Eurovision

[Elisasheva]

This year's Eurovision was a mixture of trashy music and all current agendas they could possibly fit. I watch the contest every year (because I like music and performative art so I am naturally interested) so in my eyes, comparing to previous editions, this year they reached the height of propaganda. Maybe some of you would disagree but for me Eurovision ended in... 2021. I remember that year's contest was somehow... special. Like a harbinger of the end. I loved that Maneskin won, the song was great and reminded of 80's glam rock. I also loved Finland's entry, and Switzerland's, and Ukraine's - regardless of a country the lady was awesome. And it was also the last edition for Russia to participate, which had a cool song as well. In 2022, along with Ukraine's victory with its tearful, custom-written song and final cheers in defense of Azov, things started to get more and more political there and similar to The Hunger Games' Panam.

But I wanted to mention something good about this year's edition for a change, because there are some highlights in this shitty contest after all. Or one.

The best song this year in my opinion was Norway's. It was a performance by Norwegian band Gåte which creates "Norwegian folk music bred with metal and electronica" with a song Ulveham.

Gåte made a modern interpretation of a Norwegian medieval ballad known as "Møya i ulveham" ("The Maid in Wolf Pelt"). The initial lyrical content draws from a mid-19th-century manuscript from Telemark, reflecting a distinctive variant of the Vest-Telemark dialect.[1] Several stanzas were identical to those found in the original manuscript. In "Ulveham", the stanzas were restructured and their language simplified, moving closer to the standardised High Norwegian or Nynorsk.[8]

"Møya i ulveham" tells the story of a young maiden, who is transformed into a needle, a knife, and then a sword by her evil stepmother. However, the people continue to appreciate her throughout all of her transformations, angering her stepmother. Therefore, to punish her even further, the stepmother transforms her into a wolf. It ends with the stepmother, pregnant with a child, being pounced on by the wolf. To lift the curse, the wolf drinks her stepmother's blood, which contains the blood of her unborn half-brother.[9]

"Ulveham" opens with a traditional kulokk, a herding call traditionally used to summon livestock, sourced from an early 20th-century recording featuring folk singer Marit Jensen Lillebuen.[10] The musical composition incorporates electronic beats and various instruments, such as nyckelharpa, electric guitars, and drums. It uses metal growling with lyrics as background vocalisation.

There is a prevalence of similar ballads in Danish and Swedish traditions. The Danish rendition, titled "Jomfruen i ulveham" ("The Virgin in Wolf Pelt"), and the Swedish versions, where a young man undergoes transformation into a wolf in "Den förtrollade riddaren" ("The Bewitched Knight"), underscore the cross-cultural resonance of this narrative.[1]

The full version of the song is better than the short Eurovision one, so I'll leave it here:

Plus, I do realize what tactics Ukraine uses (to arouse sympathy), but i liked their song very much. You have to honestly admit that the voice of the singer and the composition were beautiful, the message was not so bad either.