It’s a Eurozone thing, the Eurovision song contest, also seasonal. You look about you and realise the hawthorns are in blossom, so it must be late May, and there’s another song contest imminent. I must admit to a complete disconnect with popular entertainment these days and that also goes for this perennial songfest, though I used to be quite a fan. Of course my lack of interest may have something to do with the fact that we embattled Brits haven’t won it since Katrina and Waves sang their “Love shine a light” in 1997. There are two simplistic and “popular” views on our lack of success – one being that we’re simply incapable of coming up with a decent song any more, or everybody else in Europe hates our guts and won’t vote for us. In other words we’re no good, and everybody hates us.
For Pete’s sake Britain, get a grip! How childish is that? We’re as good as anyone else, and this is no time for tantrums. We have the Queen’s Jubilee! We have the Olympics, for pity’s sake! Keep your peckers up! This is our year!
I missed the usual pre-contest hype this time, only catching up on the who-ha in the last week or so – something about a seventy six year old crooner being entrusted with the poisoned chalice of our nation’s pride. On the night of the fest, our guy was first up, and my good lady persuaded me to watch, and I thought, flipping heck, that looks a bit like Englebert Humperdink. And so it was, the legendary singer and heartthrob, still going strong.
Now I must admit I’m not the best judge when it comes to musical matters – I’d be hopeless as an X-Factor judge. When all my mates were listening to “cool” bands with obscure names in the seventies and eighties, and so obviously “with it”, I was naively humming along to the Carpenters and ABBA, and I still do. Personally I enjoyed the Hump’s performance and I didn’t think it was a bad song either. I even harboured a glimmer of hope that we might actually do well with it, but then I’m over fifty.
And we came next to last.
In spite of what the cynics and xenophobes tell us, I’m sure it’s not that the rest of Europe hates our guts, or that we can’t write a decent song any more – because I know we can. It’s perhaps more that the Europe we thought we knew has changed dramatically since 1997, expanded further east than most of us Brits can imagine. It’s young, dynamic, maybe still a little kitsch and naive, but it’s also unsentimental and unsympathetic to any form of overbearing and corrupt authority. And perhaps our lack of success is down to the fact that we simply don’t get it, fielding songs that might have been more at home in the Europe of yesteryear.
To finish, here’s the well deserved winning entry by Sweden, sung by Loreen:
In my humble opinion, there was no beating that! And to all those pundits who say Britain should pull out of the contest next year because those Johnny Foreigners wouldn’t vote for us even if we put Robbie Williams up as our representative, I say look, listen, swallow your sour grapes, and learn.
But well done to the Hump anyway. I really liked that song – still can’t get it out of my head. But Euphoria’s definitely the word. Wow! Go Sweden!
Graeme out.
The Rivendale Review 
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