5/20/2006

Eurovision Song Contest today

When I heard the song for the first time, I thought this is just terribly bad music and the lyrics are even worse. The second time I said, nobody can be that bad and suspected the song was a joke. You can listen to it here, it's the yellow-red-green-striped flag. The lyrics are, roughly, "We are the winners, we are, we are ..." (with the variation: "we are the winners of Eurovision") - about 2o times, and the "so you gotta vote for the winners". The complete lyrics are here.

But they made it to the semifinals, so who knows?

Oikotimes writes about this letter they sent to the radio stations: "We kindly ask any radio or TV station which is currently broadcasting our song "We Are The Winners" to withdraw it from the playlist completely until 22nd of May. The band feels that airplay of the track before the Eurovision song contest causes damage to the efficiency of our forthcoming performance in Athens. This has something to do with the concept of the song – the "winners" anthem should not be overplayed because it was conceived as a fresh surprise to the ESC audience, in the first place. Thank you for your understanding. With love from Lithuania,"LT United".

Now that's at least a congenial and sympathetic streak ...

phronesisaical quotes the Lithuanian humor-meisters: “We always knew we’d perform in the contest one day,” said Lithuanian group LT United. “We’ve been watching the Eurovision Song Contest since about 1977. We’re old – we’re like 63 years old. We’re just very good looking.”

But there's strong competition: Lordi from Finland, a heavy metal band with scary masks whose lead singer wears a chain-saw shocks the Finns."Lord have mercy on us Finnish people now," said Father Mitro Repo, a clergyman in Helsinki.

At least they bring some diversion to this otherwise rather dull event. By the way, favorites are, according to the betting shops,Greece, France, Slovenia, Spain and Great Britain. And Germany is catching up!

Here's the oddschecker
in case anyone should want to place a bet. Yesterday, their odds at sportingbets were 80/1, now it's 50/1.

The official site of the Eurovision song contest.

6 comments:

Rob said...

Francessa - how is the contest presented in Austria? Here, for years, it has been presented by Terry Wogan, a media "personality" who basically makes fun of the whole thing all the way through. His mocking commentary is probably the only reason people watch it here, and is also why the British entry is nearly always a complete unknown- it's just not taken seriously.

francessa said...

Mocking commentary sounds like a good approach. Here it is presented in a rather serious manner, I think, but I'm not sure because I never manage to stay put for a longer period. For years we had a very good parallel commentary on radio by two local satirists. You could switch off the tv-sound and listen to the biting or funny remarks on radio. Very nice.

francessa said...

And, by the way, nobody in Austria could be found this year to take part in the contest - which also tells us something.

Rob said...

We have the radio commentary too, usually by a DJ called Ken Bruce, who is very simmilar to Wogan in approach.
I do remember, though, when it was a reall big event - it's been downhill since Abba, I think.

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid the Good Lord should not have mercy with the Finnish people but with some others as well ... But the "band" from Finnland was really heavy stuff. Just as if Germany would have sent Rammstein to the contest ...

Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy !

francessa said...

Stevie,
He hath no mercy! They did it! They did it! They were real cute ;-)

Related Posts with Thumbnails