Estonians have long taken melodies popular elsewhere and created their own lyrics. This practice began in the 19th century, mostly taking tunes from the Germans. This reached its apogee during the 1920s and 30s, lead by bandleaders such as John Pori taking schlagers and creating their own lyrics in their mother tongue. The popular Swedish contra-alto Zarah Leander, who sang in German and became somewhat of nightingale in the Nazi court, saw her hits taken only recently, in 2016 and performed in Estonian as a musical. Too bad that the slimster missed that show in Estonia, which had a reasonable run on the boards.
During Soviet occupation years it was common to take the songs of English and American artists, have those such as Heldur Karmo, who as a lyricist was non-pareil, put words to them. Jaak Joala sang quite a few Beatles songs and more. Silvi Vrait also had hits that were popularized by others singing originally in English. And of course no royalties were paid, outright theft of material by the crooked and corrupt terror regime.
(As an aside, the slender one has a Silvi Vrait - originally Wright - story...
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