| Obrigado! ❤ |  |  |
| Recebeu 37 agradecimento(s) | ||
nippe22 em 2012-04-03
petteri_t | 1. | Viina, terva & hauta |
| 2. | Pohjoista viljaa |
| 3. | Kuolleen miehen kupletti |
Yngvildr The Voracious
Segunda-feira, 17/02/2020 - 15:19
Hello, as a foreign speaker of Finnish I'd like to understand this more. Doesn't Terva mean "gas" in this instance instead of Tar and did you change it to Tar because of the double meaning in English for "very bad coffee" analogy ? Thanks.
dhdaines
Sexta-feira, 29/04/2022 - 11:32
It means tar, but specifically pine tar. My understanding is that the title is an allusion to the proverb "jos ei viina, terva ja sauna auta, niin tauti on kuolemaksi" - "if booze, tar, and sauna don't help then the disease is fatal".
Note also that "hauta" can mean "tomb" but also can refer to the kiln where pine wood is "cooked" to extract tar. You can find fun videos of this on the internet if you search for "tervahauta".
In no way does the English translation do justice to the Finnish lyrics, but in order to keep the meaning true to the original, you just have to give up on some of the poetic stuff. Also the use of typically very Finnish and culturally original words, and the clever play with the language is very hard to display in English. Tried my best though, hopefully someone finds this helpful :)