agree that’s a lot. This is my favourite song by them, although you won’t hear Jyrkäs’s throat singing here, maybe I’ll post something else from them another time so you can hear how weirdly wonderful it sounds, or you can look it up on your own if you’re very curious, and no, it’s not like Mongolian or Tibetan overtone singing. The group is apparently inspired by Siberian and Karelian music, and while I don’t have any idea about the above, I guess even I can see it because their music is very different from other Finnish folk/folk rock bands and has a different feel. As for Luonnotar, it’s a different name used in referrence to Ilmatar, and Ilmatar is Finnish virgin spirit of the air, mentioned frequently in Kalevala. Oh and Jacek told me that poropetra in Finnish means some type of elk, but I’m not sure if that’s true and reliable, although it should be haha. I’m curious what your impressions will be. 🙂
My Inner MishMash 