Co-Geeking

Erik provided an introduction to Bara bada bastu, the Swedish contender for the Eurovision Song Contest 2025.

(A super-short recap of his post: the song Bara bada bastu, ‘Just having a sauna’, despite representing Sweden, is in fact performed by the Finnish comedy group KAJ. As a result of KAJ’s popularity, Swedes and Finns are finding a new spirit of Eurovision togetherness, and it has also brought some international recognition to the little-known Swedish-speaking minority in Finland.)

Here, as a companion post, is a listing of cultural references in KAJs song and in the performance.

I’m pulling some of this from my own experience growing up in Finland, but others from online commentary, or my Swedish-Finnish friends’ stories. This list is, therefore, likely not to be complete. Additions are very welcome!

(Note: I will be referring to the official ESC music video of Bara bada bastu, so you may want to have a look at that, or perhaps this lyrics video with their local Vörå Swedish dialect in addition to Finnish and English translations. If you’re completely new to sauna, you can look at my introduction to sauna bathing.)

KAJ—which rhymes with the English word guy—is made up of Kevin Holmström, Axel Åhman, and Jakob Norrgård, who all originally hail from Vörå, Ostrobothnia, Finland. The idea behind the song is to gently poke fun at how Swedes view Finns and our culture. Here we go! 🙂

Cultural references in general

• Accordeon music was popular in Finland for a long time.

• Nåjaa (Vörå Swedish for ‘well then’ or ‘okay then’) is very common in Finnish as well (although spelled no jaa, and depending on intonation can alternatively mean ‘oh well’, ‘whatever’, or even other things).

• Time for a sauna bath: In Finland, older apartment buildings often have a communal sauna that residents can book for a recurring weekly slot. Many people with their own private saunas also have a sauna routine, e.g. bathing every Friday or Saturday. (For example, Erik and I also have a sauna + bathroom combo in our apartment, and we do our own routine.) I gather it’s more typical in Finland to have private saunas than in Sweden, although north of Stockholm many, many Swedish homes also have their own sauna.

• Sauna relaxes both body and mind. It really is a wonderful de-stresser.

• It’s a general opinion that a sauna with wood-paneled walls feel much better than any modern alternatives (like tile) to bathe in.

• For decades, tango used to be one of the most popular music forms in Finland.

• Arja Saijonmaa is a Finnish singer and a household name in Sweden, apparently. In 1987 Saijonmaa participated in the Melodifestivalen, coming second, and again in 2019, but did not qualify for the final that year. She’s also written sauna books in Swedish and Norwegian.

• Yksi, kaksi, kolme (Finnish for ‘one, two, three’): Finland is officially bilingual in Finnish and Swedish. Most Swedes, however, know either very little or no Finnish at all. Counting one to three is one of the things they might know.

• Sauna (whose Swedish translation is bastu) is perhaps the most commonly known Finnicism, although perkele—likely the most internationally known Finnish curse word, and very satisfying to say when fiery emphasis is needed—is hard at its heels. (Interestingly, perkele as a word has Proto-Indo-European roots.)

• Water and steam are essential parts of Finnish sauna. A traditional shape for the bucket (with one upright handle) and a long-handled ladle can be seen in the official video at the 1:20 mark (or in Wikimedia).

• I don’t think bastu bröder (‘sauna brothers’) was a word in Swedish before this, but it totally works as an ad hoc creation. To me it summons some of the same thoughts as sauna being the great equalizer—we’re all the same under the skin. Also of possible relevance is the fact that the KAJ guys have been friends since elementary school, and apparently are very supportive of each other. It’s lovely how wholesome they are. 🙂 ❤

• 100 degrees is a popular target temperature for sauna, but by no means the only acceptable one. (Erik and I prefer a lower heat in our sauna, for instance.) The point is to get very sweaty—glöda ‘to glow’ or ‘to glisten’ in KAJ et al.’s words—so you can get truly clean; whatever achieves that is good.

• The phrase heittää på consists of the Finnish verb heittää ‘to throw’ and the Swedish preposition på ‘on, upon’ (or ‘at’ of time). Here it refers to throwing water on the hot stones to release steam—the core activity in sauna bathing. Many Finnish-Swedish people are bilingual, and it’s quite common to dot their Swedish with individual Finnish words (e.g. Det är kiva, ‘it’s kiva’ / it’s nice’). To me heittää på seems quintessentially Finnish-Swedish in its attitude of combining elements from the two languages / cultures.

• Apart from sauna, perkele, and the counting (yksi, kaksi, kolme), the Finnish phrase ei saa peittää (‘do not cover’) is fairly widely known in Sweden, because the phrase is printed in multiple languages on the top surface of electric radiators sold in the Nordics. Naturally, it goes the other way as well: I hear Ei saa peittää, and my mind immediately supplies the Swedish Får ej övertäckas. 🙂

Some additional observations from the ESC official music video

(FYI: It’s KAJ’s Melodifestivalen final performance slapped with a new sticker.)

• Trees, trees, trees: 75+ % of Finnish land area is forest. I can spot both spruces and birches on stage.

• The first saunas were, of course, wood-heated, and chopping firewood is part of the Nordic summer cottage culture just as sauna bathing is part of the Finnish cottage life. Modern saunas come either with a wood-burning or an electric heater. Many enthusiasts still claim that the only proper way to experience sauna is with a wood-burning stove. I find it to be a matter of personal preference.

• Grilling sausage at a fire probably refers to sausages as an after-sauna snack. That was common in my childhood. After a sauna bath, you’ll definitely want to re-hydrate, but a little something savory can also feel good to replenish the salt you’ve just sweated out.

• They’ve included all the typical paraphernalia and then some: wood benches to sit on, sauna whisks, a bucket and ladle for water, a thermometer, towel wraps, and sauna hats. The last two, by the way, are typically optional in the Nordics (plus Germany, I think), but obviously you cannot have completely naked people on stage at a family-friendly music festival, so towels it is.

• The colorful lights towards the end refer to northern lights.

Finally, a few thoughts about a Finnish trio representing Sweden

While at the competition’s beginning it was typical for ESC teams to consist of one nationality (just Italians competing for Italy, for example), the rules do allow for and it’s not unusual to sprinkle in other nationalities.

Indeed, this is increasingly the case, especially on the writing and composing side, and especially for smaller nations like San Marino. Besides the KAJ folks, other co-writers for Bara bada bastu are Anderz Wrethov, Kristofer Strandberg, and Robert Skowronski; the two former are Swedish songwriter-producers and the latter a Polish musician, songwriter, and producer.

International teams are also known on the performance side of things, like among the backup vocals or dancers. (To give just one example: Käärijä’s Cha Cha Cha choreography was co-created by Fredrik Rydman, a Swede, and one of the four cha cha cha dancers, Jesse Wijnans, is Dutch by birth.)

Considering this history, there’s nothing new in having KAJ, a group of Finns, representing Sweden. I don’t find it at all peculiar that KAJ went to Melodifestivalen instead of Uuden musiikin kilpailu in Finland, because about 95 % of things here happen in Finnish. It makes complete sense for them to try and tap a larger market without having to change languages, especially since they were invited to Mello.

However.

KAJ has done something special. They’ve gone from the unknown underdog to finalist to audience-vote-record-breaking Mello winners. Since then they’ve gone viral on playlists, and are one of the favorites among the Eurovision crowd.

Everyone of my Eurovision-minded acquaintace that I’ve talked to or heard from has been overjoyed at their success. Many Finns have apparently started to brush up their Swedish to try and better understand KAJ’s acts.

Bara bada bastu basically celebrates a simple, relaxing self-care activity—with friends!—and that resonates with many, especially now that the world is horrible in so many ways. (To me it’s kind of a Eurovision version of cozy fiction.) On top of that, the KAJ guys are genuinely nice, funny, down-to-earth people, and audiences respond to that as well. It’s a tricky thing, to balance polished professional performances with authenticity, but KAJ seems to be pulling it off. THAT is what we want more of, not the plastic AI slop focus-grouped to death.

The ESC 2025 grand finale is now exactly one month away: it takes place in Basel, Switzerland, on May 17, 2025. We will definitely be cheering on both of Finland’s contestants, the official and the honorary one. 🙂

An occasional feature on music and sound-related notions.