Good Finnish songs for Finnish learners

blackknight1803 · Post by **blackknight1803** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:35 am

Hi. Can you suggest any good Finnish song from which I could improve our Finnish by learning the lyrics?
Thanks alot.

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Mölkky-Fan · Post by **Mölkky-Fan** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:19 am

I guess the Christmas songs are good... tip tap tip tap tippy tippy tip tap tip tip tap

there must be a interwebnet place where the words are written

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:29 am

Ultra Bra might have suitable music, youtube+ultra bra lyrics

paddyharper · Post by **paddyharper** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:33 am

I have recently used both Jenni Vartiainen's albums. Printed out the lyrics and translated them. I found that it was quite easy to understand her words clearly (although my wife laughs when I walk round the house singing the lyrics to "Ihmisten edessä")

FinnGuyHelsinki · Post by **FinnGuyHelsinki** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:38 am

Ismo Alanko; 'Kun Suomi Putos Puusta', 'Taiteilijaelämää'. Maj Karma: 'Ukkonen' (and others from the same album 'Ukkonen'). You can find the lyrics with a Google search and the songs on Youtube.

I'm sure there are loads of other good examples, in which the words are quite clearly articulated but use some spoken forms of words, as you would hear and use in a casual conversation. Additionally, especially Ismo Alanko uses cultural references.

AnnikaL · Post by **AnnikaL** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:57 am

thanks to my 2.5 year old daughters refusal to listen to anything else and being at that "repetetive" stage of wanting everything again and again, I am using....Känkkä Ränkkä ja koko muu Konkka Ronkka.

But I wouldn't recommend it, for your sanity

I can however sing and translate all of yksi pieni elefantti, hämä-häkki poses no difficulty and I have been Daiga-duuing along quite happily in scary voices for some time.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:22 pm

blackknight1803 wrote:Hi. Can you suggest any good Finnish song from which I could improve our Finnish by learning the lyrics?
Thanks alot.

See here and here. (If you don’t have access to Spotify, search for the same song titles on YouTube.)

skandagupta · Post by **skandagupta** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:37 am

Leevi and the leavings,the good ones like "Pohjois-Karjala" and "Teuvo maanteiden kuningas" .
Aarno Tenkanen ja tempuntekijät.

tappotuli · Post by **tappotuli** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:52 am

I found the band Mokoma recently that I'm rather fond of...
If you look on youtube their video sydänjuuret has lyrics in the video itself...

Anybody know of any other good Finnish bands kind of like them? (i.e. metal with clean vocals that sing in Finnish)

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:33 am

tappotuli wrote:I found the band Mokoma recently that I'm rather fond of...
If you look on youtube their video sydänjuuret has lyrics in the video itself...

Anybody know of any other good Finnish bands kind of like them? (i.e. metal with clean vocals that sing in Finnish)

Not all of these sing in Finnish but you could try searching for their songs on YouTube anyway.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:33 am

I’ve previously recommended the music streaming service Spotify a number of times on this board, also in this thread.

When you sign up with their service and install their music player software on your computer, you can search a vast catalog of songs and albums of all kinds: also Finnish ones. And not only the most popular or current songs but also some rather rare and obscure old recordings, classical music, and various less popular genres.

Once you find something interesting, you can then listen to these songs – streaming them from the Internet – to your heart’s content. The streaming is near-intantaneous; you hardly notice the music comes off the net. It’s like playing the songs locally. (Which you actually do if you listen to the same song the second time: Spotify stores an encrypted, cached copy on your computer.)

In addition to searching for and listening to music, Spotify lets you create personal playlists, in mixtape fashion, which you can either choose to share with the other Spotify users or keep to yourself as private playlists. There’s also an option to download and buy the songs in MP3 format – that is, if you’d like to own a permanent copy, instead of just streaming from the network.

When I first wrote about Spotify on FF, this was back when they offered free (ad-sponsored) user accounts by invition. These accounts had unlimited playback time and an unlimited number of plays, so you could listen to music from their catalog free and as many times as you liked. If you wanted to use the free service, the only gotchas were that you had to get an invitation somehow, listen to an unskippable ad every now and then, and the service was only available to a limited number of countries (it still is, but they’re expanding, and technically savvy users have of course always been able to use a foreign proxy service to circumvent any geographical restrictions.)

• • •

Alas, Spotify has since gone through a change of policy. The free accounts now have playback limits and only allow listening to music for a certain number of hours per month. Also the number of plays of the same song is limited.

In order to lift these limits and get the previous unlimited user experience (but also no ads), you need to pay a monthly subscription fee of € 4.99. It is still rather affordable and somewhat alluring considering the size of their music catalog, but maybe not as good a deal as the previous ad-sponsored, unlimited free service. Obviously they didn’t get enough ad sales to cover the licensing costs for the songs in that model.

• • •

In any case, Spotify has now launched in the U.S. as well (see ]here for another writeup on the launch), after years of though negotiations with the record labels.

Spotify is starting out in the U.S. with a low-profile service, generating buzz with invite-only accounts (which apparently are temporarily set up with less limits than in the normal situation, as a promotional aid), and apparently also via Facebook. Their U.S. website has only just opened today. If you want to check out their paid offerings, make sure to select the correct country from the country selection box.

But in case $ 4.99 per moth doesn’t sound like too much for an “unlimited” streaming music service (which apparently is the U.S. pricing – you guys are getting a better deal than us Euro folks!), those living on the other side of the pond might want to give them a try. Or you could try to hunt for an invitation, to try out their service for free.

I’m not sure of what is the actual breadth and width of their Finnish song catalog in their U.S. version. Each country draws the songs from the same base catalog but some of the songs and albums are geographically restricted as well. This is probably due to differences in distributors’ licensing terms. But since one of the big things about Spotify is the ability to easily create and share personal playlists within the service, and also outside of it, in mixtape or DJ style, every now and then you may encounter a grayed-out song on other people’s playlists because of these country-specific restrictions.

• • •

So this was just a heads up about Spotify finally launching their service officially in the U.S. as well, and potentially offering an easy way to search and listen to the majority of Finnish albums and songs in existence for a flat monthly fee (as well as popular songs in other languages, of course.) If you manage to open a user account with them, feel free to check out my Spotify playlist of some popular Finnish contemporary hits; mainly pop and rock.

Then again, if subscription-based music streaming / playlist sharing service is not your thing, there’s always YouTube with lots of Finnish content as well...

Arpaix · Post by **Arpaix** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 3:44 am

The best is Irwin Goodman, but he is death.
Ryysyranta, or Ei tippa tapaa, Rentun Ruusu, Karjala takaisin, Mutakuono ja lakupelle, Vanha juoppo...

kittikataklysm · Post by **kittikataklysm** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:52 am

If you're into Metal/Rock music, I would suggest Hevisaurus. They're a Children's metal band from Finland. They're a good band and they've helped me learn Finnish, since they speak a lot more clearly than most other heavy metal bands.

CoolaKinke · Post by **CoolaKinke** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:07 pm

We all have different tastes in music but here are some of my favourite songs in Finnish:

Irwin Goodman:
Maailma on kaunis
Rentun Ruusu
Ei tippa tapa
Työmiehen lauantai

Leevi and the Leavings:
Sopivasti lihava
Elina, mitä mä teen?
Teuvo maanteiden kuningas
Onnelliset
Itkisitkö onnesta?
Mitä kuuluu, Marja Lena?

Kake Randelin:
Kirje kotiin
Tuulikki on minun tyttöni
Ei kotona odota kukaan
Seuraavassa elämässä
Kielletyt tunteet

Vicky Rosti:
Kun nuori on
Näinkö meille aina täällä käy?

Rauli Badding Somerjoki:
Laivat
Paratiisi
Kuin runotar hän kulkee
Bensaa suonissa
Jykevää on rakkaus

Kurre:
Silloin sua mä kaipasin
Jäit sateen taa

Jari Sillanpää:
Satulinna
Pariisi Helsinki

Kari Tapio:
Myrskyn jälkeen
Äiti valvoo
Kuin taivaisiin
Juna kulkee
Elämältä kaiken sain

Markku Aro:
Etsin kunnes löydän sun
Ei mitään kauniimpaa

Neljän Suora:
Juuri tänä yönä

Matti ja Teppo:
Se on mahtavaa
Näit mun lävitsein

Jukka Kuoppomäki:
Sininen ja valkoinen
Sade on mun kyyneleeni

Janne Hurme:
Kirje
Ikävä

All these can be found on Youtube. If you are not used to listen to Finnish songs note that in songs there often tends to be poetic variants of words and different word order. Examples:

ain (aina) = always
kanssa sun (sinun kanssasi) = with you
vierelläin (vierelläni) = next to me
sydäntäin (sydäntäni) = my heart
sua mä etsin (minä etsin sinua) = I (will) look for you
oksa kuusen ( kuusen oksa) = the branch of the spruce
pakko oli lähteä mun (minun oli pakko lähteä) = I had to go

kalmisto · Post by **kalmisto** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:55 pm

Unten erämaa ( The wilderness of dreams ) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRIklUcb0Cg

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