I was listening here to a mix of the Finnish novelty band Elakelaiset, whose repertoire is mostly well-known U.S. / Euro pop songs re-envisioned as high energy oom-pah with Finnish lyrics.
Don’t know how it had passed me by before, but they have a very oddball cover of “Jesus Built My Hot Rod” which is retitled as (altogether now) [url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDI_jd18ydA]"Niilo Yli-Vainio Tervasi Potkukelkkani Jalakset ". Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, that language is bloody difficult!
Am still scratching my head trying to figure out the Finnish in-joke here, I understand from a quick wiki-search that Niilo Yli-Vainio is a military hero of sorts who had miracles attributed to him, and so it’s kind of a goofy send-up of that by borrowing a song about modern-day miracles being ascribed to Jesus. The rest of the title seems to have broken Google Translate, though I made out something about “tar” and “skids” so my shot-in-the-dark translation is that it’s something like “Niilo Yli-Vainio Wipes Out”?!
Time to apply for a research grant and head to Finland, methinks
Indeed. I highly recommend surfing through their catalog on iTunes, Spotify etc just to be amused by how obscure they get with their choice of cover songs…there are very obvious ones like “Hotel California” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but occasionally there will be a curveball thrown such as Pixies’ “Holiday Song”. Of course even if you know Finnish, the song titles aren’t direct translations from English so ya have to work at it.
I shouldn’t have taken so long to listen to this and check it out. This is fucking great.
Elakelaiset is in heavy rotation for me if I have to DJ at the local dive / lounge, and have to “lighten up” the mood a bit after somebody’s live set of power elektronixxx…in that respect, it’s second only to bizarro Dallas huckster [url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ext6u_ABM8]Palmer Rockey
Yeah, I’ve known about that track for some time. It’s off their 1994 record Werberg, Baby! Essentially all their songs center around drinking and stylings in hummpa, a style of music which I can only classify as pure Finland.