Jestem minute: Is that really Poland???

By Jaz, February 15, 2011

While the rest of us celebrated Valentine’s Day yesterday by taking romantic walks in the park, having candlelit dinners or, if you are single like me at the moment…doing pretty much the same thing as any other day, Poland marked the occasion by selecting their Eurovision entry! The artist is Magdalena Tul, and the song is Jestem:

I don’t know about you, but I’m almost over the moon with this decision. I say almost because it isn’t one of those songs that I hear every year and think, ‘THAT is the one.’ But for Poland, one of the contest’s unluckier countries, this is good! Often they gravitate towards something left of field like Finland, but I think this is their best entry since 2008. It reminds me, as does the Maltese song, a little of All About You from 2010. In fact a few of the songs selected so far seem to be taking inspiration from last year, a trend which is usually limited to the winner (especially after Lordi – rock was all over the ’07 and ’08 contests). What do you think of Jestem? 

There’s been a fair amount of disappointment so far where the 2011 songs are concerned, which I can understand. There hasn’t been anything too spectacular chosen so far, with just a few general favourites cropping up in comments, polls and blogs in the ESC cybersphere. I have to keep telling myself that in the last few years at this time, I’ve been disappointed, only to have the songs grow on me. I will most likely be in love with most of these by May, as fickle as I am. So don’t get depressed just yet, ladies and gents – there’s still hope. And besides, most of the countries who can always be relied upon to produce something brilliant haven’t chosen yet. Russia, Greece, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia…I’m talking to you (did anyone else suddenly get Jakob Sveistrup’s song from Kyiv in their head just then?).

Anyway, no amount of dashed hopes have prevented many fans from doing up a top ten of the songs heard so far. So today I’m going to be a sheep and do my own (in Technicolour!). Of course, now it’s a top eleven…but let’s not be too pedantic. 

At this mid-February point, I would give:

12 points to: Ireland

10 points to: Norway

8 points to: Netherlands

7 points to: Poland

6 points to: Romania

5 points to: Iceland

4 points to: Albania

3 points to: Malta

2 points to: Switzerland

1 point to: Belgium

0 points to: Finland (Please note: I don’t dislike this song enough to give it zero points, not really. But for the purposes of doling out eleven lots of points, that is what it gets because I like it the least)

Shortly there’ll be a bunch more songs for us all to slot in to our favourites lists amongst which will hopefully be something that sounds like a winner. Since the last time I left you with the upcoming events on the Düsseldorf calendar, things have changed, and there’s more action towards the end of this week than I initially thought (although I did get most of my details from a certain free encyclopedia, so don’t take the following as gospel).

This Friday, the 18^th, look out for: Germany’s Unser Song für Deutschland final; Turkey’s song selection; Slovakia’s selection; and Spain’s final.  

And on Saturday the 19^th: Latvia’s Eirodziesma second chance round; Estonia’s Eesti Laul 2^nd semi-final; Sweden’s Melodifestivalen 3^rd semi-final; Croatia’s Dora 5^th semi-final; Italy’s San Remo final; Lithuania’s 3^rd semi-final; and Georgia’s selection.

From there, it’s full steam ahead on our way to the most chaotic Saturday evening in ESC history! It’s going to be a busy, busy night, so I suggest you spend the next fortnight preparing. No exaggeration – you’ll need it!

83 days to go!!!

Jaz ❤

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.