Six on Stage Blog

  • Trains at Eurovision

    There was good news for lovers of both railways and the Eurovision Song Contest this year as Moldova’s Zdob și Zdub returned to the competition to celebrate a train journey between Chișinău and Bucharest.

    But trains, stations and railway are nothing new to the lyrics of Eurovision, with over 25 songs featuring them in some way. So here is a rundown of the 10 most railwayish entries from 66 years of the Eurovision Song Contest.

    I try to avoid subjective comments on songs on this blog so these are ranked entirely by how much they embrace the theme.

    Hey ho! Let’s go!

    10. Where Are You? – Imaani – United Kingdom, 1998

    The UK’s best placed entry until this year’s Space Man, Where Are You? is packed with -ain rhymes of which “train” is one – specifically the ideal commuting experience of “Riding alone on an empty train.”

    9. Valentine Lost – Eiríkur Hauksson – Iceland, 2007

    In the last chorus, we hear “a train stuck on a broken track” and with that attitude it’s no surprise that Iceland has no public railway system.

    8. La mia città – Emma – Italy, 2014

    In the chorus Emma tells us in Italian “voglio prendere il treno.” This translates into the admirable English sentence “I want to take the train.”

    7. Retour – Henri Dès – Switzerland, 1970

    “Et moi qui prends le train pour l’Italie,” sings Henri in the opening stanza, telling us he’s taking the train to Italy, which was appropriate for this year’s Contest even if it isn’t very impressive if you’re only travelling from Switzerland.

    6. Mrs Thompson – Just 4 Fun – Norway, 1991

    “Undergrunn’ er alltid sen og toget ute av rute” (“The Underground is always late and the trains don’t run”) is the song’s pessimistic opening before it notes that you fall asleep on the train home (“på toget hjem igjen når du sovner”), something I have definitely never done.

    Just 4 Fun included Eiríkur from Iceland 2007 who must really like trains – or, based on the lyrics of his two songs in this list, really not like trains.

    5. I treni di Tozeur – Alice and Franco Battiato – Italy, 1984

    Now we’re steaming ahead: this one has trains in its title! A classic Italian ballad with passing trains providing the scenic backdrop to the lyrics: “Passano ancora lenti i treni per Tozeur” (“Still the trains for Tozeur are passing by slowly”).

    4. Ciao amore – Ida and Vlado – Yugoslavia, 1984

    We stick with 1984 for this tale of a couple saying farewell at a snowy railway station. The translated lyrics include “We stood on the platform, you and me” and “You had to leave by the first train.” Good railway content.

    3. Un train qui part – Marie – Monaco, 1973

    Marie too has a train in the title (“A train that leaves”), and more besides as this brassy number features train visuals throughout its lyrics. There is a train ticket crumpled in a pocket (“un billet de train froissé dans une poche”), blue eyes looking at a train that arrives (“des yeux bleus sur un train qui s’approche”), a train scouring the countryside to take the protagonist to Paris (“le train bat la campagne l’emmenant vers Paris”), and the refrain, which translates as:

    A train that leaves is a bit like a home
    A train that leaves
    For the one who never knew a home
    A train that leaves
    A train that leaves is a bit like a song
    A train that leaves
    For the one who doesn’t hear songs being sung
    At the departure

    Aw.

    2. Trenulețul – Zdob și Zdub and Frații Advahov – Moldova, 2022

    Of course there is a high placing for the song that inspired this countdown. While superficially about a train journey (and the music video leaves you in no doubt about that), the mode of transport is used as a metaphor for the connections between Moldova and Romania, considering the similarities and differences between the two countries.

    The train is leaving! Where are you?
    Chișinău to Bucharest!

    But if they weren’t number 1, then who?

    1. Hengaillaan – Kirka – Finland, 1984

    Finland win the prize for the trainiest song as we go back to 1984 yet again! They really loved trains at the 1984 Contest – and we haven’t even mentioned that year’s Austrian entry, Einfach weg (“you get on the train and everything is the same for you”), or the Belgian song Avanti la vie, which slips in a couple of train metaphors.

    But our winner is Hengaillaan, a whole song about trains, about waiting at the station between the last and first services (that happened to me at Manchester Victoria once), and about leaving your luggage on board.

    The last train left at 22.45, but who cares
    At 5.30 in the morning from track 2
    Another train’s going to leave

    Let’s just hang around tonight
    And not sleep at all
    At the station we’ll play and swing around
    While we wait for the train

    The last train took my bag away
    The trains are busy, not me, no way!
    You can catch the train of life anytime!

    Read the full lyrics

  • Who were the 2022 jurors?

    Last year after the Contest I looked back at the 2021 jurors and – despite six countries’ jury votes being disqualified – this year I’m going to do the same.

    The names of the those jurors, for Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino, were not published on the official list so they are not included in the information below.

    As in 2021, some of the data is a bit messy – Cyprus’s jurors have no surnames provided, helpfully, and historical data is hit and miss – but we’ll do our best with what we have.

    With 34 countries and 5 jurors each, that should leave us with 170 names, but in fact there are 171: one of the French semi-final jurors was replaced for the final (likely they became unavailable and one of the reserves stepped in).

    • Of the 171 jurors, 26 had been jurors before. Rita Guerra was a juror in 1994 (and in between those 1994 and 2022 represented Portugal in 2003).
    • 2 jurors had been on the panel twice before, in 2014 and 2017: Kaspars Ansons of Latvia and Michael Cederberg of Sweden.
    • 7 jurors have written Eurovision songs. Of them, Maian Kärmas wrote a winning song (Estonia’s Everybody from 2001).
    • 3 jurors had previously given their countries’ votes as spokespersons, all of them previous artists: Rasmussen, JOWST and 1993 winner Niamh Kavanagh.
    • 2 jurors were artists who took part in 2021: Montaigne and Tusse.
    • 2 jurors have been involved in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Swedish juror Josefin Glenmark co-wrote San Marino’s 2015 JESC entry Mirror while Gaia Cauchi won the 2013 JESC for Malta with The Start.
    • 26 jurors have taken part in national finals over the years, 12 of whom did not go on to perform at Eurovision. 6 took part in selection shows for the 2022 Contest: Spain’s Blanca Paloma, North Macedonia’s Yon Idy, Norway’s Mari Bølla, Croatia’s Mia Negovetić, Denmark’s DJ Speakr (from Fuld Effekt), and Czech Republic’s Annabelle.

    While we’re here, let’s remind ourselves of the voting rules, which state that:

    To increase diversity, music industry professionals can only take a seat in a national jury if they have not been in the jury during one of the previous two editions of the contest.

    But according to the published data, Finland’s Amie Borgar and Lithuania’s Darius Uzkuraitis were jurors in 2021, while Belgium’s Alex Germys was listed as a juror in 2019 (there having been no edition in 2020). Hopefully there is a clerical error somewhere…