How Finland Does Eurovision (Quietly, Stubbornly, On Its Own Terms)

Imagine sending the same well-meaning entry to a glittery talent show year after year, watching it finish twentieth, and turning up the next year with the same calm, neighbourly energy. That, in a nutshell, is Finland and Eurovision.

Finland is, by every reasonable measure, the unlikeliest country for it. Finland does not parade. Finland does not, generally, do feather boas. The contest is a sequinned festival built for nations who like a bit of theatre, and Finland keeps showing up in jeans, slightly embarrassed by the whole affair. And yet, year after year, every May, the country with the lowest small-talk index in the EU sits down in front of the telly with a beer and rye bread to watch the rest of Europe sing about heartbreak in their second language. It is, on paper, ridiculous. In practice, it is one of the most properly Finnish things that happens here.

Here is the long version, told through a band in monster costumes, a man in a lime-green bolero, a violinist with a special permit and a few quieter heroes in between.

The Lordi Anomaly

Picture the scene. The year is 2006. The Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens. The Greek host announces, with appropriate gravitas, the next entry from Finland. Out walk five enormous figures in latex monster costumes, complete with horns and claws and, in the case of the lead singer, a chainsaw. They proceed to bellow a song called Hard Rock Hallelujah at the unsuspecting continent, and against every Eurovision tradition known to man, win by a margin so wide that the European Broadcasting Union had to recheck the maths.

Their name was Lordi. Finland's first and, to date, only Eurovision win.

What is wonderful about this in retrospect is how completely Finnish it was. Forty-five years of earnest, well-meaning Finnish pop had failed to register a single bell at Eurovision. Finland did not have polished superstars in feather boas. Finland did not have a Eurovision tradition of any sort to speak of. So Finland did the most Finnish thing imaginable. It sent a heavy metal band of monsters whom nobody in their right mind would have predicted, on the simple working theory that if you are going to lose anyway, you may as well lose loudly. As it happens, they did not lose. They won so hard that the rest of Europe is, two decades later, still slightly confused about it. Imagine showing up to a black-tie wedding in a gorilla suit and being made best man. That, more or less, is what Lordi did to Eurovision.

The Long Pain

Then came what historians of Finnish Eurovision (a small but committed group) refer to as The Long Pain. The decade after Lordi was a slow parade of well-intentioned entries that did absolutely nothing to set Europe alight. There were sincere ballads sung with the polite earnestness of a graduation speech. There was choreography that suggested the choreographer had been given the brief in a sauna and not entirely sober. There was a rapper. There was a duo who sang in Swedish, presumably to give Sweden the comforting feeling of being at home. Some entries were genuinely good. Most slipped politely into Eurovision's vast cemetery of forgettable songs, where they sit happily next to half a dozen Macedonian power ballads.

If Eurovision through these years had a soundtrack, it was not Cha Cha Cha or Hard Rock Hallelujah. It was the long, quiet perkele under the breath of a Finnish viewer who had just watched their country finish twentieth, again. Loading, but never quite firing, in the way that will be deeply familiar to anyone who has owned a Finnish bus app.

It was the long, quiet perkele under the breath of a Finnish viewer who had just watched their country finish twentieth, again.

The country took each result with the same stoicism it takes a bus that arrives twelve seconds late, a quick sigh and a quick cup of coffee and a quiet moving on with the day. There is something deeply Finnish about not making a fuss when you finish twentieth. You showed up, you did your best, you did not weep on live television, and what more could Europe reasonably want from you?

You showed up, you did your best, you did not weep on live television, and what more could Europe reasonably want from you?

The Käärijä Earthquake

Then, somewhere around 2020, things began to shift. UMK, Finland's national selection contest (technically the Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu, but you do not need to know that to enjoy it), started growing teeth. A young Finnish singer called Erika Vikman entered with a song called Cicciolina, named after the famously unblushing Italian porn star turned politician, lost the final and somehow reset what UMK could feel like. The country started watching the national selection like it actually mattered, which, given the Finnish tradition of pretending nothing matters, is no small thing.

By the time 2023 rolled around, Finland was, against all national instincts, paying attention. Then came Käärijä.

If you have not seen the performance, picture a young Finnish man with a bowl haircut, a lime-green bolero jacket so cropped it qualified as costume, a backing crew dressed as cyborg dancers and a chorus called Cha Cha Cha that involved no Spanish, no Cha Cha and arguably no Cha. He should have won. The public thought he should have won and gave him the biggest televote score of the night. The whole continent, for a few weeks, agreed that Finland should have won. The juries had other ideas. He came second.

What happened that night was unprecedented in modern Finnish life. The diaspora wept into laptops in London, Toronto, Berlin and almost certainly Brisbane. Bars in Helsinki were standing-room only. Old men who had not watched Eurovision since the Spice Girls were last on Top of the Pops were suddenly experts on the Croatian televote. For about three weeks, Finland was the country that should have won, which, when you think about it, is the most Finnish position to be in. The Finnish national anthem might as well be Hyvää melkein, which translates roughly as 'pretty much there but not quite'.

It also marked a quiet shift. The country began to take Eurovision a bit more seriously. Not loud-seriously. Finnish-seriously, which means doing the work, on its own terms, with no expectation of applause and no real intention of asking for any.

Sisu With Strings

Which brings us, in fine Finnish chronological style, to 2026 and one Linda Lampenius. Linda, for the uninitiated, is one of Finland's better-known violinists. Her surname is Finnish. Her violin is Italian. Her temperament, by all reports, is the steady, slightly amused kind that you would want piloting a small plane through a thunderstorm.

Linda's Eurovision entry this year, performed alongside Pete Parkkonen, is a song called Liekinheitin. Spelled out in English, that translates as flamethrower, which we will not dwell on. The interesting thing happened off stage. Linda asked the EBU, the powers that be at Eurovision, if she could play her violin live. Not to a backing track. Live, like an actual violinist would in any other performance setting on the planet.

Eurovision normally runs entirely on backing tracks. The reason is brutally practical. There is roughly two minutes between acts and you cannot tune a violin in two minutes, never mind tune a string section. Live instruments are nearly unheard of and the EBU's default position is, broadly, no.

The EBU said no in April. Linda kept rehearsing. She then demonstrated to the EBU, in person, that she could in fact pull it off without anything going horribly wrong. The EBU watched. The EBU thought about it. The EBU said yes, fine, you can play your violin live, but please do not break it.

The Finnish word for the spirit that gets you from a polite refusal to special permission via several weeks of stubborn rehearsal is sisu. The complete Finnish maintenance manual contains three items: sauna, silence and sisu. Linda is leaning hard on the third one this week.

By the time you read this, the result might already be in. Finland might have qualified, won, crashed out in a fireball or done the third option Finland is genuinely best at, which is finishing somewhere respectable, giving a calm interview, going home, putting the kettle on and never mentioning it again. Either way, the violin was already the win. Finland did the harder version of the task, which is so Finnish it should be illustrated in textbooks: a real instrument played by a real musician with no safety net, on the biggest stage in European pop. That is not a Eurovision strategy. That is a country.

The View From Abroad

For the Finnish diaspora, Eurovision night is one of those rare evenings when being abroad properly hurts. You want to be in a Helsinki living room with a beer and people who understand, without explanation, why a violin played live in Vienna is a big deal. You want the low Lutheran skyline visible out the window and a Karhu in the fridge and the quiet relief of being among your own.

It is worth pointing out that Eurovision night is one of the few moments in the year when the diaspora and the homeland properly reconverge. Different time zones, same broadcast. Finns in Brisbane stay up at appalling hours, Finns in Toronto skip Saturday morning hockey, and Finns in Helsinki argue about Croatian voting blocs before the first semi has even finished. For a few hours every May, being Finnish stops being a geography and becomes a frequency you can pick up anywhere with reception.

For a few hours every May, being Finnish stops being a geography and becomes a frequency you can pick up anywhere with reception.

And Yet, Finland Turns Up

Year after year, however the contest goes, Finland keeps turning up. Not for the glory, not for revenge and possibly not even for the music, but mostly because if you are going to enter Eurovision you may as well enter it properly. Finland does the harder version of every task on principle, which over the years has meant sending a metal band, then a lime-green rapper and now a violinist with a permit. Finishing twentieth or second or first. Going home, putting the kettle on, checking the sauna stones and getting on with it.

If you want a longer guide to the country that produced Lordi, Käärijä, Linda, the violin and the long-suffering Pete Parkkonen who somehow also features in this story, the original 101 Very Finnish Problems book is the way in. It will not explain Eurovision. It will, however, explain the country that keeps showing up to it.

Hyvä Suomi, hyvä Eurovision and, just to be on the safe side this Tuesday, hyvä Linda.

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