# 39 Zemrën E Lamë Peng

I'm wondering whether I'm a little biassed when it comes to this song. Zemrën E Lamë Peng is a potent reminder of a time when in the run up to the 2008 contest when I found myself working on a special Eurovision-related project myself. I had this track playing in my ears morning, noon and night.

The song is a convincing one, with a heart-wrenching set of chord progressions which communicate pain and suffering even if I haven't looked at the English translation of the lyrics or even bothered to go and look at them now. (I know .. that's shameful isn't it, but I'm going on how it sounds). The bottom line is that when I listen to this I don't immediately think it's a Eurovision song. That means it has a spot of integrity in my book.

Sixteen years old when she participated in the Eurovision semi-final in 2008, Olta Boka was the youngest representative for Albania. Perhaps it's this combined with the inevitable lack of experience relative to her predecessors which means her live performance lacks a bit of punch. There are certainly some intonation problems from time to time.

Those problems to one side, this is still a great song with a satisfactory performance as well but its ultimately disappointing to see it did relatively badly in the final scoreboard coming a surprising 17th place on the big night.