Of course, once I'd pulled my FUCKING SELF TOGETHER and focused on the more important task of educating three wildly different children, I kinda forgot about Eurovision. No mid-week drinking for me, while I avidly watched the semi finals. No cursing my children for not going to BLOODY SLEEP quick enough for me to watch the final live. I was struck with corona in the first week of lockdown, and I'm still a bit ropey, and Eurovision sailed cleanly out of my bedraggled brain.
Until 16th May, when my husband alerted me to the fact that the EBU were airing clips of ALL THE ENTRIES on BBC that night. ALL OF THEM. That's my husband who swears blind he hates Eurovision, while simultaneously getting the beers in, by the way. Any excuse. I rose like a phoenix from the ashes, seized my laptop, and started writing. I love you Eurovision. Don't ever do this to me again. Unless there's a pandemic.
Before ACTUAL NOT-EUROVISION, the Beeb put out a weird people's vote Eurovision. Allegedly, it was a celebration of all 64 years of competition, but it was heavily skewed towards the noughties. There was no Stig and Elina. There were no Polish milkmaids. There was no Guildo Horn. Abba won. Björn Ulvaeus turned up in Not Eurovision near the end, like the voice of God, reassuring us it was going to be OK.
So, to Not-Eurovision. Last year, this rather insipid number won, so we were SOCIAL DISTANCING IN THE NETHERLANDS TONIGHT. And it all had a strange pall, like Eurovision had died and the BBC were putting out a tribute show SLIGHTLY too soon. Which is exactly what it was, I guess. According to myth and twitter, Eurovision couldn't just show us the forty-one acts and let us vote because otherwise their insurance wouldn't pay out. Instead, a curious mix of acoustic performances, heartfelt messages, random Graham Norton and brief snippets of what we COULD have won, were it not for all this.
Our first acoustic performance was Johnny Logan, singing What's Another Year. In 1998, Shane Macgowan covered this with such DRAMA, that no Logan could beat him. Nevertheless, Logan had been dragged out of storage, and BOIL WASHED for our pleasure to do a really obvious lip sync:
It's a vision of Paul Hollywood's future. All the hosts joined in, which made me wonder what the UK would have done with this format. Holly Willoughby ripping her skirt off while belting out Making Your Mind Up, I'll wager.
Next up, Måns Zelmerlöw.
Look. Lockdown is hard, and I care about you all. Anyway, Måns sings an acoustic version of Heroes live from his garden in Slough:
The third live performance was Gail Atari, wandering around Jerusalem dressed as a ghost, singing Hallelujah (not the Leonard Cohen one: that WOULD have been a bit on the nose).
I'm sure I had to kill one of these in the Witcher 3. This was PAINFULLY EUROVISION, and marking a grave downturn in the quality of performances. This was when I started bellowing "THANKS EUROVISION, NOW I'M DEPRESSED" after every segment.
This is Nikkie Tutorials. I don't think we need to waste any more time on her.
Then came Diodato, singing Volare with a criminal moustache:
Also, Volare is a banger and deserved better than this ungodly dirge. LESS DIRGE, MORE BANGERS.
Marija Šerifović popped up to sing Molitva in the middle of the road in Belgrade:
GIVE IT THE BIG'UN.
They showed us some buildings all lit up, but BUILDINGS CAN'T SAVE US NOW.
Michael Schulte from 2018 and Ilse deLange from the massively overrated Common Linnets sang Ein bißchen Frieden from 1982 on some stairs.
God I hate the Common Linnets. HOW DID THAT BEAT THE POLISH MILKMAIDS? CALL OFCOM. Anyway, this was all very earnest, and would have been much improved by Rammstein covering it instead. They're not busy.
Netta then sang her new song INCLUDING PROFANITY. No clicking and squawking to be found, just a girl singing to her music box on her bed.
THANKS EUROVISION, I'M EVEN MORE DEPRESSED NOW.
The last acoustic performance was Duncan Laurence and his new song. Nobody cares about your new song, lad, sing Arcade again:
COULD HAVE IRONED YOUR SHIRT, MATE. Gawd, he looks like he's straight off up Mendis after this.
For their last trick, everyone sang Love Shine a Light, including Katrina Leskanich. Belgium didn't join in because Hooverphonic don't like the song. Hooverphonic are a band with some INTERESTING VISUALS:
This young lass singing "Release me, it's not right for to make me stay" next to this pair of absolute dangers. STRONG LOOK.
Anyway, to recap all forty-one thirty second clips would be absurd, mainly because there was an awful lot of shit. There were some highlights, like Latvia not understanding how face protection works:
French John Torode:
The love child of Richard O'Brien and Louis Spence kicking off for Lithuania:
Georgia, my new favourite country:
Ireland's answer to Taylor Swift. r/13or30
Floor dancing in the pub in North Macedonia:
Romanian Billie Eilish, singing a song called Alcohol You:
And this German child who looks like he should be kicking over bins behind Netto
But I have a top three:
In third place, Russia, purely because of this video. I don't know what's going on, but I approve wholeheartedly:
In second place, Azerbaijan. Yes, they're the villains of Eurovision, but this song has
A
Mumm-Ra
Bass Drop
(It's queued, you don't have to watch the whole thing)
AND MY WINNER, AND YOURS, ICELAND! WITH THIS HEARTFELT SONG FROM A MAN SINGING TO HIS NEWBORN DAUGHTER, WITH HURRA TORPEDO VS HOT CHIP VIBES
Daði og Gagnamagnið 2021!
