The American's Guide to Eurovision

Welcome, tuneful reader, as we introduce those on this side of the pond to the wonders of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. This year's contest, held in Rotterdam, was the first for two years, as 2020's contest was cancelled as a result of the pandemic.

Eurovision has been going now for over 60 years, but what started as a relatively short, low key arrangement across 7 European countries now consists of multiple days of competition with all of Europe and many other countries which you might not consider European at all taking part. It's gone from an incredibly naff set of crooners singing nationally stereotyped songs, through a period of incredibly naff pop songs often with a theme of world peace, to what today is a contest of incredibly naff performances - typically heavily staged pastiches of current pop hits or styles.

With Eurovision, it's not the overall story of who wins that matters, it's the sub-plots: Cyprus and Greece voting for each other, the former Russian republics voting for each other and not for Russia herself; in the 90s, it was all about how much Ireland would win by, and in recent years, it's about how badly the UK is going to do. The UK has sent a series of terrifyingly poor attempts and artists more or less forever, but has also tried increasingly hard to make itself unpopular in European politics since the early Blair years, so it's unsurprising that a good result has not been on the cards (the UK came last, scoring the infamous nul points). Brexit means Brexit, or so they say.

This year's winners were Italy, through a pretend rock band that came second on the Italian X Factor a couple of years back. Second was a French torch song worthy of the Little Sparrow herself, and basically the same song that France have been sending to the contest since the 1950s. Third was Switzerland - a Tori Amos song performed by a youthful Elvis impersonator, and fourth was Iceland - Daft Punk sung by the Weasley family.

The popularity of Eurovision is hard to explain. It's clearly been helped by the talent show explosion of the last 20 years, but there's something post-modern and ironic about it which is thoroughly European. That's why I've no idea why the Danish entry, itself seemingly made in 1985, was eliminated in the semi-finals. To succeed, you have to acknowledge that post-modern irony, but not too much: this is why Iceland did well, yet the German entry (which as well as being musically more irritating than tree pollen was far too knowing and self-aware) crashed and burned. Terrible songs can of course win, novelty songs often do, but Germany just went too far this time: a novelty song that's awful and irritating and self-knowing may appear to tick all the boxes, but in practice it was clearly trying too hard.

There is apparently a desire to do this in the US, but I have to tell you now, it just isn't going to work: Eurovision is what it is because the European nations have a history of conflict which they've spent the last 75 years trying to forget, whereas here in the US there are somewhat more obvious and real divisions which are much closer to the surface. And the other crucial ingredients which make Eurovision such a heady cocktail - the knowing, post-modern winks and cynicism, and the nods to the contest's 60+ year history which are essentially running jokes - either don't exist or don't work here.

So it's off to Italy for Eurovision 2022, and whilst I think we can be confident the UK won't do well, I'll be surprised if we come up with anything as good as My Lovely Horse.