She is the former lead singer of the Finnish band Nightwish which she founded along with Emppu Vuorinen and Tuomas Holopainen in 1996. After being expelled from the band in October 2005, Tarja Turunen is now devoting her time to her solo career under the stage name of Tarja.
During the spring of 2005, she prepared a collaboration with Germany's Martin Kesici, the duet Leaving You for Me, also accompanied by a video. On November 8th 2006, Tarja's first solo album, Henkäys Ikuisuudesta was released as a Christmas album.
Tarja's second solo album, My Winter Storm, was released in November 2007 and achieved gold status in Finland on the day of release. The album took the number 1 spot in the Finnish charts. Tarja also sings on track In The Picture, composed by Rage guitarist Victor Smolski, on Nuclear Blast Allstars' album 'Into The Light', 2007. In 2009, Tarja released a duet with Doro Pesch, the former vocalist for heavy metal band Warlock.
Tarja's third solo album, What Lies Beneath was released in Finland on September 1, 2010. The album sold around 1,300 copies in the United States in its first week of release, landing it position 24 on the Top New Artist Albums chart. This is the first album on which Tarja is credited for composition on every original track.
Official site: www.tarjaturunen.com
The Seer
Tarja Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You leave salt in my wound
You are inside my wall of thoughts
But in yours I'm unknown
My desperation finds a book of hero's gone
Legends tell about a saviour wise and strong
I'm burning at the stake of love, the flames get tall
And suddenly my seer is on my side
Bringing love while forgetting his pride
In his eyes I see there'll be better times along my way
Nothing to fear
Nothing to fear
Why is it called Elysian fields
When love builds only grief
All your agony and pain stays the same
Till you see
That destination shows you legends long extinct
Rumours are told about a hero kind and skilled
I'm burning at love's stake and that's the end I feel
But suddenly my seer is on my side
Bringing love while forgetting his pride
In his eyes I see there'll be better times along my way
As he longs to speak to me
I realise the reflection while listening
His words mend on my wounds cause he's me
My seer lives inside of me
When suddenly my seer is on my side
Bringing love while forgetting his pride
In his eyes I see there'll be better times along my way
Nothing to fear
My seer is here
There's nothing to fear
My seer is here
My seer is here
The lyrics to Tarja's song The Seer explore the struggles and pain of love, and the power of self-awareness and introspection. The opening lines convey a sense of sacrifice and pain, as the singer cuts their own heart as a gift to someone who has hurt them. The salt in the wound is a metaphor for the lingering pain and bitterness that remains after heartbreak. The singer reflects on the unequal nature of their relationship, where they are consumed by thoughts of the other person, but the other person doesn't seem to know or care about them.
The second verse introduces the idea of seeking solace in stories and legends, looking for a hero or savior who can offer comfort and hope. However, in the end, the singer realizes that their own inner strength and resilience is what will ultimately lead them to a better place. The chorus, with its repeated refrain of "nothing to fear," emphasizes this message of hope and courage. The final lines of the song reveal a twist, as the singer realizes that the seer they have been seeking throughout the song is actually themselves - their own capacity for self-understanding and healing.
Overall, the lyrics of The Seer offer a powerful meditation on love, pain, and self-discovery. Through vivid imagery and emotive language, Tarja portrays the journey from heartbreak and despair to self-awareness and renewal.
Line by Line Meaning
I cut my heart - a gift to you
She loves him so much that it feels like a sacrifice to give him her heart
You leave salt in my wound
He hurts her in return, making her pain even worse
You are inside my wall of thoughts
He is always on her mind, she can't stop thinking about him
But in yours I'm unknown
But he doesn't seem to care about her as much as she cares about him
My desperation finds a book of hero's gone
She is so desperate for love that she searches for stories of great heroes and saviors
Legends tell about a saviour wise and strong
She hopes to find someone who is wise and strong enough to save her from her pain
I'm burning at the stake of love, the flames get tall
She feels like she is being burned alive by love and the pain is getting worse
And in my anguish it's the last resort to call
As a last resort, she turns to her faith in hopes that it will bring her some relief
And suddenly my seer is on my side
Her faith brings her a vision of hope and comfort
Bringing love while forgetting his pride
Her faith reminds her that love is more important than pride and ego
In his eyes I see there'll be better times along my way
Through her faith, she sees a better future and knows that things will get better
Why is it called Elysian fields
She wonders why the afterlife is called paradise when love only brings pain
When love builds only grief
She realizes that love only seems to bring her pain and heartbreak
All your agony and pain stays the same
No matter how much she loves him, the pain he brings her never goes away
Till you see
Until she has a revelation or realization
That destination shows you legends long extinct
She realizes that true love is rare and hard to find
Rumours are told about a hero kind and skilled
She hears stories about a hero who is kind and skilled enough to save her
But suddenly my seer is on my side
Through her faith, she is given hope that a hero will come to save her
Bringing love while forgetting his pride
She is reminded of the importance of love and that a true hero would be selfless and humble
As he longs to speak to me
She realizes that the hero she has been waiting for is actually herself
I realise the reflection while listening
She sees herself in the hero and realizes that she is the one who can save herself
His words mend on my wounds cause he's me
She heals her own wounds through her own words and actions
My seer lives inside of me
She realizes that the hope and comfort she has been seeking has been within herself all along
Nothing to fear
She realizes that she has nothing to fear because she can save herself
My seer is here
She finds comfort in the realization that her faith and hope have always been within her
There's nothing to fear
There's no need to be afraid because she can handle anything that comes her way
My seer is here
The hope and comfort she has been seeking is within her and always has been
Contributed by Lillian R. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Cerby
I listened to this song six times in a row before I left this comment. I love Tarja, she is........ she can not be described in words.
larry zigler
Agree 💘💘
LiveLaugh MakeLove
This song is all about finding your inner strength...Beautiful indeed! One of my favs by Tarja
Maria Rafaela
essa música só melhora com o passar dos anos.... 🖤
killerdiller
Turunen's voice type is soprano (more precisely, light lyric soprano). Over the course of her career, Turunen has developed a vocal range of three octaves.[1] Therefore, she is also capable of reaching the mezzo-soprano, contralto, and even coloratura soprano register. This is apparent on her album My Winter Storm, where the lowest note sung is F3 in the song "The Seer", while in another song, she sang up to D6. ~ From Wikipedia. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, haters! :)
Beorn The Bear.
She's my favorite singer. She's been developing a wider range in the lower notes, though she still has the highs.
Holobenthic
This is a very old comment, but one can never stop learning. Register is actually a word used in singing to mean the placement and the types of resonance of a voice, hence you can have chest voice, head voice, falsetto, etc. Mostly every female singer can hit those notes in some ways, what is different is that fachs (soprano, mezzo soprano, contralto, and every subtype in between) were created specifically for operatic singing, where one of the most fundamental characteristics is that the singing is not amplified with any tool other than the body itself, so a singer's ability to project a higher range of voice in a whole opera theatre in such a way that is audible is a soprano, whereas a singer who can make herself heard in a lower range and has the power to project it in every corner is definitely a contralto. So you can gather that it not so much the range that matters, but rather the strength, volume, tone, timbre that a voice has that is helpful to classify a voice. Which means that when voices are amplified with mics and all the stuff that non-operatic singers use (and I mean this in the sense that they don't sing in theaters nor use a mic) all these fachs and differences kinda fade away, because who cares if you're a soprano and you can't project a C4 in a theatre when you're singing on a metal festival stage with a mic and amplifiers and you can burp and have everybody hear that? So, no Tarja is just a lyric soprano with a very beautiful timbre, but 1) She hasn't studied enough to be a proper opera singer (she even said this herself in the Nightwish book, because it's a whole different kind of singing that is extremely time-consuming) and 2) her chest voice is not strong enough to project in such a way that is even remotely similar to what contraltos do. I mean F3/D6 is almost the vocal range displayed by Callas, and even though she could (and did!) sing everything that was written for the female voice, she was still considered a magnificent dramatic soprano.
Steph A
this singing goddess inspired too many bands and many female singers to join metal i love her for giving me inspirational to sing. <3
Marshallsatten
I love the clarity, beauty and accuracy of her voice. It sooths my rough edges.
sissy jer
Tarja!You are the best female singer!!!