Beautifully said – Storyteller Gösta Sundqvist

Finland’s most thoughtful popular music lyrics and original radio programmes were penned by Gösta Sundqvist. 

Wordsmith Sundqvist (1957–2003) knew the power of stories. Finland’s most thoughtful popular music lyrics and original radio programmes were penned by Gösta Sundqvist. An observant and sympathetic storyteller, Sundqvist credibly put himself in the shoes of a prostitute, a degenerate alcoholic, a single mother and a jailbird. 

The Beautifully said -exhibition, opened in 2019 in Radio and TV Museum Mastola, focused on Gösta Sundqvist as a storyteller. An incredibly fast writer, he penned more than 250 songs and over 700 radio programmes. He was most loved as the writer of multi-layered songs for his band, Leevi and the Leavings. Sundqvist had a way with words – both naughty and nice. 

Sundqvist was at his most outrageous in his radio shows, which he produced at a breath-taking pace for Finland’s national public broadcasting company Yle. Sundqvist’s best-known radio comedy show was Koe-eläinpuisto (‘Guinea Pig Park’), which was broadcast between 1993 and 2002 and really got listeners talking. In his radio shows, Sundqvist wanted to test boundaries and break taboos. 

The exhibition featured a recording studio for enjoying the brilliant narrator’s finest songs, as well as a room decorated as that of a teenage fan of Koe-eläinpuisto, focusing on Sundqvist’s craziest radio shows. Gösta Sundqvist’s Olympia typewriter was on display, as well as his meticulously written scripts for the radio shows. 

The exhibition has ended. It was on view 14.11.2019 – 29.8.2021.