It’s the final countdown for the money time of semi 1, which is actually a great excuse to step away from obsessing and second-guessing our semi 1 predictions, and take a tour down memory lane instead as we visit the Eurovision inspirations behind the songs and performances of the second semi final!

L’amour est bleu

It was already clear after the first rehearsal snippets that Tijana and her team have done their homework. The conclusion they reached was decisive, well-researched and left no other option. A white frock and a blue background. That’ll do it.

Blue – I can’t | Anders putting, eurovision.tv

I will give them this, though: at least they stay true to the meaning of their song. We’ll definitely have to dig very deep in the scoreboard to find them.

Who Tijana thinks she is:

Who she actually is:

Walk Along

0:00 – 0:30 sitting
0:30 – 1:00 standing
1:00 – 1:01 hopping off the moon
1:01 – 2:00 doing an interpretive dance in which he sways two steps, then back, then throws in a Loukas Giorkas dance move for good measure. Then repeats.

Sitting in a small café, feeling lonely | Anders Putting, eurovision.tv

2:00 – 2:06 running back to the moon
2:06 – 2:08 climbing the moon
2:08 – 2:58 standing
2:58 – 3:00 walking slowly and carefully on a transparent platform away from the moon.

Total running time: 6 seconds.
Total running on air time: 0 seconds.

Let me help you right there, Nathan:

Running:

Not running:

(Also not live because 2016 live videos are blocked in the US, but at least that’s not Nathan’s fault)

Dance With Me

Unlike her Serbian neighbor, no homework was done here. If they had, Macedonia would have realized that songs about solo dancing are so cursed they don’t even reach the Eurovision stage, and would have understood that bypassing this little problem by going for the direct selection method would not change that fate, they’d just receive it at a later time.

If I Were Sorry

I feel like I perhaps should apologize to Claudia for my last review of her song and performance. As an asthmatic, I of all people should not make light of breathing problems. I should even be grateful to her for joining the short list of Eurovision artists who have used the competition to raise awareness of the condition.

Then I watched her full rehearsal and decided I was definitely not sorry for anything.

Sadly not the sound of silence | Anders Putting, eurovision.tv

“The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself…”

I spent so much time trying to figure out the connection between the Romanian entry and the glitter cannons while the answer was staring at me all along.

Eurovision > ABBA > Waterloo > cannons > glitter cannons > glitter > Eurovision

Napoleon Dynamite | Anders Putting, eurovision.tv

Times Three

Elsewhere on this site, Martin brought up the tragic history of girl trios in the Eurovision Song Contest. I would like to disprove this theory.

There’s this!

And this!

And this!

Wir geben ‘ne party | Thomas Hanses, eurovision.tv

And in theory there’s Mekado! But YouTube ate it! Thanks, German copyright law.

Watch My Dance

Back to the redemption-seeking dancer, I was not at all surprised to find out during my extensive research for my exclusive article to find out that there was one entry in particular that made her want to dance again. And made her angry too. Very angry. When she danced her soul out for Poland all those years ago, no one gave them enough money to hire someone to wash clothes and make cheese on stage. If they had done, how would her life look right now? At the time there weren’t even juries to take it down the rankings!

But she will show them that she can shake what her mama gave her, and this time she will do it as a proud honorary Hungarian girl.

Hungarian girls they like to party like nobody | Anders Putting, eurovision.tv

“How many times can we win and lose?”

With that backdrop? You can only win once.

It’s my time | Thomas Hanses, eurovision.tv

And you already had your win. Sorry, Anja darling. Better luck next time!

Run Away

Three minutes of full rehearsal later, I still have no idea why the balloon is there. The best I can guess is that the Irish delegation have realized Brendan might need a quick escape route out of the hall. At least they are more epic in their choice of transportation than others before them who needed a possible exit strategy.

Tonight Again

We’ve been here before. It’s Valentina. She sings well. In fact, she probably holds the Eurovision record for total amount of minutes sung in Eurovision shows and rehearsals without ever missing a note. Unfortunately for her, she also holds the record for the largest number of useless entries performed by the same singer.

Top 4 Valentina Monetta Eurovision entries:

Power To All Our Friends

Friends:

Also friends:

Not friends:

With friends like these… | Thomas Hanses, eurovision.tv

Taken By A Stranger

The Norwegians might think they invented the spaceship wheel with their alien invasion act, but in fact they are far from being the first ones to do so on the Eurovision stage. And while I appreciate that they are infusing the alien vibe with a tribute to every other song in the 2005 competition, they are not even getting points for the Darth Vader thing they have going, because 2005 had an entry that combined sparkly stuff, percussion and Constantinos Christoforou, and that’s a whole lot scarier.

Eurovision Alien Invasion:

Eurovision Non-Alien Invasion:

Color Of Your Life

It’s an escgo! exclusive: We have found the playlist the Swiss staging and styling team compiled to use as inspiration for their entry!

I really wish they would have chosen to be inspired by this, though:

“Life is a book and you gotta read it”

My Belarusian kind of sucks, but Naviband look so cheerful and good-natured I am sure they would have not only given me the rundown on that story, but also the notes they took in class. Hell, they’d probably let me copy from them in the final exam about Belarusian- and non-Belarussian-born ESC participants that decided to go to the contest with a literary-themed song.

Eurovision Book

Non-Eurovision Book

Beauty Never Lies

As it turns out, the Bulgarian entry wasn’t initially called Beautiful Mess. It did, however, include the word “mess” and a backdrop was created right away. Then someone did some internet research and found out that whenever you google “mess” and “Eurovision” you get a lot of bad rehearsal reviews from previous years (plus some Austrian duo from a prehistoric era they didn’t even know existed). Therefore they decided to be smart and keep the backdrop – because Bulgaria, budget, you know – but add a nice, pretty word that will give them nice, pretty search results.

Now when they google themselves, they end up here:

“Rainy weather is all we had together…”

You know your entry is useless when I mention Rebeka Dremelj twice in one post and nothing about you. Sorry, Lithuania.

Somewhere In Europe

It just occurred to me that it’s Koit and Laura and not Laura and Koit, because it’s like Romeo and Juliet. No wonder Koit can’t keep a straight face.

Feel me now | Anders Putting, eurovision.tv

Anyhow, I thought I was the only person in the world who refuses to use a smartphone, but it turns out both Koit and Laura are in the same boat. And while I’m fairly good with navigating, Koit seems to be that guy who won’t freaking ask for directions so they are just going to wander in the city aimlessly as Koit attempts his sexy stare to get women in the street to stop and help them out and Laura is so embarrassed she doesn’t know where to look.

At least they are not the only ESC entrants who could have really used a GPS.

Get A Life, Get Alive

It sounds counter-intuitive considering the importance of oxygen to our existence, but in Eurovision being alive is not a great thing. It might have worked in the old days of juries only – in fact, Imri might be forgiven for this slight miscalculation if only because the last one who went with this theme and managed a top 3 score was also an Israeli – but that was before the televoting era. Now that the audience at home gets to vote too, the task has become a lot harder, because we are not stupid. We know when we are about to be attacked by vicious undead Eurovision zombies.

Top 5 Undead Zombie Eurovision Songs:

And you’re all doing it wrong anyway. Because as we all know: #everyonedies.