Have you ever been listening to some old finnish music? No, I don’t mean Sibelius…I mean artists like Tauno Palo, Tapio Rautavaara and so on.
This one is my fave; here’s Tauno Palo (1908-1982), famous finnish actor from the late 20′s to the early 70′s, singing the sad story about this thief named Roope (Rosvo-Roope):
You can also watch him performing the song in a movie Rosvo-Roope, in 1949.
I just love these songs! I remember my mom was singing these in the sauna, when I was just a little girl. We just sat there every saturday in this relaxing heat (for ages, if you ask me) and she was singing old songs. Maybe that’s why I’m sort of an old soul myself and sucker for these songs and sauna too 
(No, that’s not me and my mom….but it could have look a little like this:)
Here is Tauno Palo performing the The walz of the vagabond (Kulkurin valssi) with the finnish actress, Ansa Ikonen.
The movie of the same name (Kulkurin valssi, 1941) was directed by Toivo Särkkä and it shows this ultimate love-story performed by Palo and Ikonen. They recorded the song (actually whole album of music) 1974…and do I have it on vinyl? Yes! We had a record player at home, but it took me 15 years to get one for myself. There is something weird and very nostalgic about putting the record on. How it scrats and makes these little sounds…vinyls have some soul that you can’t find from the compact discs.
Oh how charming Ansa and Tauno look together, even though the years gone by 
The little record in the pic is Myrskyluodon Maija (Maija of the storm islet), composed by finnish multi-talent Lasse Mårtenson. Isn’t it just amazing?
The song was composed to the tv-serie of the same name, Myrskyluodon Maija, directed by Åke Lindman 1975.
With this song I give my congrats to Helsinki; she has been the capital of Finland for 200 years today!
Have a nice weekend!
