My First Eurovision

Last night, I watched the semifinals of the Eurovision song contest. After watching parts of the Eurovision Junior Song Contest last fall, I was hoping that the adult version would also be a spectacle of the bizarre and marvelous. I was not disappointed.

[For my American readers, Eurovision is sort of a proto-American Idol. Each European country (and for these purposes, Europe includes not only Turkey, but Israel and Armenia as well) has a national contest for the best pop song & those winners get to compete at Eurovision.]

My favorite act going into the night was Silvia Night, the Icelandic fake reality TV star. (remember – it’s only 11 months until my next birthday – maybe her store will be working by then.) Unfortunately, she did not make the finals. My new favorite, Lithuania, did. The lyrics of the song, in their entirety, are ‘we are the winners of Eurovision. Vote for the winners,’ repeated over and over again.

I also enjoyed the pretty Cypriot ballad, the Albanian song (because it had a bagpipe), and the catchy Belgian pop song. None of these made the finals. Neither did the bizarrely costumed pop song with spoken word and Spanish interludes from Poland.

Other spectacles of note include the bizarre, monsterous Finnish entrant and the white-painted ballerina who emerged out of a piano during the Russian song. Both of these acts made the finals, so I will get to see them again. There were also lots of women in precariously high boots and minimal other clothing.

The finals include ten songs picked from last night, top finishers from last year, and the countries who pay for the whole thing. I am looking forward to the German country song, the song by the Spanish Las Ketchup (with that name, how can it not be entertaining?) There are also rumors that the Croatian entrant will bring a donkey on stage.