If you like music and translating Finnish song lyrics, then you might like this article. I will be analyzing the song Tavallinen päivä by Edu Kettunen.

1. Song Lyrics – Edu Kettunen – Tavallinen päivä

2. Glossary

The following grammar terms have been abbreviated.

I have marked different elements of the analysis using the following symbols.

3. Tavallinen päivä – Edu Kettunen – Finnish Song Analysis

The word kunpa “if only” is a phrase based on the conjunction kun (when) and the clitic -pa. Together, they express that the speaker wishes for something. In the speech of Finns, you are likely to hear kumpa rather than kunpa.

In this line of the song, you find joku in the genitive case jonkun because it’s attached to tuulinen syyskuu, which both appear in the genitive as well: “some windy September”. The genitive is used because these three words explain what type of Tuesday the song means: “[some windy September]‘s Tuesday”

As you can, joku gets the genitive’s marker -n twice: once in the middle and once at the end. This is also the case for joku in other cases: jossakussa, jostakusta, johonkuhun. In everyday language, this is often avoided by using the word jokin instead: jossakin, jostakin, johonkin. Theoretically speaking, jokin is used to refer to things and joku is used to refer to people, but these are very often used as synonyms. I suggest you read more about the words joku and jokin if this sparks an interest.

The singer is wishing tomorrow would be just a regular day, in a regular month, nothing special. From this, we can draw the conclusion that tomorrow is not just a regular Tuesday.

The word muuan would definitely be a good topic for a future article on Uusi kielemme! It’s especially interesting when compared to the word eräs. “Muuan mies” and “eräs mies” would both be translated as “a man” or “some man” in English.

The function of the word muuan is to express that the word attached to it (here: mies) is a specific person, which we’re choosing not to mention by name. This is in contrast with “eräs mies“, which would express that the recipient doesn’t exactly know the man the speaker is talking about.

“Under” an ordinary working day expresses that the man is on his way to work. This is not a very common phrase.

Postpositions usually require the word they’re attached to appear in the genitive form, that’s why we get [tavallisen työpäivän] alla.

It’s very common in spoken language to use the pronoun se “it” instead of the pronoun hän “he/she” when referring to people. This is not done in order to objectify the person. It’s just a neutral, very common way to refer to people.

Having something in your mind (mielessään) means you’re thinking about it. The form mielessään can also get a different possessive suffix based on the subject. In the phrase Olet ollut koko ajan mielessäni, for example, you’ve been in my mind constantly.

These are the things he wishes were the sole things that were bothering him: a simple back ache and the weather. These are just small things compared to the unspecified problems he’s really having.

Särkevä and saapuva are both VA-participle forms (the grammatical term is active present participle). The verbs they are based on are särkeä (to hurt) and saapua (to arrive). In English, these forms often get -ing at their end (hurting, approaching). However, the English -ing isn’t solely used for this purpose; it has other meanings too.

The English word fine is not uncommon in spoken language and will be pronounced exactly as in English. Here, it’s a suitable word because it rhymes with vain at the end of the phrase.

Once again, the pronoun se is used to refer to a person.

The English “would have had” requires the Finnish perfect conditional tense. The phrase “hän olisi ollut” means “he would have been”, while “hänellä olisi ollut” means “he would have had”. Note how the song uses sillä rather than hänellä, as is common in spoken language.

The adjective kaikenlainen is very often used in the partitive form kaikenlaista. It consists of the word kaikki “all, everything” and the suffix -lainen, which you might be familiar with due to expressing your nationality (e.g. kiinalainen, amerikkalainen). The word kaikenlainen has nothing to do with nationality: it just means “all kinds of things”.

Elsewhere in the song, you can hear “voi kunpa“, but in this phrase, the -pa has been dropped. This doesn’t change the meaning of the phrase: we’re still wishing for something: “oh if only”. This phrase is used in combination with the conditional mood: olisi (or ois in spoken language). You might be aware that the normal meaning of kun is generally “when” rather than “if”. The conditional verb form helps us to interpret the phrase as wishful thinking.

This is the same sentence as above, repeated at the beginning of the next verse.

The word eikä means “nor”. This word, depending on the context, can be changed to fit the subject: enkä for minä, etkä for sinä, etc. The third person singular is used here, but if we’d go for a 100% grammatically correct sentence, it should actually be eivätkä because the subject is varjot in the T-plural.

Eikä (and enkä, eivätkä, etc.) is often used to connect two negative statements: “Tänään ei ole tavallinen päivä eikä huomenna(kaan).” (Today is not an ordinary day nor is tomorrow). In the song, we’re following up an affirmative sentence “Voi kun huomenna olisi ihan tavallinen päivä” with a negative sentence “eivätkä varjot olisi niin upottavan syviä enää.” This works fine in Finnish, but in English nor is maybe a little unnatural in this context: “Oh if only tomorrow would be a normal day nor would the shadows be so deep anymore”.

I think I invented the word “drowningly”! If things go drowningly they go really badly; when things go swimmingly they go really well. In the song, upottava appears in the genitive case. When used in this way in front of an adjective such as syvä, it stresses the intensity of the adjective. The shadows are not just deep, they’re drowningly deep.

The adjective syvä is inflected in the plural partitive because this is a complement sentence: “Varjot eivät olisi syviä” (the shadows wouldn’t be deep). In complement sentences with a subject in the T-plural, the complement will usually be inflected in the plural partitive. This would also be true for a positive sentence: Varjot ovat syviä.

The verb hoidella is derived from the verb hoitaa (to take care of). By adding -lla to a verb, we can make the meaning frequentative or more casual. In this case, he’s wishing he’d be simply taking care of many things in a relaxed kind of manner. Both hoitaa and hoidella are usually partitive verbs. In spoken language, hoidella can also be used to mean “to have sex”.

The phrase “jäädä rästiin” is commonly used to say that something stays undone, doesn’t get finished. That’s how we get the sentence “Työt jäivät rästiin” (the work was left unfinished). In the song, we’re using the NUT-participle (grammatically the active past participle) as an adjective: “unfinished work”.

The verb järkeillä is based on the noun järki (sense, mind). This makes the meaning closer to “to try to make sense of” than just to think. In the song, järkeillä has been inflected into the third infinitive’s abessive case. You probably know the third infinitive’s other forms better (e.g. menen nukkumaan, olin nukkumassa, tulen nukkumasta). The -matta form expresses that you don’t do the action: nukkumatta would be “without sleeping”.

The word liikaa carries the same meaning as liian paljon. Both are based on the word liika “excess”: liikaa is the partitive case and liian is the instructive case.

The word elämä has been inflected in the partitive form elämää because of the verb järkeillä,  which is a partitive verb. Other verbs that express thinking such as pohtia, miettiä and ajatella are also partitive verbs. In the song, the form elämää has the possessive suffix -nsA added to it to express that he’s thinking about his life, not just life in general.

Refrain

At this point of the song, the refrain repeats nearly identically to earlier in the song (you can read my analysis of those lines up above):

The new refrain focuses on the relationship between the man and his wife. In the repeated refrain, we no longer focus on how the man is fine, but rather that his wife is fine, even if they’ve had all kinds of things going on together. This is the first section referring to the wife, and it gives the expression that the problems the man is experiencing are in fact related to his wife rather than to anything else.

In standard Finnish, we’d say “hänen vaimonsa” rather than “sen vaimo“. The word niillä (shortened into niill in the song) is the spoken language version of heillä. It’s very common in spoken Finnish to use se and ne (which normally refer to things) rather than hän and he in order to refer to people.

Repetition of the first line of the song.

A quite common phrase with “alla” is “sanojen alla piilevä viha“, ie. “anger lurking beneath the words”. Compared to that, you can understand that it’s a good thing if there’s air under words: there’s a certain lightheartedness to the conversation. The addition of the word taas to this phrase conveys that this is no longer the case at the current time.

The loanword fiilis is based on the English feeling. This is a synonym for the more Finnish word tunne.

Life being here (elämä on tässä) refers to living in the present; in the here and now. We could add the “now” by saying: “Elämä on tässä ja nyt“.

In official Finnish, we would be using jokin rather than joku in this line. Technically speaking, joku is used to refer to people (e.g. joku ihminen “some person”) and jokin is used for things (e.g. jokin hetki “some moment”). It’s very common for people to use the different forms of joku and jokin as synonyms.

The postposition päästä is used here in the phrase “vuoden päästä” (a year from now).

Combined, the previous line and this one convey the meaning that the man would like to be happy here and now rather than wait for that moment a long time in the future where happiness would come easy. However, the conditional mood is used in this section to convey that the man is unsuccessful in doing so.

Refrain

At this point of the song, the refrain repeats nearly identically to earlier in the song. You can read my analysis of those lines up above.

“Kun ilta saa” is a very rare phrase used in poetry. In regular language use, you’ll hear “Kun ilta saapuu“, using the verb saapua (to arrive), rather than saada (which usually means “to receive” or “to be allowed to”).

The verb parkkeerata is a loanword from English. If you’re looking for a more Finnish word, there is the verb pysäköidä.

There are two words in the mihin-form in this phrase: siihen and alle. We’re using the mihin-form because this phrase is connected to the verb parkkeerata. When parking a car, you move it towards a place; in this case towards the underside of the maple tree.

The postposition alla has three possible forms: alla is the missä-form (e.g. Auto on vaahteran alla), alta is the mistä-form (e.g. Ajan auton pois vaahteran alta) and alle is the mihin-form (e.g. Parkkeeraan auton vaahteran alle).

The third person plural in standard Finnish ends in -vat/vät. In everyday language, this is very often emitted. This means that the third person singular and the third person plural look identical in spoken language: se istuisi (rather than hän istuisi) and ne istuisi (rather than he istuisivat).

You can check out this article for more information about adverbs with -kkain at their end.

I suppose sitting in a dim living room is romantic or something. In addition to the plural missä-form hämärissä, the singular form hämärässä is also used in the same context.

Refrain

Once again, the refrain repeats nearly identically to earlier in the song (you can read my analysis of those lines up above), with an added line at the very end of the song.

There you have the whole song! I hope you found this helpful. Do you have a song suggestion for me to analyze next? Let me know in the comments!

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