Unien seitit

A long time ago, Pirjo Kostiainen wrote a poem called SURU (Grief) to comfort her brother, who had been widowed. His spouse had died tragically at the age of 45.

The author of the poem discussed the matter with her niece, jazz singer Eeppi Ursin, who suggested a composer who had set many poems to music. This composer wrote a song, but its tone did not match the tragic mood of the poem at all.

Years passed again, and Pirjo showed the text to her fellow chorister from years back, Timo Ruottinen. Timo promised to try, saying, "Let's see how it goes."

At first, the works produced by this next person to try did not satisfy the composer himself, and the matter was left hanging for perhaps a year. But then, in a moment of insight, he found the key to the solution: the poem is clearly a fado text. All the longing and sorrow in the lyrics clearly reflect the world of saudade. And so the melody and basic harmony of the song were born.

But recording a fado song originally written in Finnish was no simple matter either. But Timo had more than ten years earlier collaborated with Portuguese fado musician Carlos Manuel Proença to produce Kirsi Poutanen's fado album Amalia Tribute, with lyrics translated into Finnish by Tarja Härkönen. The album was well received in Finland as well as in Portugal. A follow-up to this fado album had been planned for a long time. And Kirsi's new album was released in November 28th, 2025, and this fado, arranged by Carlos Manuel, is included under the name Suru, with Vernu (a nickname used by Pirjo's friends) listed as the lyricist, which now, partly by accident, becomes Pirjo's pseudonym.

But since the lyrics were also translated into English, it was necessary to produce an English-language jazz song version, arranged by Arto Piispanen, which Eeppi Ursin sang at Studio-JJ in Tampere. In the same session, Eeppi also sang the same arrangement in Finnish under the title Unien seitit.