In the last year, especially for the last several months, it feels like not a week goes by that I read a childhood/teenage hero of mine has died! Many of them not even that old! Most recently Nichelle Nichols, Olivia Newton-John, David Warner and yesterday I learned that Jussi Hakulinen also has died. He was only 57!
Jussi Hakulinen was one of the most talented and famous Finnish song writers and musicians, and one of the founding members of Yö (Night) which is Finland’s 10th best-selling music artist of all time. He wrote and composed Joutsenlaulu (Swansong) which is one of the best loved Finnish songs ever. Joutsenlaulu to me is personally perhaps the quintessential Finnish song and probably my THE favorite Finnish song of all time.
Someone uploaded a video with both the Finnish lyrics as well as English translations of them to Youtube:
I’m from Poland but I live in Finland, I moved here in 2020. Joutsenlaulu was one of the first Finnish songs I heard. I was very sad when I heard about Jussi Hakulinen’s death last year. His death was quickly overshadowed by that of Vesa-Matti Loiri. I knew Loiri too but I have to admit that I was more saddened by Hakulinen’s death. He was relatively young, it didn’t seem that he had some health problems and he was still active in music at that time. So his death was really a shock for me.
Yes, for me too! Hakulinen was only a decade older than me and not the age yet where you’re sort of starting to prepare that this person won’t be here forever. Unlike Loiri, who’d been dealing with health problems for a long time, more than a decade, before his death and also was the same age as my Mother so his death didn’t come as a shock – just sad!
True, some year before his death Hakulinen released a new song called Ensilumi (sung mostly by his daughter). I hoped that he would continue making new music and then that sad news came. I think he was a bit underrated, maybe because he wasn’t the main singer of Yö, and wasn’t that much into performing live. I like some of his songs that are not so widely known, such Yö, jota ei ollutkaan, Laika, Laika, Talo varrella rautatien. Other Finnish musicians that are like are Gösta Sundqvist and Juice Leskinen. Sadly they also left us too early, Gösta wasn’t even 50.