Saturday, April 25, 2009

Mälarökyrka - Vanha Holvikirkko


One of the abolute classics of Finnish pop music is "Vanha holvikirkko" (Old church). It was recorded 1968 by Eero Raittinen (see previous entry). It was Eero's by far biggest hit and he never gets out of stage without singing it. It's quite difficult to understand why this song about church organist's son playing alone in a church has so much attracted Finns. But perhaps the mood of the song and the melody line represent something that the Finns yearn for ... The original song "Mälarökyrka" (Church on Mälaren) is a Swedish one, written by Swedish TV man Sven Lindahl. The inspiration to the lyrics came from the romanesque 12th century Adelsö Church located on the Lake Mälaren. The song was originally recorded by Lenne Broberg. Lenne fronted popular Swedish beat group Lenne and the Leekings, but went solo and this was his biggest hit. This 'church song' has a similar chord progression to Pachelbel's Canon.

Here's the pair:

2 comments:

Arrowman said...

Did you know, that Lenne recorded this song in Finnish too as a 45 RPM single on the flip side there was "It's not right" It was released as RCA fas990. In the second half of -60's was a quite popular, that foreign artist visiting in Finland also recorded in finnish....

Arrowman said...
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