Letkajenkka / letkis is a music genre and a general noun as well as two songs by the same name ("Letkajenkka" and "Letkis") as proper nouns, after which the genre got its name; jenkka, on the other hand, is a general noun, a music and dance genre like waltz. The popular music genre and the ensuing dance craze were at their hottest during 1963–1965. Letkajenkka is based on the idea of performing
Jenkka music using non-traditional
instruments. Traditional instruments for playing the jenkka, a Finnish traditional
folk dance, are instruments such as the
violin and
accordion. In the early 1960s some composers thought of writing jenkka tunes for more contemporary bands with more modern instruments, such as
wind instruments (for a more swing-like jenkka) and amplified instruments like electric guitars, basses, and drums (a more
rock 'n' roll or
boogie woogie-like sound). The form of the letkajenkka songs is consistent with traditional jenkka, but where the music is distinctively jenkka, the dance steps are not. Both dances are based on a lightly bouncing and skipping step. A rhythmic component that contributes towards the feel of a letkajenkka and distinguishes a letkajenkka from a regular jenkka tune is a distinctive pattern of either three crotchets / quarter notes followed by a quarter rest or two crotchets / quarter notes followed by a third dotted one in the end of its musical phrases that more or less coincide with the three consecutive hops of the dance steps. Regular jenkkas do not typically feature this rhythm pattern, at least not repeatedly. Erik Lindström introduced the genre with his song
Letkajenkka. A Swedish band called the Adventurers recorded it, and it immediately topped the charts in Finland. Later
Jan Rohde, a Norwegian artist, recorded a version with lyrics with the bands the Adventurers and the Wild Ones. Half a year later
Rauno Lehtinen followed with his song
Letkis. This has become by far the most popular of all songs in the letkajenkka genre. It was first recorded by his studio orchestra Rautalanka Oy in August 1963, but was made popular in the October of the same year by a group called Ronnie Krank's Orchestra. His chart topper has been re-recorded approximately a hundred times, and the rights to at least 60 versions of the song are owned by Swedish publisher Stig Anderson. One well known recording of the song is by German musician
Roberto Delgado. For versions in other languages, Lehtinen's Letkis was renamed Letkiss, Let's Kiss, Lasst uns Küssen etc., for easier pronunciation in different languages. The name Letkis has nothing to do with kissing; the idea of kissing was introduced by non-Finnish speakers, who thought that the title of the song
sounded like "kissing". In Finnish Letkis / letkis is merely short for Letkajenkka / letkajenkka, a
diminutive formed by the beginning of the word and adding "is" in the end. Also, contrary to what some magazines and single and long play covers had the world believe, there is no kissing or "smooching" during the Finnish version of the dance. Lehtinen's Letkis made the charts in many European countries, in Latin America, and even in Japan. There are numerous translations including Russian, Swedish, and Japanese. In 1965, four instrumental versions of the tune reached number one in the Netherlands simultaneously. These were by Stig Rauno, Gudrun Jankis, The Wild Ones and the Dutch Swing College Band. All four versions had the English title
Letkiss rather than the original Finnish title. It remained the only Dutch number one to have originated from Finland until 2000, when
"Freestyler" by the
Bomfunk MC's reached number one. ==Description==