Andy Abraham of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
(just in case anyone thinks he's representing 'England')
"Even if the world stops loving
I could never stop loving you
Even if the sun stops rising
I still wanna wake up with you
Even if all words lost their meaning
You would understand I love you"
I'm not sure Andy fully appreciates the sheer horror of the picture he's painting here. For starters, many would argue that our facility for language is the one and only thing that separates us from the animals, but it seems not for much longer if 'words have lost all meaning'. Furthermore, if the sun really did stop rising, crops would fail, and we'd have a major famine in store. Which all begs the question - who exactly is this poor woman that Andy is waking up beside, and what God-awful state will she be in as she meets his 'loving' gaze? Let's face it, she'll certainly be in dire need of a square meal, and at a more basic level, given that it'll be pitch dark will she even be sure that she's woken up in the first place? Let's also not forget that she'll be going through the unimaginable emotional anguish of knowing that her dearest friends and family have utterly forsaken her, since they have, along with the rest of the entire human race (save our Andy) lost their capacity for love.
But fear not, because in spite of these rather serious misfortunes, and in spite of the fact that she'll be in the arms of a man spouting complete gibberish (words have lost all meaning, remember), she'll just somehow know what he feels for her in his sweet little heart. So that'll completely make up for global calamity, then. There's always a silver lining.
Showing posts with label alternative Eurovision preview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alternative Eurovision preview. Show all posts
Saturday, May 24, 2008
My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 7
Maria Haukaas Storeng of Norway"Love can be hard sometimes
Yes, it can catch you off guard like bad crimes"
Hmmm, this is problematical on just all sorts of levels. First of all, Maria seems to be drawing a curious distinction here between 'bad' crimes on the one hand and, well, 'good' crimes on the other. What are all these good crimes? Perhaps I shouldn't dismiss this out of hand, after all I'm instantly conjuring up an image of Tony Benn with pipe in mouth, arms flailing about like only Rory Bremner can, saying "oooh, think of the suffragettes, they had to break the law". So, in the interests of fairness, I've taken this issue very seriously and done some painstaking research, ie. I googled it. And, indeed, it seems there are some things that are against the law which are, if not exactly 'good', then certainly relatively harmless. For instance, in Miami, it is strictly illegal to impersonate a bison, while in Missouri you could find yourself hauled before a court for shaving without a licence. So presumably these are the sorts of things Maria has in mind for her 'good' crimes, while the bad ones are obviously things like murder, rape, arson, and grievous bodily harm. But while being randomly murdered or having your house burnt down could certainly be said to "catch you off guard", does that entirely capture the gravity of the situation? I think not. On the other hand, it might just capture the lesser gravity of being the victim of an unprovoked bison impersonation, so in my view Maria should really be singing "love can catch you off guard like those not-so-bad crimes they have in Miami".
(Phew, I thought I'd never get to the end of that paragraph).
To be fair to Maria, though, she offers a far more robust and convincing argument later on in the song -
"If it ain't right, it is wrong"
Let's face it, the girl's got a point. Which is more than anyone's ever said about John Barrowman.
My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 6
Teräsbetoni of Finland
"Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa"
TRANSLATION -
"Where the men ride
There the sheep can't pasture"
This is undeniably informative, but does such commendable attention to detail really lend itself to a situation where you're got just three minutes to impress the whole of Europe? Maybe it does, and if Finland win tomorrow, I'll seriously consider entering a song next year that takes regular detours to ponder the latest fascinating evidence on the causes of peat-bog erosion in eighteenth century Kazakhstan.
"Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa"
TRANSLATION -
"Where the men ride
There the sheep can't pasture"
This is undeniably informative, but does such commendable attention to detail really lend itself to a situation where you're got just three minutes to impress the whole of Europe? Maybe it does, and if Finland win tomorrow, I'll seriously consider entering a song next year that takes regular detours to ponder the latest fascinating evidence on the causes of peat-bog erosion in eighteenth century Kazakhstan.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 5
Morena of Malta
"Spy One to Spy Four
I’ve deciphered the code, yeah…
Vodka – that’s the secret word
Vodka – and they want it so bad
Vodka – I’ve deciphered the code"
That's a tremendous achievement, Morena, congratulations. Just one small thing though - and brace yourself for some grim news at this point - you've just won a destination in the centre of our resident enigma's heart.
"Spy One to Spy Four
I’ve deciphered the code, yeah…
Vodka – that’s the secret word
Vodka – and they want it so bad
Vodka – I’ve deciphered the code"
That's a tremendous achievement, Morena, congratulations. Just one small thing though - and brace yourself for some grim news at this point - you've just won a destination in the centre of our resident enigma's heart.
Friday, May 16, 2008
My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 4
Regína Ósk of Iceland
"This is my life"
Life, perhaps, but not quite as we as know it. How else do we explain why a woman now looks like this...
...when just two short years ago she looked rather more like this?
Now try and tell me that's the same person. You can't, can you? It seems to me there is only one satisfactory explanation - that, horrified by her 2006 look, she decided to use up one of her twelve regenerations. On last week's episode of Doctor Who, Catherine Tate posed the obvious question "what do you call a Time Lord who's a girl?" Answer : a caterwauling Icelandic Eurovision megastar, that's what.
"This is my life"
Life, perhaps, but not quite as we as know it. How else do we explain why a woman now looks like this...
...when just two short years ago she looked rather more like this?
Now try and tell me that's the same person. You can't, can you? It seems to me there is only one satisfactory explanation - that, horrified by her 2006 look, she decided to use up one of her twelve regenerations. On last week's episode of Doctor Who, Catherine Tate posed the obvious question "what do you call a Time Lord who's a girl?" Answer : a caterwauling Icelandic Eurovision megastar, that's what.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 3
Ani Lorak of Ukraine"Since I've lived in your shade
Every step that I made
Brought me nothing but zero"
Nothing but zero? That's a helluva lot of zero. Fair dos, the girl's got my sympathy, but there's still no excuse for the display of petulance we see later on -
"Baby, don't call me baby"
Round our way, we'd call that rank hypocrisy, baby.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 2
Ishtar of Belgium
ORIGINAL FLEMISH LYRICS -
"O julissi na jalini
O julissi na ditini
O bulo diti non slukati
Sestrone dina katsu
O julissi na ti buku
O julissi na katinu
Dvoranu mojani bidna
Marusi naja otcha tu"
Of course, if you're not a fluent Flemish speaker, it may not be immediately clear what my problem with these lyrics is. Indeed, from the way the Belgian audience are whooping in the clip, you'd be forgiven for thinking they're spontaneously responding to some ingeniously inspiring feel-good lyrics. So I've gone to the trouble of providing a full English translation below. It's important to note, however, that in one or two cases a particular word may not be translatable, because it has no meaning as such - ie. it's a nonsense word that does not actually exist in Flemish (or in any other language for that matter). Wherever this is the case, I have simply retained the original word in the text.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION -
"O julissi na jalini
O julissi na ditini
O bulo diti non slukati
Sestrone dina katsu
O julissi na ti buku
O julissi na katinu
Dvoranu mojani bidna
Marusi naja otcha tu"
Are you starting to sense the issue here? The Dutch entry a couple of years ago implored us to realise "there is a way to understand without a language". Whatever that way is, I think we can safely say this isn't it.
ORIGINAL FLEMISH LYRICS -
"O julissi na jalini
O julissi na ditini
O bulo diti non slukati
Sestrone dina katsu
O julissi na ti buku
O julissi na katinu
Dvoranu mojani bidna
Marusi naja otcha tu"
Of course, if you're not a fluent Flemish speaker, it may not be immediately clear what my problem with these lyrics is. Indeed, from the way the Belgian audience are whooping in the clip, you'd be forgiven for thinking they're spontaneously responding to some ingeniously inspiring feel-good lyrics. So I've gone to the trouble of providing a full English translation below. It's important to note, however, that in one or two cases a particular word may not be translatable, because it has no meaning as such - ie. it's a nonsense word that does not actually exist in Flemish (or in any other language for that matter). Wherever this is the case, I have simply retained the original word in the text.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION -
"O julissi na jalini
O julissi na ditini
O bulo diti non slukati
Sestrone dina katsu
O julissi na ti buku
O julissi na katinu
Dvoranu mojani bidna
Marusi naja otcha tu"
Are you starting to sense the issue here? The Dutch entry a couple of years ago implored us to realise "there is a way to understand without a language". Whatever that way is, I think we can safely say this isn't it.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 1
Kalomira of Greece"An open book, an open book, well I'm sorry I am not..."
Is it entirely healthy to be quite so bloody triumphant about not being an open book? I'm not a slightly ajar door but I don't feel the need to witter on about it endlessly. But the lassie's narcissism doesn't end there -
"Sometimes I'm acting like a lady
sometimes woman, sometimes baby"
Oooh, what an enigma. If it's all the same to you, love, I might forego all this "finding your secret combination" and "winning a destination in the centre of your heart" malarkey and just concentrate on having a chocolate hobnob instead. At least you know where you are with one of those.
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