Musing on the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 outcome
Dave Wiseman
Like many of you I sat down to watch Eurovision with mixed feelings. I suppose I was pretty much a Euro fan from age seven and despite a period in the eighties and nineties went it went oh so very cheesy and decidedly naff, (or I was too busy out clubbing on a Saturday night to stay in) returned to the fold about a decade ago as it became ‘iconic’ and an excuse for a quiet or otherwise party.
And so we had the usual eclectic selection of songs from the great and good to the small and should have known better. As usual I had picked favourites a month or so ago, and as usual it was difficult to get past those choices on the night but I was aware, like everyone, that this one was a Liverpudlian stand in for Ukraine, still embroiled in a long standing bloody war. You´ll never stand alone they sang, and even Graham Norton was a little bit wet eyed. So it was political, yes? But no! said its ESC masters: ´no politics, it´s a song contest´. And we thought, yeh, fat chance!
And as ever, in fact arguably more than ever, countries brought their own particular slants to it. One of my favourites from Switzerland sung by young Remo Forrer but written in fact by a Scottish song writing team, was about fighting:´I don´t want to be a soldier, I don´t want to deal with real blood´and ´the body bags we become´, he sang. In my opinion a very strong message and strong song but very probably, I wrote some months ago on its You Tube comments video, far too esoteric for Eurovision audiences to get, especially on a first listen. Sadly I was right, it ended up well down the table in 20th place.
Nevertheless, the favourite to win had been decided well ahead of the contest, Sweden´s previous winner Loreen sang Tattoo. Frankly, it was pretty derivative of her previous winner Euphoria back in 2012. It was a belter, with swelling chorus and eye catching performance from the lady. It was a classic, suck it and see, club love song in the Euro club style and had already been remixed for club classix use months before the contest. You´re stuck on me like a Tat- tat- too Loreen warbled. Yet, although it did win on the night, it did so without winning the public vote and against the crowds wishes. An upstart from Finland, Sweden´s neighbour (with a long, very long, Russian border), came into the running with ´Cha Cha Cha´, sung in Finnish by the cheeky Käärijä , a performance artist, looking younger than his 29 years, wearing a neon green outsized bolero costume and his fuscia pink sequinned group of dancers, whom he sat astride at one stage in the energetic (very energetic) performance, which starts with him escaping from his wooden cage (boxed in 9-5 worklife, geddit?) and standing on its top, his spotlit shadow huge behind him. Cha cha cha, cha cha cha cha he constantly rat a tats, almost spits out, like a machine gun.
This is no paean to a lost cupid though, it is a very Finnish paean to the pleasures of getting rat arsed at the end of a long gruelling work week. Necking pints (how very American), pina coladas (and well yeh, champagne if your offering, thanks!), it tells of how he comes out of his shell on a Friday night and feels ready to take on the world, to be someone else, to be someone. There should probably be a health message attached to the song, but the reality is its an anthemic crowd pleaser with the catchiest of hooks that the Liverpool crowd (and crowds everywhere it seems) go wild for, loudly cha cha ing along. It´s also a Eurovision song in the grand tradition of la la las (Spain) and oooh ahhs (UK), boom bang a bangs (UK again, sorry). And suddenly even Sweden´s song seems staid by comparision. I think it is fair to say our little group was won over by its (and his) energy and like many others all over the Eurovision world was rooting for him to win by the end of the voting; indeed he won the public vote. And he almost did win, coming second behind Loreen´s Tattoo in the final home run.
And I can´t help thinking in this decidedly political of apolitical contests, that this is a thoroughly modern (yet ancient) metaphor; plucky Finland´s own way of putting two fingers up to its big bad neighbour (that´s Russia, not Sweden) and saying yes, it knows full well what the situation is and frankly it´s gonna get rat arsed. About recognising that after you´ve sung about having hearts of steel, dealing with the body bags and getting gummed out on sticky tattooed love, sometimes the only option left is to say Fuck it. Let´s Party.
I think we´ve all been there, havent we?
Listen to the Finnish entry for Eurovision 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rS8Dv5g-8
