Thursday, September 24, 2009

Cool Water - Kylmää vettä


Now we meet for the first time in Finnpicks, a true Finnish legend, Tapio Rautavaara. Rautavaara was a Finnish master athlete, singer and movie actor. He won the Olympic Gold Medal in the javelin throw at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. And later in his career he won the gold medal in the Finnish archery team in World Championships of 1958. Since 1940's Tapio had also played in several movies and reorded hudreds of songs. His songs were mainly of Finnish origin, but he did some covers, too - often on country & western songs. This is one of those. Tapio recorded "Kylmää vettä" (Cold water) in 1961 with vocal group Neloset (see earlier entry). The original was country classic "Cool Water", a song written by Bob Nolan, founder member of The Sons of the Pioneers. This group also recorded the original and best-selling version of the song in 1948. The lyrics of the song tell about a man and his mule, Dan, and a mirage in the desert.

Here's the pair:

1 comment:

cklequ said...

I'm a year and a half late, but thank you for this. I've always loved this song and i'm a real sucker for foreign language covers of cowboy music...