Wednesday, July 21, 2010

In The Summertime - Kesäaikaan


Many people consider this song as the definitive summer pop song. Well, maybe it is. But the Finnish version is not played so much anymore. Kai Hyttinen recorded "Kesäaikaan" (In the summertime) in 1970 for his album "Tuulen tie". The recording was done in tongue-in-cheek style, as you can hear. In the fake ending was inserted an adapted version of an old Finnish song "Mökin laittaja" (Cottage builder) written by famous Finnhish composer P.J. Hannikainen. Perhaps Kai was building his summer cottage at the time ... In the same year was recorded also the more popular Finnish version by pop group Ernos. It used the same lyrics (done by Tuula Valkama, who wrote also lyrics to yesterday's finnpicked summer song) as Hyttinen's version. It was released as a single and had considerable success at the time. Ernos was quite popular band in the end of the 60's and in the beginning of 70's. It made 3 albums and handful of hit singles. Major part of their material was written by the band leader Erno Lindahl, who also published solo records. The original summer song was of course "In The Summertime" by British rock group Mungo Jerry. The song was written by the lead singer and front man Ray Dorset. It was released in 1970 and at some point many years later, it became the world's most-played radio song and the most successful summer song ever. You can see a rare promotional video of the song, here.

Here's the triple:

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