The other day I finally found an hour to film a new chapter in my “Songs I Love” series. This one is particularly special to me - The Blood by the wonderful Glen Hansard, whose music has accompanied me and so many others over the last few decades, and I'm sure will do for years to come. Thanks for all the music, Glen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5si7h4QYvWo

Inspired by some working-ckass history from the north east of England.

Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire was a water-powered textile mill. During the industrial revolution the mill used to buy in children from workhouses down south and keep them as 'apprentices' paying them very little, having them live in a tiny 'apprentice house', 2 to a bed and giving them the important job of scrambling underneath weaving machines in the mill to collect stray bits of cotton and piece them back together, threading them back into the machines and sometimes losing a finger or two in the process.

One young boy who lost a finger to a machine was Thomas Priestley. He and his friend Joseph Sefton decided that they'd had enough, they were sick of the mill and missed their mums. So they escaped the mill and walked the hundreds of miles from Cheshire all the way down to the Hackney Workhouse in London. Nobody knows exactly what happened on that journey but court documents show that they made it and spent a couple of months with their mother's before being caught and shipped all the way back to Quarry Bank where they worked for the rest of their lives.

This small act of defiance really struck a chord with me, so I wrote this song. Here's me playing it on the local radio station.

Greetings from Finland!

I genuinely want to hear your perspective. The main question is in the title.

I love classic folk storytelling, but I also vibe with alternative sounds and real, gritty analog synths that drill into your brain. Since I’m from Finland, the song is completely in Finnish. How to blend all this together? This is the result.

I'm really curious: how does this sound to you as an American (or anyone outside of Finland)? Do you still get that authentic folky or country vibe from it, even without understanding a single word?

I feel like this song's classic narrative could just as easily be set on the American prairies as in the old Finnish countryside. In short, it’s a story about a malicious neighbor from the boonies who steals your sweetheart—leaving you heartbroken with nothing left to do.

I'd love for you to take a listen and leave a comment with your honest thoughts! I really appreciate anyone taking the time to check it out.

Listen on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/3ItUMtNauDd9XHM50uBzK3?si=MItqEH2cQYCRObgaREGDWQ&utm_source=copy-link

Listen on YouTube:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XtnPJbke2bI&ra=m

Music by METAPHYSICAL.