Zacharias Topelius wrote this poem in 1859, after his son died at the age of one. Topelius is often referred to as "The fairy tail uncle of Finland". One of the most popular XMas songs of all time in Finland, recorded numerous times by different artists.
Life during the previous times in history has never been easy. The food was scarse, and famine was always lurking behind just few failed harvests. And the infant and child mortality rates werevery high, so death was much more present back in the days. This song reflects back on those times, very beautiful yet melancholic way. Kind of how the Finnish mentality is.
I pulled this from Wikipedia "Sparven om julmorgonen (Swedish, Sparrow on Christmas Morning) is a poem by Zachris Topelius from 1859. It has been translated to Finnish by Konrad Alexis Hougberg. You can see the sorrow of Topelius in the poem; his son, Rafael, died at the age of one the spring before he wrote the poem. The poem has been composed to a song several times. The most known of them must be the Christmas carol by Otto Kotilainen. It was published for the first time in the "Joulupukki" magazine in 1913." I don't know who arranged this for the version of the carol that Marko sang. Might have been Marko, because he's certainly capable of doing that. The artists that played with him are a group of artists that many of the prominent metal singers in Finland use. You could see people in the crowd singing along as it is very popular in that country.
Varpunen Jouluaamuna is maybe the most beloved Christmas song Finns have. Everyone knows the song and it is sung since childhood. Arrangement probably Erkka (guitarist), who is the mastermind of Raskasta Joulua concept, and Marko.
As Marko Hietala said: "What started as a joke is now in books and in big venues as part of the Finnish Christmas celebration. So it's worth watching Raskasta Joulua - Tulkoon joulu, which has collected 8.6 million views. Includes Marco, but also some other, some may say, more than descent singers...
All of the Raskasta joulua tour's songs are really more or less traditional Finnish Christmas songs that are turned into metal cover of the "original" songs. Although most of the songs have more like ... maybe ... jingle bells or Rudolph the red nose reindeer type of background, in a way that no one can really tell what's the real version 'cause there's so many different variations and covers of them..🤔
Many Finnish Christmas songs are notoriously dark and gloomy like that, but often that's just setting a contrast for the light. A good example would be "Konstan Joululaulu". There's a Raskasta Joulua (Heavy Christmas) version of that one as well, sung by JP Leppäluoto who's easily in my top 5 of Finnish vocalists: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6eogryKn6q4.html Unfortunately, there's no version (that I know of) with English subtitles directly in the video, but I posted a comment under that video where you'll find my own translation of the lyrics.
U should check out Marko`s band, Tarot. Which is his band w his brother, Zachary before he joined Nightwish. I hope they release new Tarot material eventually.
Finnish Christmas songs are a bit dark and melancholic usually, deep with a meaning and telling of the times of scarcity and living from the land, death and nature. I love the concept of combining Finnish Christmas songs with metal music.
Marko and the band perform these classic Christmas songs in heavy mode....the concerts are amazing. This one has deep lyrics and meaning - but the other songs do so. See more of them - RJ concerts.
The sparrow on Christmas morning is a poem written by the Finnish-Swedish Zacharias Topelius in 1859. In the poem, Topelius' own grief can be interpreted: his son Rafael died at the age of just one year.
And for addition Finnish Christmas songs are really melancholic and non uplifting and super cheery jingles. Almost all are somewhat sad and have quite deep meanings in the background..
If you're reacting to Raskasta Joulua, you need to react to JP Leppäluoto with them. As good as Marko is, JP is (in my opinion) the best voice in Finland. He is amazing.
Okay this is no shade to whoever made the subtitles in the video, because translating is hard! But I think the translation given in the video is a little bit rough in places, so here's my best attempt to translate the lyrics of the song: The snow has already covered the flowers in the valley The waves of the lake have frozen in the winter cold The small sparrow has eaten the summer's food The waves of the lake have frozen in the winter cold On the stairs of a small cabin there was a dear girl "Come, sparrow, with joy, take a seed from me! It is Christmas, my poor homeless sparrow, come here with joy, take a seed from me!" To the girl rejoicing flew the dear sparrow "Gratefully, I will take a seed from you One day God will wish to reward you Gratefully I will take a seed from you!" "I am not, my child, a bird of this earth I am your little brother, I came from Heaven The small seed that you gave to the poor Was given to your little brother from the realm of angels" Also, as a fun fact, from what I know, birds have been seen as/used as a representation of the human soul in Finnish culture for a very long time, going all the way back to pre-Christian era, so the idea present in the story, of the little brother appearing to the girl in the form of a sparrow, is in its way part of a very long tradition
