Paulinho da Viola’s “Dança da Solidão” was one of the Brazilian songs that immediately struck a chord in my melancholic Finnish heart when I heard it for the first time, more than 15 years ago. It has become one of my favorite songs to sing ever since.

The song reminds me of the melancholy in Finnish tango. When Gran Canaria/Madrid based guitarist Walter Silva and I were working on an arrangement for this song, we got inspired to blend samba, Finnish melancholy, with milonga – another melancholic musical expression from Walter’s native country Argentina.

Argentina and Finland share a musical connection in tango. I like to entertain myself with the thought that the tango passed by Rio de Janeiro on its way from Buenos Aires to Helsinki – and back.

For me, this collaboration and arrangement brings together the universal melancholy, something that I’m drawn to explore in the music I play and the songs I sing. In this particular song, it’s that bittersweet melancholic feeling connected to love, that Paulinho da Viola describes as a dance of loneliness.