Songs that make Vlad mad
SINCE the weekend, I’ve been troubled by two infuriatingly catchy songs, both of which are now lodged in my mind like stray harpoons. And yet I can’t sing either of them, or at least not out loud, because the lyrics are way too odd.
‘Thunder and lightning – it’s getting exciting!’ enthused Sergey Lazarev from Russia as he climbed around a Eurovision Song Contest set that felt like an advert for an energy drink.
The other song was in French, despite being the entry from Austria. A pretty Austrian trying to pass as French? That ended so well for Marie Antoinette. Neither of these won of course, and the UK slid to the bottom three after a voting system that made the Holyrood list election look like a model of simplicity.
While someone got out a sliderule and their algebra jotters, our Swedish hosts wheeled on Justin Timberlake to do a couple of songs and remind us that he had a movie coming out.
‘I’ve always been a huge fan of the Eurovisions’ he told us. This counts as the worst acting Justin has ever done, and I saw his performances in Southland Tales and Yogi Bear – The Movie.
A three-hour advert for Brexit, Eurovision’s message about setting aside our differences in order to achieve harmony didn’t seem to chime with the public vote, which backed the Ukraine, and a song about a Stalin massacre with modern parallels almost as unsubtle as Georgia’s 2009 entry, We Don’t Wanna Put In.
Two things are now certain. Firstly, since the UK gave its highest marks to Georgia and Ukraine, I will be sleeping under the kitchen table until Mr Putin calms down.
Secondly, next year the contest is going to be full of miserable yodels from about the horrible things the Russians did to our grandparents.