"Ievan polkka" (Finnish for "Ieva's Polka") is a Finnish song with lyrics printed in 1928 [1] and written by Eino Kettunen to a traditional Finnish polka tune. The song is sung in an Eastern Savonian dialect spoken in North Karelia. It is sung from the point of view of a young man, about a woman called Ieva (dialectal for the name Eva or Eeva in standard Finnish) who sneaks out and dances the polka with him all night. The song is often mistaken for a traditional folk song, but the lyrics by Eino Kettunen are still under copyright. Later, a scat singing version of the song by the band Loituma was incorporated into the viral animation Loituma Girl. In 2007, the song was brought into worldwide popular culture through a cover sung by Hatsune Miku, with Otomania arranging the music and providing Miku's voice manipulation.
In South Karelia, Ievan Polkka is also known as "Savitaipaleen polkka", due to its similarity to a tune of that name. The melody also resembles that of the Russian folk dance Смоленский гусачок (The Smolyanin Gosling). [2] [3]
The melody can be traced back to the 18th century and the Viipuri Province, when the border with the Kingdom of Sweden ran west of the province. The number of Russian soldiers stationed in the border area outnumbered the locals for many decades. At the beginning of the 19th century, collectors of Finnish folk dances and songs remarked that all the dances in the area of Luumäki-Savitaipale were Russian, and thus the collectors didn't record them. However, the polka genre is of a much later date. Polka was introduced into Northern Europe during the late 19th century, which implies that the actual tune, as it is known today, originates from this era. [4]
Owing to its viral exposure in popular culture, Ievan Polkka has become one of the most famous Finnish songs in the world.
Very popular after World War II, the song was almost forgotten during the late 1970s and 1980s. The song resurfaced after an a cappella performance by the Finnish quartet Loituma on the Yle TV2 show Soi soitto soi in 1996, whose song was first released on their debut album, Loituma , in 1995. The Loituma lyrics and arrangement are under copyright and published by Warner Chappell Music outside the Nordic countries. The album was released in the United States as Things of Beauty in 1998.
The Loituma version of the song acquired great international popularity as part of an Internet phenomenon in the spring of 2006, when the Loituma Girl (also known as Leekspin), a looped animation of anime character Orihime Inoue from the Bleach series twirling either a spring onion (in the Japanese original) or a leek (in the English dub), set to a scat singing section of the song, was posted on Russian LiveJournal. For the animation, only the second half of the fifth stanza (four lines) and the complete sixth stanza (eight lines) are used. It quickly became a global hit and the song soon enjoyed overwhelming popularity as a ringtone. [5] [ user-generated source ] Since then, the song has been circulating under several misspelled variations of its original name, including "Ievas Polkka", "Levan Polkka" (due to the similarity between the sans-serif lowercase L (l) and uppercase i (I)) and "Leekspin Song".
Fans of the Vocaloid software have made Vocaloid voicebanks, such as Megurine Luka, Kagamine Rin, and Kagamine Len cover the song. The most popular Vocaloid cover belonged to Japanese artist Otomania, who in 2007 made Hatsune Miku sing it with the nonsensical lyrics by Loituma. The official music video has garnered close to 6.5 million views on Niconico by May 2024. [6] It features a chibi derivative of Hatsune Miku, officially known as Hatchune Miku, holding a spring onion in reference to Loituma Girl, and is the origin of her association with spring onions or leeks. Its popularity resulted in its use by the Vocaloid rhythm game series Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA , mainly as tutorial music. It has also been used in a commercial promoting the LG G5 smartphone. [7]
In 2012, the Finnish folk metal band Korpiklaani recorded a cover of the song for their eighth album Manala . Mobile ringtones based on various mixes of "Ievan Polkka" gained a wide popularity among Russian and Commonwealth of Independent States mobile subscribers in late 2006.[ citation needed ] The tune is also the theme song to the Internet sitcom Break a Leg ;[ citation needed ] it was remixed by musician Basshunter of Sweden, DJ Sharpnel of Japan, and Beatnick of Poland;[ citation needed ] and a version of the song performed by Anne Kulonen was part of a Ready Brek television advert aired in the United Kingdom. [8]
A part of the song was featured during the interval show of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, played over a brief Finland dance tribute, with performers dressed in the Finnish national attire and Sauna towels, dancing around Moomin-characters, before Käärijä entering, performing his "Cha Cha Cha" song from the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. [9]
Chart (2007) | Peak positions |
---|---|
Germany (Official German Charts) [10] | 48 |
Polka is a dance style and genre of dance music in 2
4 originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though generally associated with Czech and Central European culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas.
Folk metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised by the widespread use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent, traditional singing styles. It also sometimes features soft instrumentation influenced by folk rock.
The music of Finland can be roughly divided into folk music, classical and contemporary art music, and contemporary popular music.
Vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project between Yamaha Corporation and the Music Technology Group in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. The software was ultimately developed into the commercial product "Vocaloid" that was released in 2004.
Loituma is a Finnish quartet whose members combine the Finnish vocal tradition with the sounds of the kantele. Loituma were selected Ensemble of the Year at the 1997 Kaustinen Folk Music Festival.
Jonas Erik Altberg, known professionally as Basshunter, is a Swedish singer, record producer, songwriter and DJ. As indicated by his stage name, Basshunter is known for bass-heavy eurodance music.
Loituma Girl is a Flash animation set to a scat singing section of the Finnish song "Ievan polkka," sung by the Finnish quartet Loituma on their 1995 debut album Things of Beauty. It appeared on the Internet in late April 2006 and quickly became popular. The animation consists of four frames showing the Bleach anime character Orihime Inoue twirling a leek, set to a 27-second loop from the song.
Säkkijärven polkka is a well-known folk tune from Finland that is very popular with Finnish accordionists. It was popularized by Viljo "Vili" Vesterinen (1907–1961). The first record of the existence of the tune is from Säkkijärvi (now Kondrat'evo in the Leningrad Oblast. Most famous and historical is the recording made on June 17, 1939 with former members of the Dallapé Orchestra. The recording took place in the ballroom of the German school in Helsinki. The recording became not only the savior of Viipuri, but also the most famous performance of all time of the Säkkijärvi polkka.
Hatsune Miku, officially code-named CV01, is a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media and its official mascot character, a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. Miku's personification has been marketed as a virtual idol, and has performed at live virtual concerts onstage as an animated holographic projection.
Basshunter, a Swedish singer, record producer and DJ, has released five studio albums, two compilation albums, 30 singles, five promotional singles and seven remixes. The Bassmachine, Basshunter's debut studio album, was released by Alex Music on 25 August 2004. In April 2006, he signed his first contract with Extensive Music and Warner Music Sweden. His single "Boten Anna" charted at number one on the Danish singles chart, where it stayed for fourteen weeks; it was certified triple platinum by IFPI Danmark. "Boten Anna" also reached number one in the Swedish singles chart and was certified platinum by IFPI Sverige. His second studio album LOL, released on 28 August 2006, charted in the top five in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The album was certified platinum by IFPI Finland and double platinum by IFPI Danmark. In late 2006, Basshunter released his albums The Bassmachine and The Old Shit through his own website. Basshunter's third single "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA" was certified gold by IFPI Danmark. Basshunter collaborated with the duo Patrik & Lillen on his single "Vifta med händerna".
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA is a series of rhythm games created by Sega and Crypton Future Media. The series currently consists of 6 main titles, released on various PlayStation consoles, the Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, and in arcades, the 2 Project Mirai games for the Nintendo 3DS, and 4 spin-offs for mobile and VR platforms. The series primarily makes use of Vocaloids, a series of singing synthesizer software developed by the Yamaha Corporation, and the songs created using these Vocaloids, most notably the virtual-diva Vocaloid Hatsune Miku.
Repetitive songs contain a large proportion of repeated words or phrases. Simple repetitive songs are common in many cultures as widely spread as the Caribbean, Southern India and Finland. The best-known examples are probably children's songs. Other repetitive songs are found, for instance, in African-American culture from the days of slavery.
Eino Kettunen was a Finnish composer and lyricist. He is the author of the polka song Ievan polkka, which achieved viral popularity as an Internet meme in 2006-2007.
Vocaloid 3 is a singing voice synthesizer and successor to Vocaloid 2 in the Vocaloid series. This version of the software is a much more expansive version, containing many new features, three new languages and many more vocals than past software versions combined. It was succeeded by Vocaloid 4.
A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of Allium ampeloprasum, the broadleaf wild leek. The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus Allium also contains the onion, garlic, shallot, scallion, chives, and Chinese onion. Three closely related vegetables, elephant garlic, kurrat and Persian leek or tareh, are also cultivars of A. ampeloprasum, although different in their culinary uses.
"Bellacoso" is a single by Puerto Rican rappers Residente and Bad Bunny released on July 25, 2019, which will be included in Residente's upcoming second studio album by Sony Music Latin.
Project SEKAI: Colorful Stage! is a video game developed by Colorful Palette and published by Sega. The game is a spin-off from Sega's Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series, featuring the 6 Virtual Singers of Crypton Future Media, Hatsune Miku, Megurine Luka, Kagamine Rin and Len, MEIKO, and KAITO, alongside the cast of 20 original human characters that are split into five themed units. Set in the real world where Virtual Singers only exist as fiction, the characters come across another dimension called "SEKAI," where various "true feelings" are projected.
Hanni-Mari Autere is a Finnish fiddle-singer, folk singer, and musician. She is a member of Loituma. Autere has become known for the singing freestyle in the song Ievan polkka as a part of Loituma music group which has later become known as a Leekspin girl meme.
"Cha Cha Cha" is a song by Finnish rapper and singer Käärijä, released on 18 January 2023, through Warner Music Finland. The song represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 after winning Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu2023, the Finnish national selection for that year's Eurovision Song Contest. "Cha Cha Cha" became a fan favourite to win the competition, topping the public vote with 376 points, scoring the all-time second-highest televote points and finishing in second place overall with 526 points.
Kosuke Terayama, known professionally as Deco*27 is a Japanese musician, Vocaloid producer and songwriter. He is considered as one of the most important pioneering figures Vocaloid producer of Vocaloid industry, and regarded one of the most influential Vocaloid producers of the early 2010s, along with wowaka and Kenshi Yonezu.