Quick – what’s your favorite Finnish indie pop band?
Stumped? Okay, how about this – what’s your favorite song about coupons?
If you’re zero-for-two in this little pop quiz, you can turn your fortunes around by getting to know Finland’s most famous indie export, Satellite Stories, and their new single, “Coupons”.
Yes, coupons have already featured prominently in pop culture, whether on TV, on the big screen or on the printed page – so apparently now it’s time for a pop song dedicated to savvy savers’ favorite pastime.
The song “is a story about dedication and how it all can be taken away in seconds,” the band explained in a statement announcing the single’s release. So how do coupons play into it? “Like coupons lying on the floor, sometimes the value goes to waste. But what makes it all worthwhile is the time that you spent to get where you are.”
Okay, then!
So the song may not necessarily be applicable to your next grocery shopping trip. But hey, it’s still a catchy tune – you can listen to it in full, by playing the video above.
And “Coupons” isn’t even the first song about coupons – though, like Finland’s finest, most artists who’ve put coupons to music aren’t exactly household names.
The performer Witt Lowry released his own song entitled “Coupons” in 2015. While coupons appear in the chorus of Satellite Stories’ song, they only get a brief mention in the first verse of Lowry’s song: “Coupons on the table, we’re trying to find a way to buy food”. And then he launches into an Eminem-esque rap.
Hip hop artist Shabazz PBG released a song called “Coupon” last year, with an even briefer mention of the title object: “I got the deals like a coupon” – which is about the only line of the song that can be reprinted in a family-friendly forum.
But perhaps the most famous coupon song is entitled, appropriately enough, “The Coupon Song”. It was written more than a hundred years ago, long before grocery coupons were really a thing, so the “coupons” referred to in the lyrics were more like trading stamps. The best-known recording of the tongue-in-cheek song is by bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, who, back in 1941, sang about how he collected enough coupons from the local cigar store to buy himself a wife – and then regretted it:
Five million coupons is what my wife cost
I’d give many more now to get a divorce.
I’m saving up coupons to get one of those.
Of coupon-redeeming I’ll die I suppose
A cute little casket the catalog shows
I’m saving up coupons to get one of those.
The song that most prominently features coupons, then, isn’t really about coupons as we know them. So maybe the coupons that you cut out and redeem in the grocery store don’t necessarily lend themselves to song.
But at least now you have an answer the next time somebody asks your favorite Finnish indie pop band. And after listening to the Satellite Stories’ song, if you have a Finnish-accented “Coupon, coupon, coupons” stuck in your head for the rest of the day – you’re welcome.
