Risto "Nina, Olen Palasina"
Thursday, May 11, 2006
The subject of “Nina, Olen Palasina” (mp3) is haunted by the woman named in the title, but the torture is of his own design, Poe-style*. He’s obsessing over the detritus left after her departure, triggering memory-floods and specters of presence. He is able to enunciate his feelings perfectly well, but is completely impotent to stop them returning, and returning, and returning. I love how the song assumes an assured structure when her name is mentioned for the first time, as if affirming her presence, before reverting back to the doubt-laden anxiety of the earlier state. The effect is composite, though, and the song grows more and more disturbed—the voices from the attic disappearing and reappearing—until completely deteriorating into a melange of half-utterances and partially remembered conversations, contintuing until it collapses onto itself.
Risto is a band, and they are on Fonal.
*My Finnish is a bit weak, to the point of non-existence.

Nice analysis. Here’s a translation of the lyrics, without the rhyme scheme or twisted charm of the original:
I stowed away on a train to get to you / I should have known they’ll open the toilet doors /I was kicked out at Riksu at half past twelve / I’ll try again in the morning / I spent the night in a paper dumpster of an apartment building / I made a paper rose for you out of the cover of a Seura [Finnish equivalent of People magazine] / And when I finally got to you, you could at least open the door /Nina, I’m falling to bits / So you’ve heard what they whisper in Tampere / I can tell you that it happened accidently / I was drunk when she-he started to annoy me, and I just shoved her-him a bit / Nina, I’m falling to bits / And when the amniotic fluid broke I was running…and I’m running still / Nina, I’m falling to bits
[Since Finnish pronouns are not gendered it is not completely clear who was irritating the protagonist in Tampere, or how this is related to the amniotic fluid breaking]
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