Another melodramatic Finnish song... trying to get some of my Finnish songs done so that I could perhaps collect them into an album.

Epätoivon lintuni means "My bird of despair". The word "epätoivo" holds more meaning than "despair" since in Finnish the structure of the word basically means "not-hope" or "unhope"...But it is still a bit different from hopelessness, since that word has its own word: toivottomuus. ...Well, enough with the Finnish language lesson. I realized this song is interesting in the way that it helped me to visualize and change my emotions into something more manageable, which is an approach I use more today. Back in 2020 I did it spontaneously through writing this song but didn't know that is actually an approach also used in coaching and therapeutical settings, something I learned later.

So the song is about me addressing my pain and visualizing it in different ways, as a stone or a well and finally as a bird stuck inside my mind, and that the bird itself is not nasty or evil, just stuck. So in the song I try to make friends with the pain instead of fighting it, and in the last part I try to release the bird so that it can turn from despair/not-hope (epätoivo) into hope (toivo).

Sound-wise this song surprised me by wanting to become much more "maximalist" than I envisioned, but I have tried to balance out the different sounds and create some breathing space inbetween. I don't know if it can be heard by others but there is some playfulness going on in the song, and it turned out kind of waltzy (?), which I like, I think it creates a weird dissonance to the dramatic words but somehow fits with the theme of transmuting pain and letting it go.

I'm including the lyrics and an english translation, though the words somehow sound more cheesy in English than they do in Finnish. Maybe the melodrama just feels more natural in finnish

Epätoivon lintuni (Original Finnish lyrics)
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Kipu kuin kivi eikä henki enää kulje
Murskaa se rintaani ja särje toivon rippeeni
Uni ei saa tulla, se ei kuulu tänne
Unettomiin öihin, toivottomuuden töihin

Täällä olet turvassa, Epätoivon lintuni
Täällä lennät vapaana, mieleni vankinasi

Mene minne lystäät mutta älä koskaa niin kauas
Että uni vihdoin viimein voisi koluttaa minun oveani
Tule surun kivun kaivo hukuta minut veteesi
Turvassa pohjalla antaudun sinun eteesi

Läpi kiven läpi kivun, mieleni sulje
Kiinnitä se kiveen, päästä irti ja kulje
Läpi kiven läpi kivun, mieleni sulje
Kiinnitä se kiveen, päästä irti ja kulje

Täällä olet jumissa, Epätoivon lintuni
Et voi koskaan muuttua, mieleni häkkinäsi

Päästän sinut vapaaksi, Epätoivon lintuni
Lennä, muutu toivoksi, vapaana kivustani

Epätoivon lintuni (lyrics translated to English)
(Epätoivon lintuni means My Bird of Despair)
--------------------------------
Pain like a stone and the breath moves no more
Crush it in my chest and break my last crumbs of hope
Sleep can't come, it doesn't belong here
Into the sleepless nights, the work of hopelessness

Here you can be safe, my bird of despair
Here you can fly free, my mind as your prisoner

Go where you want to but don't stray so far away
That sleep could finally, finally knock on my door
Come, you well of grief and pain, and drown me in your waters
Safe on the bottom I surrender in front of you

Through the stone, through the pain, shut my mind
Fasten it into the stone, let go and move on
Through the stone, through the pain, shut my mind
Fasten it into the stone, let go and move on

Here you are stuck, my bird of despair
You can never change, with my mind as your cage

I will let you free, my bird of despair
Fly, change into hope, free from my pain

Tags: ballad, electronic, finnish, melodrama, waltz, week 41 2024, View by:Minnamari