Time caught up with me in the end. The second semi-final came and went, and as someone else was using the TV, I decided it was as good a chance as any to sleep off a late night and an early start and missed it. Consequently and, it has to be said, uncharacteristically, I’m going to withhold judgment .
With apologies to Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and the Netherlands, I’m going to skip straight to the end. Something of a relief, really. I was pretty much out of Balkan jokes. Now, to the five songs that made it straight through to the final. Starting with…
FRANCE
First appearance: 1956
Wins: 5 (1958, 1960, 1962, 1969, 1977)
Artist: Patricia Kaas
Song: Et S’Il Fallait Le Faire
If anything, France have even more of a right to be aggrieved about Eurovision than we do. Like the UK, they haven’t had a top ten in seven years, and haven’t won the thing since Thierry Henry was crawling around in nappies exclaiming the only three words he knew (‘va’, ‘va’ and ‘voom’). The difference, though, is that while the UK have been whinging and faffing about with rap not once but twice, France have churned out a succcession of irresistibly quirky songs – not all of them extraordinary, but most of them good and original, which is all you really ask for amid a sea of identikit crooning and uniformly bad accents. Last year’s entry, ‘Divine’ by Sebastian Tellier, was refreshingly bonkers, while ‘A Chaque Pas’ by Jonatan Cerrada in 2004 would have been a perfectly normal, functional ballad, had it not been for an alarming ten-foot woman on stilts dancing next to him.
Furthermore, France don’t moan about losing like we do. The country affects a collective Gallic shrug and gets on with being France, which is an understandable and worthy pursuit. They don’t expect to win, you see: there’s no PR gubbins about this year being “the year we finally take it seriously”, no exhaustive promotional jetset, no private meeting with Putin. In fact, the very point of Eurovision seems to jar with French sensibilities – not just the competiveness and point scoring, but the winning.
Ironically, it’s for this reason that you’d love France to win, and here is the song that might well do it. ‘Et S’Il Fallait Le Faire’ (And He Fellated Himself At The Fair) perfectly evokes the 1950s cocktail bar, with an out-of-tune piano in the corner and the view of the stage obscured by a thick fug of cigarillo smoke. It oozes class and glamour, and is in many ways far too good for Eurovision. Patricia Kaas, already a successful singer in France, has that splendid 40-Gauloises-par-jour voice that you suspect can only just about manage to belt out three minutes of faultless singing before needing to cough up a blood clot.
Love it. Win, please.
RUSSIA
First appearance: 1994
Wins: 1 (2008)
Artist: Anastasia Prikhodko
Song: Mamo
How on earth do you follow Dima Bilan? In fact, how do you follow three consecutive top three finishes? Thing is, that’s not 22-year-old Anastasis Prikhodko’s biggest problem.
Her biggest problem, it would seem, is that the performer representing Russia, in Moscow, was born in the Ukraine. As a act of national self-emasculation, it would rank somewhere alongside… ooh, I don’t know, having host the Eurovision Song Contest and then getting an Irishman and a Swede to present it.
No, you know what, perhaps her biggest problem is that she actually tried to enter the song in the Ukrainian national selection contest first, but was disqualified for performing the wrong song. Prikhodko launched a legal challenge, but before a decision was made had already nipped over the border to enter the Russian competition. On winning the Russian vote, she faced allegations that the vote was rigged and was criticised for singing part of the song in its original Ukrainian.
No, actually, I reckon her biggest problem that tape of her on a TV show saying she “doesn’t like Chinese people or blacks”. Or the accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser. Or her brother going on Neo-Nazi marches.
I’m fucking with you, because none of these are actually her biggest problem. Her biggest problem – and what a boring, time-honoured biggest problem this is – is that she can’t hold a tune. ‘Mamo’ is actually a sodding good song. You could imagine it on state television, soundtracking a grainy advert for borsch in a can. It’s spoiled, though, by her grating warble, which disintegrates completely at the end into a primeval roar that brings to mind a grizzly bear who’s just had his dinner nicked by a cheeky eagle. So, not good. But that’s not to say it won’t win. It is Russia, after all. Not only do they have an extensive diaspora beyond its borders, but the case of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-KGB officer who was given a fatal dose of radioactive poisoning after he voted for Malta, shows that diaspora to be both pliant and obedient.
GERMANY
First appearance: 1956
Wins: 1 (1982)
Artist: Alex Swings Oscar Sings!
Song: Miss Kiss Kiss Bang
Germany’s never been afraid to go against the grain in Eurovision. 1998’s ‘Guildo Hat Euch Lieb’ was one of the first comedy, as opposed to novelty, songs to take to the Eurovision stage, since when we’ve had a dash of country and some Rat Pack swing, which was actually really good.
This year, it’s swing again, although with something of a maverick bent. Thee ‘Alex’ is Alex Christensen, a techno-DJ-cum-pop-producer, while the ‘Oscar’ is Oscar Loya, is a Mexican-American theatre singer. Together they’ve come with something I’m tentatively going to call ‘Euroswing’. Christensen’s techno heritage (if that’s not an oxymoron) is faintly audible, while Loya is clearly a man in love not only with the sound of his own voice, but the look of his own face and very probably the taste of his own burps. His bullish charisma is what’s required of him here.
Of course, it’ll sink without trace like all German entries do. Not just entries, of course. U-boats, as well.
SPAIN
First appearance: 1961
Wins: 2 (1968, 1969)
Artist: Soraya
Song: La Noche Es Para Mí
Being the last act to perform is probably quite a nervewracking undertaking. You’re aware that most of the viewers at home have already made up their minds over who they’re going to vote for, and that only the most extraordinary, outstanding performance will sway them. You’ve had to nervously lay off the booze all day while the eejits who went out first have long since hit the bar and turned the green room blue with their drunken patois. The sound engineers and lighting operators are checking their watches and looking forward to the buffet, and make no secret of their contempt at you for keeping them from their lamb koftas. You notice members of the audience making an early dash for the toilets. Backstage, you can hear the head of the support staff barking directions to an army of cleaners with brooms. It’s all most disorienting.
Unfortunately, neither Soraya nor her song quite have enough about them to deter the people of Europe from their early toilet breaks. It’s just another pop song, with a verse, and a chorus, and trite lyrics about dancing and setting yourself free. It comes as no surprise to find out that it was originally a Greek song, adopted and adapted by Spain after nobody else wanted it. It’s nothing more than Eurovision fluff that will pass unnoticed and unmourned into the ether. Which isn’t entirely Spain’s fault – after all, they didn’t know they were going on last.
Recent Comments