The Best Lyrics Award for Eurovision will be awarded for the eighth year in a row. The website eurostory.nl – which organizes the project – deals with the literary side of Eurovision , an approach that has not received the attention it deserves. However, we must not forget that a song is a three-minute (for Eurovision) art form where music and lyrics are equally important to the final creation.
Italy has received the Best Lyrics Award three times in the past, while France has won it twice, Ukraine once and Austria once.
PAST WINNERS OF THE BEST LYRICS AWARD
- 2016: Ukraine – Jamala – “1944”
- 2017: France – Alma – “Requiem”
- 2018: France – Madame et Monsieur – “Mercy”
- 2019: Italy – Mahmood – “Soldi”
- 2021: Italy – Måneskin – ” Zitti e buoni “
- 2022: Italy – Mahmood & BLANCO – “Brividi”
- 2023: Austria – Teya & Salena – “Who the hell is Edgar”
This year five songs are nominated for the Award. The nominations were announced this week.
HOW THE WINNER IS CHOSEN
As in previous years, the winner of the Eurostory Best Lyrics Award will be determined by an international jury of literary experts (75%), consisting of book writers, journalists, publishers, songwriters, translators and former Eurovision participants from various countries, as well as from the public vote on eurostory.nl (25%). The winner will be announced during Eurovision week in May.
Let’s look at the nominations one by one:
1st nomination for Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2024: AUSTRALIA
Country: Australia
Title: One blood (One milki)
Artists: Electric Fileds
Lyricists: Michael Ross, Zaachariaha Fielding
The opinion of the jury
If we had to describe the song ‘One milkali (One blood)’ by music duo Electric Fields in one word, it would be: spiritual. Singer Zaachariaha Fielding and producer Michael Ross invite us to view the planet as we know it, with all the directly visible and tangible aspects, on a different scale. Smaller. But also larger. On an atomic scale, but also on a cosmic scale. In molecular systems and nebulas. ‘To see,’ they sing, ‘[that] we don’t own the universe.’
‘One milkali (One blood)’ is an anti-ego song containing one of the most self-destructive lines in Eurovision history: ‘My soul slips away from its title.’ In that lies the profoundly unifying message of the song, with a direct link to love, because even kissing lips fall apart, ‘we kiss and matter dismantles.’ It’s a text of awareness about how immensely small we are as humans, ‘one of them billion-billions,’ and yet immensely significant. Because even when we are not (consciously) present, when we dream, ‘the atoms are awake.’ Electric Fields hands over the stage, the song title, and the core idea of the song to Yankunytiatjara, one of the oldest Aboriginal languages in Australia. Symbolic and poignant.
2nd nomination for Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2023: CROATIA
Country: Croatia
Title: Rim TIm Tagi Dim
Artist: Baby Lazagna
Lyricists: Marko Purišić (Baby Lazagna)
The opinion of the jury
At first glance, ‘Rim tim tagi dim’ seems like a title in the category of ‘Ding-a-dong’ and ‘Diggiloo-diggiley,’ and indeed, those sounds seemingly mean nothing special. But then the verses. ‘I’m a big boy now, I’m ready to leave, ciao, mama, ciao’ – thus opens Baby Lasagna’s tale. It’s about a boy leaving his small Croatian village, perhaps Umag, where Marko Purišić, the real name of the singer, comes from. More people leave Croatia than those who come in. Especially young people move abroad. Purišić talks about it with equally humorous and painful observations. The lines ‘I’m leaving now and I sold my cow’ and ‘Gonna miss you all, but mostly the cat’ are funny, but bitterness sets in with: ‘There’s no going back, my presence fades to black.’ It gets entirely serious when that line rhymes with ‘anxiety attacks,’ and right after, we hear ‘Rim tim tagi dim’ again, making you wonder if the title just represents the sound of those panic attacks in his head. Fortunately, further down the line, the cat is mentioned again: ‘Meow, cat, please meow back’ – and that’s the most humorous way to express what every departing person hopes deep down: that those left behind will meow back to you.
3rd nomination for Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2023: ITALY
Country: Italy
Title: La noia
Artist: Angelina Mango
Lyricist: Angelina Mango, Madame
The opinion of the jury
Angelina Mango sings ‘La noia,’ or ‘The boredom.’ She sings from the perspective of a girl in Italian society, a girl who doesn’t choose for herself but is lived through by others, especially by patriarchy, the men who don’t give her ‘pearls of wisdom’ but ‘colored beads,’ for ‘the little girls with traumas.’ The men do the business and write the lyrics, while she (Angelina) blindly signs the contracts. Because she doesn’t have much else to contribute. In a sarcastic manner, she portrays her lyricist as a character. ‘I don’t want to bore you,’ he says, ‘but here’s a love song, and someone has to sing it.’ The lyrics also contain references to the Bible, as she talks about a crown of thorns that she’s given but almost cherishes herself. Because those who suffer at least experience something. Just like when you dance the cumbia, the originally Colombian dance genre central in the chorus. About that, she sings: ‘If I risk stumbling, at least the boredom stops.’ In a wonderfully infectious, sarcastically sung song, that’s mainly what the singer does: wait until finally something happens.
4th nomination for Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2023: NETHERLANDS
Country: Netherlands
Title: Europapa
Artist: Joost Klein
Lyricists: Joost Klein, Maradonnie, Tim Haars
The opinion of the jury
The essence of the Europapa text springs forth from its title. It serves as a summary of all the elements within the song. Firstly, the use of ‘Euro’ – throughout the verses, Joost Klein plays with cities and countries (friends in France, ‘trein’ to ‘Berlijn’, ‘benen’ to ‘Wenen’). Secondly, ‘papa’ serves as onomatopoeia: within those syllables, the choppy dancing is already hinted at. And thirdly, ‘papa’ as in ‘father’. Amidst all the celebratory lines, Klein makes it clear that this might be his ultimate attempt to honor his parents, particularly his father, who passed away early. The line ‘Ik heb geen visum nodig om bij je te zijn’ (‘I don’t need a visa to be with you’) takes on a whole different meaning when read in that context. And ‘Ik ben echt alles kwijt, behalve de tijd’ (‘I’ve lost everything, except for time’) hits hard upon deeper reflection, much like the reference to Stromae with his song Papaoutai (which literally means: ‘Dad, where are you?’). And then there’s, of course, the poignant conclusion of the song: ‘I miss you every day, is what I whisper secretly. See, dad? I did listen to you after all.’
5th nomination for Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2023: SWITZERLAND
Country: Switzerland
Title: The code
Artist: Nemo
Lyricists: Benjamin Alasu, Lasse Mydtsian Nymann, Linda Dale, Nemo Mettler
The opinion of the jury
Nemo sings about ‘the code’. That brings to mind cryptography, something you have to decipher. But for Nemo, uncovering what lies behind the code has much more to do with something larger: the limited choices society imposes on them as a genderqueer person. You must be zero or one – computer language for one or the other. In other words: binary. In other words: male or female. Nemo beautifully articulates this in the bridge of their song: ‘Somewhere between the 0’s and 1’s I’ve found my kingdom come.’
That last word is an important nuance: their ‘kingdom come,’ not just their ‘kingdom.’ The expectation of a kingdom is thus found, not yet that complete kingdom (articulated by these lines: ‘Let me taste the lows and highs, let me feel that burning fright’). The beauty of this song about non-binary identity is that both the melody and the lyrics are not apologetic, not accusatory, but simply euphoric. And a line like ‘I broke the code like ammonites, I gave it time’ is, of course, a brilliant, promising way to describe this life-changing quest. Moreover, how often have ammonites been mentioned in a Eurovision song?
You too can now vote for the song you think has the best lyric HERE (top left of the page).
[Source: Eurostory.nl ]
Stay tuned to OGAE Greece to discover together, on the eve of the Grand Final of Eurovision 2024, which song will win the Best Lyrics Award 2024!
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube, to stay up-to-date on what’s happening in Eurovision!
