Ievan Polkka

[kirkcudbright]

This is what's been earworming me for the last couple weeks, since shortly after Arisia. I don't even know if it's the same Loituma track that folzgold was playing at his party, but all I can say is Why did I not know about this before now?? It was recorded 16 years ago, and I even had other Loituma, just not this.

Also, I don't know Finnish, but I suspect that there's a lot of clever word-play here.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i presume you know about the "leek girl" version -- http://dagobah.net/flash/loituma.swf

(teh webs inform me that that clip is set to phonetic nonsense, and the rest of the song is about a guy who wants to dance with eva but his mom won't let him, so they sneak away to someone's house and dance, and when they get back his mom chews him out but he tells her they'll be together no matter what :)

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

“Why did I not know about this before now??”
Because you weren't paying attention to NorthSide records, a sister company to Omnium for whom Drew Miller worked for years, and all the various fabulous Nordic music they were importing/releasing in the states.

I have a huge pile of it… unfortunately the label itself has only 7 albums available any more… almost all Väsen.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

The youtube page for the video has a Finnish transcription and English translation, so I get the gist of the story. But listening to sound of the lyrics and the way she enunciates them, I get the sense that there's more to the Finnish than comes through in translation.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was paying attention to NorthSide at the time, and I've got a small pile of it - Väsen, Garmarna, Hedningarna, Värttinä, JPP, all 3 of the Nordic Roots samplers, etc. I listened to it a lot in the '90s, not so much lately. But I somehow missed this entirely.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Huh. Interesting. Ok, I have no idea how you missed it. :)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

that's almost always true with translations ("there is no such thing as a synonym"). shall we hunt you down a finnish speaker?