For metal’s most distinctive soprano, Tarja Turunen, the past two decades have been nothing short of transformative. After the excruciatingly public split from Nightwish, which left Tarja blindsided and with some deep emotional scars, the singer has spent years picking herself up, dusting herself off and throwing herself back into a scene that at times seemed determined to reject her.
With self-deprecating humour and warmth, the effervescent singer picks songs from her discography that seem to represent her ability to overcome hard times, from taking her first tentative steps as a solo artist to using Christmas music to deal with bereavement and reclaiming the label ‘diva’.
Nightwish - Walking In The Air (Oceanborn, 1998)
"I’m a Christmas woman. You probably see me doing a lot of Christmas stuff in my career every year. This song has nothing to do with metal whatsoever, but Nightwish recorded it for our second album, and it’s been in my setlist for Christmas concerts for a long time. I’ve done it with symphonic orchestras, different lineups, oh my God, so many ways of doing the same song [laughs]!
But it’s a beautiful song, I love The Snowman cartoon. And now my daughter, she’s 11, she’s seen it now too. A couple of years ago I had the opportunity, on a TV program in Finland, to perform the song with Aled Jones, the original boy soprano. For me, it was like a feeling of closure. I needed to tell him the story and he was happy to hear it. So it was a very emotional performance for me. It was very special."
Nightwish - Phantom Of The Opera (Century Child, 2000)
"Phantom of the Opera is one of the reasons I’m a singer today. It was like lightning from the sky. It made me look for a vocal coach and start using my voice in a healthier way. I started taking lessons when I was fifteen which is very early when it comes to lyrical singing – it deals with the whole body, so you need to be very careful.
I was a nervous wreck when I went into the studio to record it with Nightwish, because even though I was studying lyrical singing in university, my voice was not in the place it is now. But it was a great challenge and I love challenges. This song is still a challenge for me, every time. Every night I have this song in my set, I feel a little more focused on how to deliver it well."
Tarja - Oasis (My Winter Storm, 2007)
"The first song I ever composed myself was Oasis. I really wanted to have a song that I’d written on my own for my first album. I felt like I needed that, somehow. We were running out of time so the label tried to find me songwriters because they didn’t trust I was capable of doing the job on my own yet – which I wasn’t, I agree – but this song was always there.
In all the turmoil that was going on in my life at that moment, it felt like everybody wanted a piece of me, everybody was fighting over who got to release my first solo album. It was crazy. I knew I wanted to continue doing music, but with who? This song was about finding that inner peace within, my own little oasis. I was ready to start my journey alone."
Tarja - I Walk Alone (My Winter Storm, 2007)
"Universal sent me more than 500 demos of songs, and I remember I was driving all over Finland at that time. I love driving, it’s the moment when I can listen to music, I can chill and disconnect. So I was driving and listening to all of these demos, and you can’t imagine what kind of songs were on there. Completely classical, pop, electronic, metal… the whole range of songs that composers had sent to me. And then comes I Walk Alone, and I had to play it on repeat. I was like, this is the song for me.
I had to make it my own, to find my own meaning in it, so I changed the lyrics a little bit. It was about the connection with my fans, the ones that were always there, supporting me – they were the winter storm behind me, kicking my butt, making me continue to do what I love the most. In a way, it’s the opposite meaning – I never walk alone. I felt very strongly about this song and the label agreed with me, and it was the first single from My Winter Storm."
Tarja - Until My Last Breath (What Lies Beneath, 2010)
"This is an important song, it’s in almost all of my live setlists. At the time, I was writing about the passing of Michael Jackson. We humans tend to forget things very easily, we don’t have a long memory. We think of somebody as amazing and then after that person is gone, we dig up all the dirt and want to only see the bad things.
That’s how it was with Michael Jackson’s passing. An incredible artist, the King of Pop, with insanely beautiful songs that are still fresh today – everything got trashed and his talent wasn’t the focus anymore. I became very sad about that and said 'okay, I need to believe in myself and what I do, no matter what the public pressure is;. This song made me understand that."
Tarja - Ave Maria (Ave Maria - En Plein Air, 2015)
"I’d wanted to release a proper classical album for a long time, since I hadn’t had the opportunity to do it earlier. It was also a matter of not having the courage; I wasn’t ready for a classical album, but then I got encouraged by some important Finnish classical musicians. They said, 'do it for your own sake'.
This song was born in about two minutes, just from me fooling around on the grand piano in my living room in Buenos Aires. I said to myself one day, 'Why not? I can write an Ave Maria'. I was just thinking of the Latin text of Ave Maria, and there it was. I’m not even a religious person, I’m more of a spiritual person, but having had such a long background in classical music, it felt like the right thing to do. I’m really happy with that album. I hope I can find the time to do a follow-up one day."
Tarja - Diva (The Shadow Self, 2016)
"I spent so many years feeling so disappointed, like I had lost all of my trust in humanity, after my departure from Nightwish, because it was so nasty. In that letter from the band, they described me as a 'diva' in a very negative light. For me, having had a classical background, the word meant just the opposite, but I was really hurt by that. So, I needed to write a song where I use it in a very ironic way.
Diva was actually written for [2013's] Colours In The Dark, but I wasn’t ready to face it yet. By the time The Shadow Self came out, my self-confidence had grown. I had a career, I felt the whole scene accepted me. So I said 'yeah, let’s do it. I’m happy to be the diva'."
Tarja - Together (From Spirits & Ghosts [Score For A Dark Christmas], 2017)
"I kind of don’t enjoy Christmas music as it is – put out as some commercial thing in the supermarket, very happy, very American. A lot of people don’t enjoy Christmas because it’s a time of year when they are reminded of the ones that are no longer with us. After my mother passed in 2003, I said to myself, 'there’s no Christmas anymore for me'.
So From Spirits & Ghosts, my second Christmas album, is a darker album where I try to reach out to the people that are lonely during Christmas. I did the album for them, those lonely souls, and I wrote them the song Together. Some of us enjoy our solitude, but we all need each other in one way or another. Dark Christmas (released last year) is the follow-up, and it’s even darker."
Tarja - Shadow Play (In The Raw, 2019)
"I wrote Shadow Play during the therapy sessions after my stroke. When I finished writing these lyrics, it kind of emptied me completely, but at the same time I was very proud of myself because I had made it; I had finished something that was so hard, mentally. After my stroke, which was such a surprise, I thought, 'why me?' I was full of questions.
So I wrote Shadow Play and said to myself, 'this is it: this is who I am today, and it’s okay. I’m alive, and I’m okay.' It was like a bad dream, but thankfully it didn’t leave me with any long-term effects. I can’t write music without going deep. I think that’s what makes my audience connect with me or feel for me; it’s pure open-heartedness. It’s my weakness, in a way, but it’s also my strength, at the same time."
Outlanders - Closer To The Sky (Outlanders, 2023)
"This is one of the first songs I wrote alone at home since Covid, thinking about this weird situation we were in, not knowing what would be there in the future, how long it would take to get over this - this unknown, unfamiliar situation.
I wrote Closer To The Sky for guitarist Trevor Rabin. I’ve been a fan of Trevor for a long time, since his years in Yes, and when I got to talk to him on the phone, he really understood the concept of Outlanders and we had a really sweet chat. And since he recorded the song, I realised that Outlanders has a life, and I know I can do it. It was a beautiful debut album and I already have ideas for a follow-up."
