joo mä pakkaan pakkaukseen sen mitä minä tartten
se on rytmi, mies, reppu ja maailma mua varten
i remember listening to raappana while spending time at my friend's family's summer house in western finland, about 5-6 hours north from helsinki. such a lovely place to be during the summer, by the lake and with the closest grocery store being like 30 kilometers away. i love to listen to finnish reggae during summertime, and raappana is one of my favourites. i've seen him live, too, and it was super cool.
My favorite song ever. No, seriously. It's so... so cozy and Raappana's voice is so perfect and combining Pelle Miljoona with Raappana is like, the best idea ever, and I'm just hurt they don't sell this on cd. Or sell it at all. It's a song for ExpressBus commercials, so no wonder, but still. It's good. They should sell it.
The lyrics are nice, too, although it's Finnish so not that many people understand it. But it's about how nice it is to sit in a bus and watch through the window and how it doesn't matter how old you are, it's something they both - Raappana and Pelle Miljoona - share despite their age difference. (And now that I've written this I realize how ridiculous this sounds.)
(Pelle Miljoona is my hero. He's a 50-something hippie who doesn't really make reggae, not even that close, but... something, anyway. And Raappana is one of the best known Finnish reggae artists nowadays. One of the only reggae artists, too. Finland is a land of heavy music and suicide and drunken murder, not of sunshine and reggae. /way to go advertising your home country, lol)
-
Pelle Miljoona OY - Moottoritie on kuuma
Holy crap this song. It's so. GOOD. Pelle Miljoona's voice is so... unf. And lyrics! Basically, the person this song tells about wants to travel but has to leave a girl behind. It's a farewell, sort of. Not bittersweet in the least, just more like... "I'm sorry, but I have to leave. I'd like to stay but the world is calling for me. I can't explain it; you're like a dream for me but the world is real." I'm not sure if it's about leaving a girlfriend or a person who could have been a girlfriend; it's not that important, anyway. The most important thing is the singer's burning need for living. Something all the young people have and can relate to. Maybe it's why I love the song so much; I have had times when I've felt not alive and now I have the aching pain of wanting to feel, to experience, in my heart. It literally throbs in my chest sometimes, bubbling and making me feel close to bursting sometimes. (And I should really stop using all these cliches when I try to explain what I feel.)
-
Raappana - Maasta maahan
A song about traveling around the world. I don't think the lyrics are that important, it's more about the rhythm and Raappana's sort of-Jamaican sound. It's the first song I heard from him and now I'm deeply in love with his music.
-
Raappana - Huolia murheita harmeja
The song is about his experiences of Finnish (compulsory) military service. Yes, it's something all males over 18 years have to go through, one way or another. Either you go learn to use guns and march and stuff (takes at least 6 months) or you work for free for 9 months in a non-profit... organization, or whatever. (Like a hospital or school or library. I'm not sure I used the right word.) And if you decline - you may be a pacifist and find the non-military service exploitative or something - you go to jail for a few months. No kidding. Anyway, I got sidetracked... so, this song. Apparently Raappana didn't choose the non-military kind of service and found out how much he hated the army... camp... thing. It's a good song, and I love the rhythm. I feel like dancing when the song starts. Nanananananano ooh~
-
Lord Est - Juoksen vapaana kaupunkiin
I'm not generally into Lord Est's music but this song is very good. It's about the Finnish work culture and how it makes one feel trapped in their life and have this longing for freedom. (Lord Est - Huono päivä, hyvä ilta is kind of fun, though. Party music.)
-
Jukka Poika - Hidas
This song is so brilliant. It critizes all the bureaucracy and how hard it is to keep track of taxes and stuff and how they (the country) punish people who don't have a head for those things.
-
Jukka Poika - Kylmästä lämpimään / Jukka Poika - Mielihyvää
Very gentle rhythms for all the people in love out there.
-
Okay, let's stop linking Finnish music. Although I love Finnish language. It can be so brutal, so harsh... yet so gentle and soft. (Just compare Turmion kätilöt to Jukka Poika! .... although I have a soft spot for them, too. Their lyrics are so hilarious at times.) It's very versatile. Goes with the nature of the people, too. We can be so unempathetic at times and still... so easily broken and in need of closeness to another human being.
-
Melanie C - I Turn to You
I know I shouldn't like this but... I don't know. I DO. I do. I guess I get some nostalgia vibes from this, although I have no idea why. It's not like I listened to Mel C when I was a kid. But her voice is beautiful.
-
Morgan Page - Fight for You
I don't like dance music. I swear. But someone in the Mass Effect fandom linked this somewhere and said it reminds them of male Shepard/Kaidan romance and I... I can't get it out of my head. This kind of love doesn't happen everyday.
... and now I realize this post is long enough as it is. Whoops. I'll just. Stop. And hope I didn't screw up with the tumblr cut (or whatever it's called).
