Latvian Folk Songs

Folk songs can be sacred invocations, they can be insulting, obscene, funny, or heart-rendingly sad. They can be about deities, people, and animals — about anything and everything.

To date, about 1.4 million such songs have been recorded. Here is a tiny, tiny sample, chosen completely at random, and certainly not intended to be representative. I have tentatively classed them into two groups: short songs (one verse only) and long songs (several verses).

• Short Songs
• Long Songs

Please note that Latvian folk songs don't necessarily have only a single variant. In fact, very few of the songs have only one variant; some may have dozens of variants. This is typical of folk songs in general. The variant I have chosen for this web site is merely the one most familiar to me; it is not in any way "standard".

Links to sites about Latvian Folk Songs:

• Folk Songs Fact sheet of the Latvian Institute, prepared by Dr. Dace Bula. (In English)

• Cell phone ring tones Musical MIDI files of melodies; includes several folk songs (under the heading Tautasdziesmas), as well as other music. (In Latvian)

• Dainu skapis A searchable on-line database of Latvian folk songs. (In Latvian)

• Tautas Dziesmas Selection of Latvian folk songs. Listed by source or by category. (In Latvian)