‘Feker Libi’
Eden Alene chooses the song she will perform at Eurovision
The people have spoken. On Tuesday night, they chose “Feker Libi” by Doron Medalie and Idan Raichel out of the four possible songs for Eurovision 2020 contest winner Eden Alene to sing at this year’s Eurovision final in Rotterdam.
The audience voting from home and the judges in the studio picked this tune after Alene performed all four possibilities on The Next Song for Eurovision, complete with gyrating dancers and glittery outfits to simulate as closely as possible the actual Eurovision show.
Alene is of Ethiopian descent, which makes made “Feker Libi,” with lyrics in Amharic, as well as Arabic, English and Hebrew particularly fitting. The title is Amharic for “My Beloved” or “The Love of My Life.”
Votes were cast by three pop stars and three radio broadcasters who were at the studio, as well as a professional committee of musicians, in addition to the votes from viewers at home.
“I didn’t have a favorite,” Alene, a bubbly teenager, said in an interview on the news program following the broadcast on KAN 11, the government channel. Alene, who will turn 20 during the Eurovision festivities in May, said, “It’s a song that represents the whole country; it made me emotional, and it was also fun, fun.”
The other songs were “Savior in the Sound,” with music and lyrics by Oren Emanuel, Ori Avni and Talia Londoner, a gentle ballad; “Roots,” with lyrics by Nathan Goshen and music by Goshen and Stav Berger, an upbeat pop song; and “Rakata,” by Gal Yosef Cohen, Ayal Yishay, Tzlil Klifi and Eran Kashi, another upbeat tune.
The show opened with a medley of Israeli Eurovision songs going back decades, sung by finalists from this year’s Eurovision 2020 contest and Alene. Next, there were clips of Alene at every stage during the pre-Eurovision contest, and at home with her mother and friends. At the end of this segment, she was shown thumbing her passport.
Looking at the passport, Alene, who now lives in Kiryat Gat, said, “I want to win. Help me pick a song and if we choose well, we’ll win.”
The host of the show, Lucy Ayoub, asked Alene, who in spite of her poise while performing is still a soft-spoken teen, if she could have dreamed she would be here and she laughed and said no. As the voting drew to a close, the Shalva Band, a group of musicians, all of whom have a disability, performed.
But amid the smiles and glamour, there was more serious news and shortly before the broadcast, KAN announced that the Israeli Eurovision delegation would skip a Eurovision “meet and greet” in the Netherlands over fears of the novel coronavirus, according to a report on Ynet. It also said the delegation cancelled their flight to Rotterdam for Eurovision preparations, due to the Health Ministry guidelines.