Ievan Polkka (song by Hatsune Miku)
“Ievan Polkka”, known by its official English title as "Eva's Polka" is a 1930s traditional Finnish song. It was revived in the mid-1990s by Finnish band Loituma where it has amassed over 6 million views on YouTube. In 2007, a cover by Otomania was released featuring vocals by Hatsune Miku.
Popularity
During this time, there was a popular meme known as "Leekspin" which was a Flash animation using a scene from the anime BLEACH. It featured the character Orihime Inoue spinning a leek while the 5th stanza of Loituma's "Ievan Polkka" played on loop. Shortly after the animation was posted, Ievan Polkka became widely known worldwide with internet users, becoming significantly more relevant with time, as exhibited by search engine statistics of searched terms.
On September 4, 2007, shortly after the release of VOCALOID 2 Hatsune Miku, and riding the wave of the popular Leekspin animation, Otomania posted "Ievan Polkka" to Nico Nico Douga. The addictiveness of the original song, as well as the animation of a derivative version of Hatsune Miku (later referred to as Hachune Miku) became extremely popular. Hachune Miku, drawn by Otomania's friend "Egg", also holds a leek. As a result of its popularity, Ievan Polkka would become one of the representative songs to be associated with Hatsune Miku.
Otomania's cover of "Ievan Polkka" quickly became Hatsune Miku's first popular work, leeks would grow to become recognized and heavily associated as one of Hatsune Miku’s most beloved items, and derivation characters would explode in popularity. That single Flash animation would prove to be one of the most character-changing songs in Hatsune Miku's history.
The song was featured in the Hatsune Miku Live Party (Mikupa) Live in Tokyo 2011 concert and is usually used as a tutorial song in the Hatsune Miku -Project DIVA- series games. It also appeared in Just Dance 2016 (Ubisoft). In the first Project DIVA game, the song was used as a regular song with a considerably easy note chart. However, in the subsequent Project DIVA games released so far (across multiple console platforms), the song is used as the tutorial, teaching players the basics on how to play the game itself. In the tutorial form, Ievan Polkka is purely instrumental and its chorus is looped in order to fit all of the different variety of notes that the game includes, such as "Hold" notes. With each release of the Project DIVA games, fans actually look forward to playing the tutorial stage in order to listen to the song once again.
Song Information
- Loituma (arrangement)
- Otomania (cover: arrangement)
- Hatsune Miku (cover: vocals)
Lyrics
Published by Warner Chappell Music Publishing Synch Department under JASRAC
JASRAC Works Code: 0X5-9666-9
| Scat |
|---|
| Ratsatsaa ja ripidabi dilla |
| beritstan dillan dellan doo. |
| A baribbattaa baribbariiba |
| ribiribi distan dellan doo. |
| Ja barillas dillan deia dooa |
| daba daba daba daba daba duvja vuu. |
| Baristal dillas dillan duu ba daga |
| daiga daida duu duu deiga dou. |
Interpretation
The original song can have two interpretations. The first tells the tale of a daughter slipping away from her mother to party, coming back home later with a young man who challenges her mother to stop them from wooing. The second interpretation is that the party is at the girl's house, and the young man who lives next to them decides to woo the girl, despite her mother intensely watching over her. The neighbor tried to take the girl back to his house, only for the mother to try and stop them.
Miku’s cover of it only sings a small part of the song, and her version of it is pure gibberish, the scat segment of the song, where the singers improvise, making up nonsense syllables and phonemes, basically meaning she doesn’t say a single word with meaning. There are versions in which she covers the entire song, but the original video, the one based on the leekspin meme, doesn’t do so, being just rhythmically and phonetically pleasing to listen to.
Links
YouTube - Loituma's version
Ievan polkka - Wikipedia
Ievan polkka - Wikipedia (Japanese)
Ievan Polkka - Vocaloid Wiki | Fandom
Ievan Polkka - Nico Nico Pedia