Centre stage
Montaigne is ready to finally represent Australia at the 65th Eurovision Song Contest
Sometimes the biggest songs come from the smallest places – Yesterday came to
Paul McCartney while he was sleeping, Keith Richards started writing (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction while drifting off to sleep in his hotel room.
For Australian singersongwriter Montaigne, her 2021 Eurovision entry Technicolour came to her after a conversation.
“I started writing it in my bedroom after an emotional phone call with my mum. When I have big feelings I improvise over them on an instrument and that’s how the first verse came about,” she said.
Once she brought it to producer Dave Hammer in the studio, it really began to take shape.
“We just fleshed it out in that space with all the software we had available to us to make it sound a bit bigger than an acoustic guitar song,” she said.
The song was informed by the civil rights movements happening around the world, notably the Black Lives Matter movement, and
Montaigne’s feelings of sadness and helplessness around those situations.
But within the song, she found something stronger began to emerge.
“As we started to unravel it I decided that instead of just being a sad song about having feelings and feeling disconnected and that everything’s difficult, that I wanted it to also be about resilience in the face of those feelings and recognising that there’s an inner power within us all,” she said.
“Or that there’s an external power that comes with the support of friends and family and like-minded people that allows us to persevere and try to achieve the things we need to achieve – be they to do with movements or to do with our own personal struggles.”
As the song expanded, Montaigne realised this could be her entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.
“As soon as we produced the song I felt like it was a candidate – I had the instinct,” she said.
“I think it has broad enough lyrics that it can be accessible to everyone and can be interpreted by all in a way that feels relatable to them and I think it’s really dramatic, there are surprises within it, it’s a really big vocal. And there’s a lot of dynamic range which I thought fitted Eurovision.”
Montaigne will be the sixth artist to represent Australia at Eurovision this year in Rotterdam, having been chosen last year in the televised competition Eurovision – Australia Decides.
But because last year was a year like no other, the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled for the first time in its 65-year history.
Montaigne made peace with that decision and looked to this year, where she was hoping to fly to the Netherlands and take part alongside the 38 other candidates from all over the Europe.
However, SBS made the decision not to send Montaigne over in light of the ongoing challenges of the pandemic.
The good news is, she still gets to compete in Semi Final 1 with a recorded performance.
“I kind of saw it coming with the way stuff is going on over in Europe, the cases are still high. At this point I’m pretty resigned to it because it just felt inevitable,” Montaigne said.
“There’s no control in this situation. If I had control over it maybe I’d feel more disappointed but I don’t so I may as well just let myself be swept away by the tide.”
Montaigne has already performed the song to a stadium full of people for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras which she said was pretty nerve-wracking, largely because of the song itself.
“Technicolour is a hard song to sing, I really shot myself in the foot by writing a song that’s so powerfully difficult to land,” she said. “But that’s fine because I love the song.”
And she has a love for Eurovision itself, and what it represents.
“My most distinct memory was watching Conchita Wurst’s semi final performance when I was 16 and at the time I was trying to reckon with the fact that I was queer, so that felt really memorable to me,” she said. “I thought ‘Oh this drag queen is doing a commercial, big event performance’ and that really impressed itself upon me.”
Montaigne began to realise that the song contest was about something bigger, as the event prides itself on being
all-inclusive. “There’s definitely a large queer contingent that makes appearances from year to year and Eurovision is quite a camp thing. The spectacle is generally quite camp, going above and beyond in entertainment, performance, make-up and costume – all that stuff that’s involved is considered quite camp and quite queer,” she said.
“When I think of people who are willing to go over-the-top with their performance I’m never thinking of a cis[gender], straight, white man.
“It feels like the domain of queer people. And even if the performer isn’t queer they’ll often be leaning into those modes of dress and dance, and performance and movement.”
Having spent over a year now within the world of Eurovision, the singer has also become privy to the intense fans who will make up some of the 200 million viewers set to watch her perform.
“I now understand what true fandom is like. These people tune into Eurovision year-round and they’re anticipating it 365 days a year,” she said.
“For some people, this is their whole life, at least that’s what it feels like. There are people who spend all their time thinking about it, making fan art, tweeting artists, or tweeting about Eurovision.
“There’s a lot of love for it out there.”
And when the world goes back to some level of normality, Montaigne hopes to experience some of that fandom in person.
“I would definitely love to tour overseas once the pandemic is done that’s the hope,” she said.
■ Eurovision Song Contest, May 19-23, SBS and SBS On Demand. Catch Montaigne in Semi Final 1, live at 5am on Wednesday, May 19, and replayed at 8.30pm on Friday, May 21
Montaigne: Instead of just being a sad song about having feelings and feeling disconnected and that everything’s difficult, I wanted [Technicolour] to also be about resilience.