Finland has had a tough time of it in the Eurovision Song Contest. The famous 2006 triumph of masked rockers Lordi tends to make people think the Finns are a more successful ESC nation than they actually are. In fact, other than a clutch of lower-top-10 results, the country’s history in the competition is littered with glorious failures.

Sometimes, like in 1987 or 1991, a perfectly decent entry seemed to suffer under the weight of the impenetrable Finnish language. Sometimes the problem was a bizarre musical concept, bad staging and orchestration, or just criminally awful hair.

And then there are entries like “Huilumies” by Vesa-Matti Loiri, Finland’s contribution to the 1980 contest. The title already suggests to the viewer that weirdness may be on the horizon, considering it translates as “The Flute-Man” – although, admittedly, the runners-up in the 1980 Finnish final were the no more promising “Carthage” and “Endless Song” (so much for the three-minute limit).

Musically, “Huilumies” is a meandering composition, arranged as a mish-mash of brassy backings with an almost funky groove (especially in the instrumental break), all topped off with Vesa-Matti’s… let’s say, less than appealing voice:

The lyrics tell the story of a man who may not be able to express everything he wants to through his words, but his flute-playing tells his story for him.

All well and good, except for one crucial point: Vesa-Matti can’t play the flute very well. At all. He half-breathes, half-mumbles his way through his flute lines during the song, culminating in a heroic grunt near the end that one YouTube commenter transcribes as “PHLÄÄÄ” – a word that has since become part of cult fan folklore. Even Merethe had something to say about it:

Last place in the 1980 contest was the almost inevitable result, with only the generosity of the French and Norwegian juries (the latter ranking it the sixth-best song of the night!) sparing Finland from a big fat zero.

Still, it could have been worse (and therefore even more amazing). Vesa-Matti Loiri has a long and successful career as an actor, musician and comedian behind him, and back in 1972 he combined all three of these skills on a baffling and frankly terrifying song all about… a brontosaurus.

Try picturing this on the Eurovision stage. We suspect even the Norwegian jury would have struggled with it.