I was looking up Nightwish, who perform almost entirely in English rather than Finnish, and came across the song-writer’s rationale on Wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightwish#Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightwish#Language))

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“Holopainen thought that he was very uncertain about the lyrics of ‘Erämaan viimeinen’, because he is of the opinion that writing in Finnish is rather hard, and has said that ‘Finnish \[could\] quickly sound really cheesy.’ ”

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Is it, in any way, harder to write songs in Finnish? Is this because the themes of the music don’t somehow match? Something else?

by snoodhead

7 comments

  1. A yes, no, depends answer. seriously.

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    Some people express better in different languages creatively too – at least a language teacher once told me – e.g. one might feel more free/unhibited in English compared to a mother language. Style & imagination vary too.

  2. I think one of the big reasons is that Finnish is such a small language that they would never have gotten the fame they have if their songs would have been in Finnish.

    Finnish is a different language compared to most of the languages you hear in music, and the words are often comparatively long which might make it difficult to write songs.

  3. It’s nothing more than an opinion and preference. If he feels like he can’t write good stuff in Finnish, for him that’s it. Other people feel otherwise, and there definitely are many great lyricists who write in Finnish.

    Alexi Laiho felt like metal doesn’t work in Finnish, but again, just an opinion. There are good Finnish metal lyrics, obviously, just as in any form of lyrical expression. In the nineties the general opinion was that Finnish rap can’t be made to work, which has been proven wrong conclusively.

  4. Finnish is kinda more exact, concrete and serious language, maybe? Like making PowerPoint slides or even writing some business bullshit is easier in English because it is easy to find synonyms and take freedoms. Finnish terms feel more precise and serious. As an example, the word love is such a trivial everyday word but rakkaus (love in Finnish) is not. 

     It is impossible to describe to someone who isn’t a native Finn though. Most who grew up with English entertainment and studied primarily in English at university (90s and up at least) I have talked to about feels somewhat the same way

  5. Nightwish lyrics are pretty cheesy no matter the language. And I’m a fan.

    I totally understand what Holopainen means though. In the gothic world of Nightwish, there’s a lot of nature, mythical, melodrama. Translating this to Finnish somehow loses the glitter of English folklore and gothic tradition, turning it into Finnish old-time-y schlager. English is so established in popular culture it seems safe to use in rock’n’roll iconography, since you don’t need to invent anything.

    That being said *Erämaan viimeinen* isn’t as cringy as it could be, and he walks the fine line of dropping these melodramatic, poetic lines without being too mouthy.

  6. I will only comment on one aspect: Finnish can sound really cheesy. We don’t really express big emotion in Finnish in day to day speak, so if you try to make lyrics with those big emotions in Finnish you risk sounding artsy instead of poetic.

    Edit: typos

  7. Finnish doesn’t suit naturally to modern music with a backbeat. Our language has the stress on the first syllable. This means you have to start a phrase on the “4” of the previous bar to make a line. Or, use a leading conjunctive on the “1”. Words are longer and one word can run over a bar in music. Etc.

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