Just as it is happening: the Eurovision Song Contest is at it again. And it is by no means any more intelligent, any more sophisticated or any more entertaining than it was the years before. Still, when working in SEE (South Eastern Europe, the new label for everything formerly labelled "the Balkans"), this specific Song Contests offers a few interesting twists:
A few posts ago I reported about the Bosnian entry, "Lejla". But the Croat one is also quite interesting:
Severina Vučković, a good, catholic Dalmatinka from Split, tells us what she can do with her stillettoes (no, this ain't no typo). So far, so boring, one might say. Were it not, that her team is made up of the creme de la creme of Balkan music:
Music by Boris Novković, arrangements by noone lesser than Goran Bregović. Though vastly unkown outside his native habitat, Bregović, frontman of the fabled Sarajevan group "Bijelo Dugme" ("White button") became a veritable CEE superstar. In the rest of the world he is better known as the composer of movie soundtracks, most notably for the movies of Emir Kusturica (Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream) or Patrice Chéreau (La Reine Margot).
The text is from Franjo Valentić, but, alas, highly influenced by Severina herself, and it goes like this:
For the grass has not yet sprouted
Where my high heel has trodden
(Speech: Come, come, come, come, hop, hop, hop, hop, come on, my chicken)
Tick-tock 'round half past two
You shall pinch me, but noone will see
I know well guys like you
The devils are your godfathers
Ring, ring, you shall ask for my number
Knock, knock, go and knock on some other girl's door
Sojka, girlie, do put on your little socks
For the grass has not yet sprouted
Where my high heel has trodden
Oy da da oy da oy da da da
Oy da da oy da
My high heel
(Speech: Sije sete, sije oto, sije nove, sije mine and again, baby, s s s seks, hop, hop, ring ring)
Tick-tock 'round half past two
You will nibble me, but noone will see
Golden ring, thin mustache
I know well guys like you
Ring, ring, you shall ask for my number
Shoo, shoo, go and run to some other girl
Sojka, girlie, do put on your little socks
For the grass has not yet sprouted
Where my high heel has trodden
Oy da da oy da oy da da da
Oy da da oy da
My high heel
(Speech: Zoomb, zoomba, hay, straw, cheese, salami, risi-bisi, bowl, red beet, red teet, Africa, paprika)
(Speech: Sije, sete, sije oto, sije nove, sije mine, come on, come on)
The reception of the song in Croatia was quite controversial. Many colleagues blamed her of using elements of turbofolk, a kind of music strongly associated with the Serb singer Ceca, the widow of the infamous Željko Ražnatović A.K.A. Arkan, who was murdered in a Belgrade hotel before he could be arrested by the Hague Authorities for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Croatia.
Severina's colleague, the singer and moderator Vlatka Pokos, told the Zagreb daily "Večernji List": "Because of Moja štikla I am going to leave Croatia." And for "Slobodna Dalmacija" she stated: "I am sad that she tries to sell Moja štikla as Croatian folklore(...) the text is vulgar and banal (...) I do not understand why these musicians agreed to collaborate with her, they do not depend on such things..."
Though many people in the country could not care less about Severina's Song Contest exploits, another of her activities caused quite a stir in Croatia:
In 2004 she did her very own Paris Hilton / Pam Anderson stunt: a video appeared on the internet at www.index.hr., where she could be seen doing things with her then-partner Milan Lučić, a married father of two charming kids, that every red-blooded girl in the world would do with her lover. But, as opposed to a catholic Dalmatinka acting as a role model, every other girl would have been allowed to.
The effects were astounding: the whole country virtually came to a standstill. Nobody talked about anything else anymore. Later, some even blamed the Croatian Government to have launched the video: in the week of the video launch Croatia started to raise a new tax, but - thanks to Severina - nobody in the country even noticed.
Most people would have left it at that. But not Severina: she sued the www.index.hr web portal for
copyright infringements. Her lawyers demanded
the video be shown in court.
Which gave index.hr the chance of their lifetime:
In
a separate motion, the defendants also asked that a court-appointed sex
expert see the video to determine if Vuckovic had "demonstrated
anything not previously seen in the porn industry", which could qualify
for copyrighdet. "I do not think she has shown any new
sexual art," the
portal's
owner, Matija Babic, told the worldwide news agencies.
And no, you won't find the video on these pages. Search for yourselves, perverts.
Others, then, obviously had seen it. On April 29th this year, the German tabloid Bild, famous for its coverage of smut around the globe, featured Severina in an article. Nicole, the German winner of the Song Contest 1982, with the sex appeal of a barrel of sauerkraut, told the paper she was shocked. This was a music competition, not a sex competition (as if she could tell the difference...). And only yesterday London's Sun followed suit.
This might be nothing more than entertaining trivia, were it not that Croatia this year should not be at the Song Contest, because they had not qualified. Serbia and Montenegro had. But they did not go. And that is why:
This year has been pretty tame compared with some of last year's shenanigans, but last March saw one of the most unsavoury incidents in Eurovision history with the selection of Serbia & Montenegro's entry in Belgrade.
To fully understand the obviously biased jury votes and the disgraceful scenes which saw bottles and other missiles thrown onto the stage, preventing the winning entry from being reprised, you need to understand the political background. On May 21st Montenegrins go to the polls in a referendum which is likely to see them break the remaining political ties with Serbia. The federal state has been drifting apart in the last few years and unfortunately the Eurovision Song Contest has now got caught up in the break-up.
Both Serbia and Montenegro had four members on the panel judging he selection, with a public televote across both territories forming a ninth set of votes. Judges from both countries openly accused the other of ignoring musical quality and voting along national lines to make sure their side won. The Montenegrins said their voting was no more biased than that of the Serb judges but they were smarter in the way they awarded points, ensuring victory for one of their songs.
Jury members one, three, five and seven were from Montenegro while jury members two, four, six 
and eight are from Serbia.
Saturday night's winners No Name (left) are known for their nationalistic views, which they made clear when they performed in Kyiv and replaced the federal flag, with that of Montenegro at their press conferences. Their 2006 song "Moja Ljubavi" was apparently a subtle encouragement to Montenegrins to put the period of darkness behind them and move forward alone.
The consequences of a song like this being performed at Eurovision the night before the referendum can only be guessed at.
At the end of the show, the mainly Serb audience, convinced that Montenegro had rigged the voting in favour of their entrants, walked out or booed the group loudly when they tried to reprise the winning song. Security had to escort No Name, their songwriters and the Montenegrin jury out of the hall because a gang of angry youths were waiting at the exit to beat them up.
Instead the popular Serb group Flamingosi, who had come second, reprised their song.
Apparently, the story has caused more reaction in Serbia than that the death of former Prime Minister Slobodan Milosevic and a meeting on between the Serbian and Montenegrin broadcasters failed to resolve the dispute. Serbian television is apparently trying to change the rules of the selection after the result, by disqualifying all the jury scores, which would leave only the public televote which was won by Flamingosi. However given that the population of Serbia is several times that of Montenegro and that Montenegrin television went to a news broadcast rather than reprising the songs for televoters, this would have hardly been the basis for a fair result. So noone of the two groups went.
Instead Croatia did. With Severina.
Last year Bosnia &
Herzegovina placed their Eurovision trust in an experienced male
artist; this year they are sending along a young lady.
