Lily the Pink - Tenkka-tenkka-poo

Simo Salminen has been one of longest-running Finnish comedians. In the 1960's he started with another Finnish comedy master Spede Pasanen, doing TV Shows and movies. He always was the side-show character, but he was a better singer than Spede (not much ;-)) and therefore he even cut some novelty singles. He recorded "Tenkka-tenkka-poo" (hard to translate, but means something like "Wait a minute, I need to think ...") in 1968. The lyrics - as nearly always on his records - were done by Jukka Virtanen (see previous entry). The original song was an old British traditional rugby song called "Lily the Pink". It was made famous by the group named The Scaffold. The group was a result of the meeting of Michael McCartney (brother of Beatle Paul), who changed his name to Mike McGear to avoid accusations of coat-tailing, and Post Office engineer John Gorman. Their lineup filled out with Roger McGough. The Scaffold blended absurd humor with catchy songs and made chart-topping singles. Their biggest success was "Lily the Pink" which featured Jack Bruce on bass. In 1973, the Scaffold officially ceased to exist, being blended into a group called Grimms.

Here's the pair:

Harvey and Sheila - Hanna ja Niilo

One of the definite Finnish novelty record classics is "Hanna ja Niilo" (Hanna and Niilo). Before I heard the original (novelty) version, I thought that Jukka Virtanen had made it up all by himself. But this wasn't his original idea after all. Jukka is famous Finnish all-round entertainer and his lyrics have been presented in Finnpicks before; see entry here. He recorded "Hanna ja Niilo" in 1969, encouraged by the good reception the song got in a night club floor show. The original song "Hava nagila" is a Hebrew folk song, the title meaning "Let us rejoice". It is a song of celebration, but the story that's been told in these novelty versions, is far from celebration. It's the familiar story of different stages of relationship, with a heavy dose of abbreviations involved ;-). The original novelty version entitled "Harvey and Sheila" was done by US parodist, satirist and television producer Allan Sherman on his album "My Son, the Celebrity" in 1963.

Updated on 25.03.2010: added Jope Ruonansuu's version.
Here's the pair: