Making sense of Eurovision

What makes the Eurovision Song Content so great? Bizarre, oftentimes campy, songs that feature bombastic performances that just would not make the slightest bit of sense outside of this competition. Novelty songs that are pretty terrible but are delivered with so much joy and energy that it is impossible not to enjoy them.

Of course, when it comes to winning the competition, we all know that the voting gets very political with neighbours always voting for each other regardless of how deserving the songs are. I mean, Serbia and Montenegro giving each other maximum points? Don't pretend like you are surprised by that.

With all that being said, I think we can all agree that there was only ever going to be one winner this year. I think the only surprise was that the judges votes only put Ukraine in 4th. That they picked up an almost perfect score for the public votes was no surprise at all. It wasn't the best song but it was always going to get the sentimental vote. Thankfully it wasn't a terrible song.

As someone cheering on the UK in a rare competitive outing, it was heart breaking to see song race into a lead after the judges votes were tallied, only for that lead to be delimitated by the public votes. It was entirely expected though and it was just nice to not be getting nil points for once. Normally, we are the Eurovision pariahs that no-one wants to support.

Elsewhere, I was disappointed not to see Norway do better with their "Give the Wolf a Banana" song. This is exactly the sort of bonkers novelty song which perfectly encapsulates what Eurovision is all about. Especially when you consider how many dull ballads there were this year. So many of them!

And a word for poor Germany who occupied the UK's usual position. Although not the strongest song, I still though it was OK and much, much better than the terrible efforts from France, Switzerland and, in particular, Iceland.

My predicted top 5

1st - Ukraine

2nd - UK

3rd - Norway

4th - Spain

5th - Italy

Mind you, I still feel that the best song submitted this year was somehow eliminated in the first semi-final. As I mentioned the other day, Latvia's "Eat your salad" is a fantastic song and is another that perfectly fits Eurovision. Bonkers lyrics about a silly subject with a bright and energetic performance is exactly what I want. 

I can't help but feel that the odds were stacked against them by their own lyrics though. Do the Eurovision organisers really want to broadcast a song where the first to lines are "Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy | I like them both fresh, like them both juicy". 

And then later on in the song we have "Bend over, then jiggle that peach | You're recycling while I'm loving those cheeks". Nut probably most egregious is the expletive laden chorus of "Eat your salad, save the planet | Being green is sexy as fuck". Not sure I have ever heard of a Eurovision song including the f-bomb before.

Regardless of the travesty of the best song not even making the final, let alone winning, it was still a fun night of celebrating all that is silly about European music (and the random inclusion of Australia... someone please explain that one to me!). Long may it continue being held every year!

The acutal top 5

1st - Ukraine

2nd - UK

3rd - Spain

4th - Sweden

5th - Serbia