As requested by Chris, stalwart commenter on this still relatively new blog, I am indeed moving on from Italy 1974 to something slightly more predictable and a little more recent.
Well, I say recent I do actually mean from fifteen years ago. Sonia, bounced up and down on the Eurovision stage in 1993 singing her perky number "Better the devil you know" and coming in a marvellous second place in the final tally. (Second place is really not a bad position to be in, especially as I did rather warm to the first place song that year from Ireland.)
Sometimes I reckon on the bare facts of a Eurovision song being cold and uninteresting. That's why, for the majority of these posts, I leave such matters to those who know more or whose encyclopaedia is a little closer to hand than mine. (In truth, my particular book is actually at the bottom of a pile of papers to the right of my desk. To be honest, I really can't be arsed to bend down and retrieve it.)
Consequently, in the run up to the UK's opportunity to choose it's song in the Eurovision: Your Decision final I ask you to click the play button (if you haven't already), sit back and enjoy some good honest pop.
A competent performance, a marvellous set, a smashing combination of purple and ginger and a rapturous applause at the end of it. What more could you ask for? *
* That's a rhetorical question.
2 comments:
I agree with you about everything except the "marvellous" set, Jon - 1993 is surely one of the most poorly designed and worst directed Eurovisions ever!
But this song is a classic example of how a live performance can bring something to life. The studio version of this song is terribly weak and uninteresting - but on the night it really shines, thanks mainly to beefier arrangement and a no-holds-barred effort from Sonia, looking a million bucks.
Also notable is the cringe by that backing singer at the end of the instrumental break. Maybe she was the thing that cost this victory?
How kind of you to take my last comments so literally Jon!
My views are a cross between those of m'learned blogger and m'learned co-commenter.
I would never - ever - choose to put this record on in the comfort of my own home because - as has been pointed out - it is the dullest of recordings, which ends with a turgid fadeout that seems to go on for ever.
Live, however, what a little ripper this is. Sonia at the peak of her form bestriding the stage like a colossus. (Or would that be colossa?) Very lively, entertaining and there is nothing remotely "failure" about this performance.
I too think the set for Millstreet was magnificent. A huge colourful emptiness for everyone to run around and play on. Like a dream loft apartment populated by musical foreigners. Lovely.
But you still won't hear this song in my house.
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