Reaching the heart and soul

First of all, thank you for introducing me to Marcel Amont and Bleu Blanc Blond. I might have heard it somewhere before, but now I can listen and relisten to it again and again.

Yes, even though I am much younger than you I certainly feel some kind of nostalgia towards long gone times. Without all the hype as you say. To me, melody is alfa-omega. It is why I listen to songs. And then soul and nice harmonies, of course. Here in Denmark the contest is called Melodi Grand Prix, although really good melodies are very rare.

I guess it is simply time. Time has passed. Life has never been faster... globalisation, commercialism, new technologies... in a lot of ways we are moving away from what humans are all about. What mother nature has deemed possible. We are so easily bored. New generations are growing up updating their facebook statuses every five minutes, reading a minimum of books, lethargic, not feeding their souls in any meaningful way - and how could they? With what? Lady Gaga? Back in my parents' time (I was born and raised in former Yugoslavia) there was perhaps one TV channel, with one programme broadcast each Sunday afternoon where people could see and listen to live perfomances. Needless to say, what was shown there was pure quality. With so little time available, only the best got to sing to the nation. And I imagine people looked forward to Sunday afternoon. There were no X-factor and similar shows where anyone could make fun of himself and make some jury or the people judge him. No nonsensical reality shows where we could watch people peeing or having sex thanks to cameras... it is absolutely no fun to me. So much TV time wasted...

And I guess people looked forward to the ESC to a much greater extent than today. It was more unique in many ways. Yes, not everyone could vote from their living rooms and people could not preview the songs on youtube months before the actual show. No hype in the weeks before, no bookies to tell you who just might run away with the victory (at least not any online ones).

Simplicity, sincerity and humility - yes, but they mean different things to people and one can be all things to various degrees. The show itself is getting increasingly less simple, less humble, and in a way also less sincere, if I can express myself in that way. It is huge... a lot of money involved. The next year's show has to be even more impressive technologically than this year's show, with even more cameras circling around the performers, with extravagant special effects. Marcel Amont (although I take this was not an ESC performance) was sitting there, with one camera focusing on him, close-up, during the entire song. This has some effect. But I of course do agree that he portrays the essence of his song, as you say, in his very own way. The song has a soul. It is simple, and he conveys the message - almost the atmosphere of the blue sky of Provence that I suspect he is singing about - in a very sincere way.

The British broadcaster might have had some of this in mind when they engaged Engelbert Humperdinck this year. Simple it is, and I guess humble and sincere as well. I don't find anything special in the melody though. It is not sticking. There were other contributions that had bits of the right. Last year I wanted Dino Merlin to win. This year I was more undecided. Did not have a clear favourite but in the end was happy that Loreen won. Was very dissapointed with the low position of Iceland, and wanted FYR Macedonia to finish further up. But that is just my taste:)

I would like to finish my response (which these days appears as a blog in itself, very annoying) with a couple of songs from different eras. The first is Gitte Hænning with Snakker med mig selv which was disqualified from competing here in Denmark as one of the composers whistled the melody at the canteen of the DR (our broadcaster), in 1962. Here she is seen performing in Poland, in 1968. The other is, I think, a winner of San Remo, and gives me chills still today (I seem to remember hearing it in my childhood).