[1972]
Testo / Lyrics / Paroles / Sanat: Raija Laroma
Musica / Music / Musique / Sävel: Heikki Valpola
Album / Albumi: Agit-Propin kvartetti laulaa työväenlauluja

L’intera II guerra mondiale raccontata in una canzone? Ebbene sì. O meglio: almeno una parte della II guerra mondiale; ma non è comunque poco. Poiché gli Agit-Prop erano un quartetto non solo dichiaratamente comunista, ma anche espressione diretta del Partito Comunista Finlandese -e su questo torneremo in seguito), è lecito attendersi una canzone assolutamente ortodossa dal punto di vista storico: il suo testo, scritto dalla scrittrice Raija Laroma, è un’enunciazione puntuale dei dettami storici ufficiali di provenienza sovietica, il tutto su una musica cadenzata (composta da Heikki Valpola) di sentore Brechtiano (o meglio, Eisleriano). Ciononostante, vi sono espressi alcuni concetti innegabili, così come ve ne sono scrupolosamente... (Continues)

[1972]
Testo / Lyrics / Paroles / Sanat: Kaj Chydenius
Canta / Singer / Chante / Laulaa: Miia Vuokkonen
Album / Albumi: Agit-prop -kvartetti laulaa työväenlauluja
(Agit-Prop Quartet sings Working Class Songs
Il Quartetto Agit-Prop canta canzoni dei lavoratori)

[1972]
Sävel / Musica / Music / Musique: Kaj Chydenius
Sanat / Testo / Lyrics / Paroles: Aulikki Oksanen
Album / Albumi: Agit-prop -kvartetti laulaa työväenlauluja
(Agit-Prop Quartet sings Working Class Songs
Il Quartetto Agit-Prop canta canzoni dei lavoratori)

Canzone popolare finlandese (Carelia o Ingria)
A Finnish folksong (from Karelia or Ingria)
Chanson populaire finlandaise (de Carélie ou Ingrie)
Suomalainen kansanlaulu (Karjala vai Inkeri)
Prima attestazione / First recording / Première communication: 1877

Buon anno a tutte e tutti! Ora, magari vi potreste ragionevolmente chiedere perché vi faccia questo augurio il sei di febbraio, quando l’anno è già cominciato da più di un mese; il fatto è che manco dal sito da oltre due mesi. Non è stato un bell’inizio d’annata per il sottoscritto, tra la malattia e la morte di un’amica cara (dalla quale ho ereditato il gatto) e progressivi e inesorabili problemi di vista, almeno fino a quando non si decideranno ad operarmi di un paio di cataratte oculari una delle quali sembra oramai una cataratta del Nilo. Tutto questo mi costringe, tra le altre cose, a leggere e a scrivere con molta difficoltà,... (Continues)

Näillä Aila Meriluodon säkeillä toivotan kaikille tämän verkkosivun ylläpitäjille ja ystäville rauhallista joulua ja hyvää uutta vuotta 2023.

[2022]

Il punto di partenza di questa “canzoncina attualizzata” sembra essere una simile canzoncina di cinquant'anni fa precisi (1972), intitolata Lenin-setä asuu Venäjällä [*], ovvero “Zio Lenin vive in Russia”. Qui ve la facciamo ascoltare dagli Åttopojat in una registrazione del 2014:



La canzoncina era assolutamente tale: si trattava infatti, in origine, di una canzoncina per bambini vietnamita intitolata Ông Lê Nin ở nước Nga, scritta da tale Nguyễn Hồng Kiên e musicata da Trần Đăng Khoa, nella quale, sulla scorta dello “zio Ho”, diventava zio pure Lenin. La versione finlandese fu preparata da Matti Rossi (1934-2017) sulla base del testo originale vietnamita, e poi composta da Eero Ojanen. Si noti comunque la vocina infantile flautata (e, probabilmente, campionata) con cui è cantata questa canzoncina sugli zii di turno. [RV]

[*] La “Russia” è un caso curioso nella lingua finlandese.... (Continues)

(2022)

Finnish Folk Metal Superstars KORPIKLAANI have released a new single called "Krystallomantia" which sees the band couple their trademark sound with their most politically influenced lyrics to date. The melancholic, yet upbeat anti-war song was written about Ukraine and the ongoing Russian invasion currently happening in that country.

KNAC.COM

[ ~ 1930 ]
Musica / Music / Musique / Sävel: Edward Pylkäs
Testo / Lyrics / Paroles / Sanat: Axel Simonen
Source: Pennsylvania Songs and Legends, edited by George Korson, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia 1949, pp. 451 - 453


Teräksen soitto (Song of Steel)

(Sung by Axel Simonen at Glassport, 1947, and used by his permission. Recorded by Eero Davidson and Jacob A. Evanson. Translated by Davidson).

“I made up the words of 'Song of Steel' about 1930”, said Axel Simonen. “I was a steelworker then. On a visit to Detroit I recited the song to my friend Edward Pylkäs, another steelworker, who gave me the tune”. [Axel Simonen, see Source]

“Finally, this enumeration of ethnic musicians would be incomplete without mention of the men and women writing new song lyrics and music for their countrymen. Some were humble laborers unaccustomed to writing verse or with hardly any musical... (Continues)

Musica / Music / Musique / Sävel: Eero Ojanen
Testo / Lyrics / Paroles / Sanat: Brita Polttila

The lyrics of this song are based on lines written by Nâzım Hikmet in his 1962 autobiographical novel Yaşamak Güzel Şey Be Kardeşim, translated into English by Mutlu Konuk Blasing and published in 2013 under the title Life's Good, Brother.

For most of his life, Hikmet was persecuted by the Turkish state for his political beliefs. His works were banned in Turkey until 1965. In 2017, 59 years after Hikmet's death, Yaşamak Güzel Şey Be Kardeşim was published by Yapı Kredi Publications, the current owner of Hikmet's copyrights, with a total of 25 parts of the text censored, including these very lines now reading »I'm a worker« instead of »I'm a communist«. So thank you, Mr. Erdoğan, for this and for your recent kind words about Finland and Sweden.

Musica e testo / Music and lyrics / Musique et paroles / Sävel ja sanat: Hiski Salomaa
Recorded for Columbia Records in New York on June 1, 1930
Originally released in 1930

Logging was a common source of livelihood for many Finnish immigrants in North America. This song is a cheerful tribute to those early settlers, the »quiet Finns« who chose an uncertain, itinerant, and often dangerous way of life working as lumberjacks. This, however, is not how Salomaa depicts a logger's life. Instead, the song is all about a logger having a sweetheart wherever destiny takes him – which in real life was probably just a myth in most cases. Salomaa himself never worked as a logger. Instead, he made his living as a tailor and musician.

[1987]
Musica e testo / Music and lyrics / Musique et paroles / Sävel ja sanat: Hector
Album / Albumi: Nuku idiootti ("Sleep, idiot")
Single: Päästä Minut Pahasta / Sota On Kaunis
1987, Flamingo FGS 127

[1931]
Testo e musica / Lyrics and music / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Hiski Salomaa (Hiskias Möttö, Kangasniemi 17-5-1891 – New York 7-7-1957)

In the first half of the 20th century, there was a lively interaction between American Finns and Finnish musicians and performers of the time. The duo Tatu Pekkarinen and Afu Tanner toured the Americas. In the USA, Columbia and RCA recorded Finnish performers and distributed records to immigrant audiences. One of these was Hiski Salomaa.

The childhood of Hiski Salomaa (original name: Hiskias Möttö) is described by researcher Juha Niemelä. “Anna Leena Möttö gave birth to a son on May 17, 1891, whose father was known to be Ananias Romo, the husband of Anna Leena's sister Amanda. The son was named Hezekiah after the Old Testament king.” At first, Anna Leena settled with her son in a small smokehouse for her sister and Romo, in the Tipsalo... (Continues)

[1905-1906?]

The old, beloved Barricades form now the object of a new song itinerary starting, rather obviously, with one of the most celebrated (and complicated) pages of our database website. Songs about barricades are not, and cannot be, “antiwar” songs: when people were called to the barricades, they were called to fight and resist against -usually well armed- enemies carrying guns and cannons into the core of the cities. The history of barricades is long, both in terms of real, historical events and as a firmly established symbol of people's resistance against oppression. This is why there are so many songs calling to real, physical barricades made of everything thrown down into the streets to form an obstacle, and to ideal barricades made of ideas and ideals, thrown down into people's heads to form an obstacle to any kind of oppression, repression, political and social normalization.

You... (Continues)

[1927/31]
Testo e musica / Lyrics and music / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Hiski Salomaa (Hiskias Möttö, Kangasniemi 17-5-1891 – New York 7-7-1957)
[Recorded 18.5.1928]

When young Hiskias Möttö (born 17.5.1891 in Kangasniemi, in the southern Savonia region) emigrated to America after his mother died, he was only eighteen years of age. 1909. This must have been the same land-and-sea journey made by thousands of young poor people from the most remote rural areas of Europe, all speaking their native dialects. While listening Hiski Salomaa's song, from southern Savonia, I am thinking of Amerigo, from Pàvana; Liverpool, Le Havre...and then, the endless sea that, however, ends somewhere in a new world, or rather, in the New World. Hiskias Möttö would soon become “Hiski Salomaa”, earning his life as he could in this New World, first as a tailor, then as singer and syndicalist. Nicknamed... (Continues)

In their 1978 book Edestä aattehen - suomalaisia työväenlauluja 1890 - 1938 (For the Cause - Finnish Working Class Songs 1890 - 1938), Ilpo Saunio and Timo Tuovinen write: »Lakkolaulu Pajalasta (Strike Song from Pajala) is a rare sample of the working class song tradition of Finnish-speaking people living in northern Sweden. It was written in Pajala during the 1930 - 1931 roadworkers' strike. The first labor union of Pajala was established in 1931. In the autumn of 1931, after the National Road Administration had refused to negotiate on wages, the workers called for a strike that continued until spring 1932. The name Anttila in the 4th stanza refers to a person who was recruiting scabs during the strike.«

The Torne is a river in northern Finland and Sweden and, since the annexation of Finland to the Russian Empire in 1809, the official border between the two countries. Throughout history,... (Continues)

[ab. 1914?]
Recorded by Kimmo Pohjonen and Heikki Laitinen
Album / Albumi: Murhaballadeja [2012]



This song is called “Lament for Those Fallen in Wars”; it has been recorded by Kimmo Pohjonen and Heikki Laitinen in their (wonderful) 2012 album Murhaballadeja (“Murder Ballads”). I have tried to translate the lyrics, but this task has proved far beyond my current possibilities. I can only grasp the general meaning of the song lyrics, but no full translation is possible to me. I kindly ask Juha Rämö to translate it in no hurry, and thank him in advance. [RV]

Musica e testo / Music and lyrics / Musique et paroles / Sävel ja sanat: Heimo Anttiroiko