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Last week after overhearing bits of karaoke from the next room at work, at one point I asked Wax if she knew a song that went "Da-da-da-DUM, kitara soi... dum dum dum DUM... da-da-DAAAA, da-da-DAAA".
Wax laughed and asked if I knew anything else about it, so I said that it sounded vintage, sort of chanteuse-era, with a guitar and some other folk music type instruments and sounded vaguely like the ensembles used for Finnish tangos.
If you didn't know, Finnish Tango is a big thing. Finland has been crazy for tango, both the dance and the music, since it took Finland by storm in the 1930s. There are tango clubs and tango competitions and there's a whole genre of tango bands and Finnish tango artists who compose and sing Finnish tangos. (According to Wikipedia, the dance is an Argentine tango but the rhythm follows ballroom tango, whatever that means.) Aside from the lyrics being in Finnish, while Finnish tangos are clearly tangos, they also have a slightly different flavor which seems a bit more slow and a bit more relaxed or staid: perhaps that's what the Argentine/ballroom distinction is getting at, but I don't care enough to research it right now.
Wax's suggestion was that if it sounded Spanish or Italian to me it might be a Finnish translation of an Argentine tango or Italian dance - there are oodles of these, even more as you go back in time, because of the tango's popularity.
She named a song which is apparently basically known to everyone in Finland, "Hopeinen Kuu" (lit. "silver moon").
This is Olavi Virta's 1960 translation of the Italian Guarda che luna:
She hummed a bit of it to me and I said, "You know, actually, I think that's probably it!"
But then this week at karaoke somebody sang it, so I came over to get a look at the lyrics as they went by, and later I googled them, and it totally is not.
It IS a big song in Finland, though. It's called "Surujen kitara" (lit. guitar of the sorrows), and the first result you get for it is a hilarious-looking band of guys called "Topi Sorsakoski and AGENTS", who released it on a hit album in 1986, but I found a 1963 recording that sounds very much like Mexican folk music:
So I looked a bit further, thinking I'd find a Spanish-language original... but what I found out instead... is that it's the translation of a theme song by PEGGY LEE for a 1953 JOAN CRAWFORD Western called "Johnny Guitar". The original! Is actually called Johnny Guitar!
Interestingly, I think it's quite understandable why Surujen kitara was a massive hit and Johnny Guitar (the song) apparently wasn't: I think it's a much better song, even though musically they are the same! The lyrics are a lot stronger without the character's name, which, you gotta admit, is pretty goofy; they thus manage to sound more poetic and have a more universal appeal. The summary of "Johnny Guitar", song, is kind of... "My man, Johnny Guitar, is absolutely the best for various reasons and someone just killed him". In contrast, you could summarize "Surujen kitara" as "This mournful guitar used to sound beautiful and joyful, but you (vague, mysterious) left and now it sounds sad and dark and cold instead."
I don't think I've ever actually seen a Joan Crawford movie, but the cover image from Wikipedia has a fabulous, albeit ahistorical, outfit on her:
She also wears, apparently, a black blouse and jeans and a little gray or green ribbon bow necktie with a big thigh holster to hold people at gunpoint, and a strangely 1950s gown with a gauze bodice and kind of cottage core collar for playing the piano in her saloon that she owns, and also a denim button shirt with a floor-length skirt and a red bandana around her neck. And at some point, a maroon housecoat with a... hot pink lace-edged camisole...? And in this cover image she also seems to wear slim high-waisted jeans which is hilarious for an apparently 19th century western.
Also, according to Wikipedia, Johnny Guitar (the character) doesn't actually die AND isn't the main character, rendering the title of the movie weird and the content of the Peggy Lee theme song even weirder. Maybe there's a minute in there where she thinks he's dead before being reassured, idk.
Wax laughed and asked if I knew anything else about it, so I said that it sounded vintage, sort of chanteuse-era, with a guitar and some other folk music type instruments and sounded vaguely like the ensembles used for Finnish tangos.
If you didn't know, Finnish Tango is a big thing. Finland has been crazy for tango, both the dance and the music, since it took Finland by storm in the 1930s. There are tango clubs and tango competitions and there's a whole genre of tango bands and Finnish tango artists who compose and sing Finnish tangos. (According to Wikipedia, the dance is an Argentine tango but the rhythm follows ballroom tango, whatever that means.) Aside from the lyrics being in Finnish, while Finnish tangos are clearly tangos, they also have a slightly different flavor which seems a bit more slow and a bit more relaxed or staid: perhaps that's what the Argentine/ballroom distinction is getting at, but I don't care enough to research it right now.
Wax's suggestion was that if it sounded Spanish or Italian to me it might be a Finnish translation of an Argentine tango or Italian dance - there are oodles of these, even more as you go back in time, because of the tango's popularity.
She named a song which is apparently basically known to everyone in Finland, "Hopeinen Kuu" (lit. "silver moon").
This is Olavi Virta's 1960 translation of the Italian Guarda che luna:
She hummed a bit of it to me and I said, "You know, actually, I think that's probably it!"
But then this week at karaoke somebody sang it, so I came over to get a look at the lyrics as they went by, and later I googled them, and it totally is not.
It IS a big song in Finland, though. It's called "Surujen kitara" (lit. guitar of the sorrows), and the first result you get for it is a hilarious-looking band of guys called "Topi Sorsakoski and AGENTS", who released it on a hit album in 1986, but I found a 1963 recording that sounds very much like Mexican folk music:
So I looked a bit further, thinking I'd find a Spanish-language original... but what I found out instead... is that it's the translation of a theme song by PEGGY LEE for a 1953 JOAN CRAWFORD Western called "Johnny Guitar". The original! Is actually called Johnny Guitar!
Interestingly, I think it's quite understandable why Surujen kitara was a massive hit and Johnny Guitar (the song) apparently wasn't: I think it's a much better song, even though musically they are the same! The lyrics are a lot stronger without the character's name, which, you gotta admit, is pretty goofy; they thus manage to sound more poetic and have a more universal appeal. The summary of "Johnny Guitar", song, is kind of... "My man, Johnny Guitar, is absolutely the best for various reasons and someone just killed him". In contrast, you could summarize "Surujen kitara" as "This mournful guitar used to sound beautiful and joyful, but you (vague, mysterious) left and now it sounds sad and dark and cold instead."
I don't think I've ever actually seen a Joan Crawford movie, but the cover image from Wikipedia has a fabulous, albeit ahistorical, outfit on her:
She also wears, apparently, a black blouse and jeans and a little gray or green ribbon bow necktie with a big thigh holster to hold people at gunpoint, and a strangely 1950s gown with a gauze bodice and kind of cottage core collar for playing the piano in her saloon that she owns, and also a denim button shirt with a floor-length skirt and a red bandana around her neck. And at some point, a maroon housecoat with a... hot pink lace-edged camisole...? And in this cover image she also seems to wear slim high-waisted jeans which is hilarious for an apparently 19th century western.
Also, according to Wikipedia, Johnny Guitar (the character) doesn't actually die AND isn't the main character, rendering the title of the movie weird and the content of the Peggy Lee theme song even weirder. Maybe there's a minute in there where she thinks he's dead before being reassured, idk.
