I’m showing my age (as far you’re concerned, 25 — and it always will be) here, because my very first experience with today’s playlist entry came a meme from the long-ago days of approximately 2006 combining a clip from hugely popular anime series Bleach — specifically this one:
— with a sample of the Finnish folk quartet Loituma singing jauntily.
The song itself subsequently proved incredibly popular with the users of Japanese singing robot software Vocaloid, in particular the brand’s flagship singing robot and mascot Hatsune Miku and has proven catchy and enduring enough to pop back up as a meme in the ensuring years.
The specific song they’re singing is called Ievan polkka, translating to “Eva’s Polka” — though the version I’m going to be talking about in this post retains the Finnish spelling. Incidentally, that’s the version by folk metal band Korpiklaani, band who, ding to the band’s own frontman, play “old people’s music with heavy metal guitars.” Unsurprisingly, a lot of their songs are based on Finnish folklore, particularly the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.
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