Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A Horse With No Name - Päättömällä pollella

For some reason, this song represents a classic 'summer song' for me, although there's nothing particularly 'summery' in the lyrics. Well, it's the mood and the feeling, I guess ... Petri & Pettersson Brass had a sizeable single hit with "Päättömällä pollella" (On a headless horse) in 1972. BTW, on the B-side was early Anderssson-Ulvaeus cover (of "She's My Kind of Girl"). The crucial factor in the success of the song were the nonsense lyrics crafted by Jukka Virtanen. The original song was the first single - and smash hit - of the group America and called "A Horse With No Name", written by group member Dewey Bunnell. The song was banned by some US radio stations because of supposed drug references. This comes from the fact that “horse” is a common slang term for heroin. Actually in Finnish slang, the word 'polle' also stands for heroin. But there was no commotion about the Finnish lyrics at the time. You can see America perform the song live, here. http://youtu.be/HdsHfZG19HM

Here's the pair:

No comments: