Murheellisten laulujen maa [English translation]

Through no choice of his own

Here he was born

Into this northern, cold land

In which his forefathers

Drunk of course

Beat their wives and their children if they caught them

Man’s traditional fate

That boy wished to avoid

I’ll never buy an axe

Nor will I ever drink spirits

Otherwise, I’ll spend everything I have

The snow blanket calls out to the family in winters

But he never wants to be like his father

But when he can’t find work

The hand of fate passes to him strong drink

And so Turmiola’s Tommi* comes back to life again

And the ways of lords are passed on to the peasants

Full speed towards the alcohol store

It drives a man to despair

When the frost harvests the grain

From amid the cold soil

The cold eye stares silently

When the axe rises

From among the grave mounds

From the earth

Proud fathers gaze upon their sons

Unemployment, spirits, the axe and family

Snow, the police and the last mistake

This land of thousands of sorrowful songs

Into whose thousands of lakes

A resilient people run, a people whose degree of self-pity cannot be measured by sense or determined by the songs of Topi Kärki**

In whose songs life’s trump cards are lost

And to whom the gates of heaven remain closed

They tell of Einari Epätoivo***