Ireland meets its Waterloo
So Ireland finished last in the Eurovision song contest. Big wow. The first thing to say about this is you can’t be taking something like the Eurovision Song Contest seriously. It’s not a slur on our nation to come last (in fact it’s almost a badge of honour), the contest is just a bit of disposable pop trash culture.
But poor Marty Whelan was like a Lotto winner who lost the winning ticket such was his desperation searching in vain for votes for the Irish song from the Eastern European “block vote conspiracy”. John Waters was “gutted” and RTÉ launched a damage limitation exercise and a major inquiry into how this could have happened.
So why did it happen? Well for a start the song - although it wasn’t the worst - wasn’t all that memorable. It was a little bland and safe, and visually the performance was forgettable. In a crowd of 24 it was easy to overlook it.
Also the fact that the demographic that wrote, performed, produced, and chose the song (most of whom were in their forties at least and who seem to have a ‘pre fall-of-the-wall’ idea of Europe) did not match the demographic that were texting in the votes (predominantly under twenty-fives who could care less about the cold war beyond wanting to forget that it ever happened). John Waters spoke about references in the song to Prague 1968 that he hoped would woo the eastern Europe vote (not patronising at all, oh no) which revealed more about his lack of understanding of where Europe is now than anything else. The cold war is over John and we’re not looking back.
The Irish attitude* to the Eurovision revealed a little about how we see ourselves in Europe and how it contrasts markedly with how Europe sees us (when it sees us at all). We had Marty with his invocations to cancel our foreign holidays to countries that didn’t vote for us (as if we could single-handedly destroy their economies with the might of our credit card discipline), we had others wondering if the Eastern European immigrants to Ireland would influence those back home to vote for us as a mark of gratitude for our charity of letting them come and work and live among us (as if somehow we were the melting pot of Europe with our ‘huge influx’), and we had Linda Martin rambling on in Irish when giving the Irish votes, much to the puzzlement of the hosts and the rest of Europe. The polite thing to do would have been to attempt a few words in Finnish, or failing that, stick to English, a language that most of Europe might have some chance with, rather than an obscure language from a country that most of Europe couldn’t find on a map. In a celebration of a common European vision it was embarrasingly parochial.
It seems we have this notion that Ireland is the darling of Europe and every one knows and loves our cute accents and diddly-eye culture (and of late our economic ‘miracle’). The reality is that we are a peripheral island on the west coast of Europe and we don’t even exist as far as most of Europe is concerned. What we call eastern Europe is in fact the heart of Europe, and countries that we patronisingly regard as lightweights have thriving cultures and historys, and cities with populations bigger than that of the whole of Ireland. We talk about evil conspiracies and block voting but the reality is that countries will naturally vote for countries that are close to them. They relate more to the nearby culture for a start. We gave 7 points to the UK for God’s sake.
There’s nothing wrong with being a small, peripheral country - it suits us nicely for many things - but we should recognise ourselves as we are and not through the distorted mirror of former Eurovision glory.
(* Actually, I generalise too much when I say the Irish attitude. More precisely, it’s the attitude of a segment of the Irish population who believe that Eurovision is important and should be taken seriously, the pre-Celtic Tiger generation who remember a time when winning Eurovision was the sole redeeming achievement of a nation that was going down the toilet in every other way. “We may be on our knees economically but we can beat the best of them with a song and a dance and a smile on our faces”. )
Mark Waters marked time at 12:24 pm on May 14th, 2007 .
If we want to win the Eurovision we need to write a pop song that they’ll play in the clubs across Europe. A suitable example would be not unlike what your woman tried to do to The song in “Music and Lyrics” with the pseudo-ethnicky dnb rhythm”. The whole point - which people seem to be forgetting - is the song doesn’t have to be good any more, in fact, it helps if it is not.
The Eurovision is not a highbrow cultural event, it’s Andy Warholesque on a selection of drugs that I don’t even know exist. IIRC correctly we nominated three songwriters to come up with the songs, and not one of them - fine songwriters as they may be with the exception of John Waters who’s just annoying - could have won the Eurovision cos they’re all wrong. Outside chance if you get the Frank and Walters or someone underground…but very outside. Like real life, a victory requires thinking outside the box. We’re not very good that really.
In other words, the game has changed, the rules of the game have changed, and change all the time. It’s a bit like economic growth and property investment as well. We think we’re playing chess but actually, we’re playing online Tomb Raider and no one has copped it here.
And oh yeah, it’s not a reflection of our place in Europe. Since quite a sizable proportion of Eastern/Central Europe is working here, you’d have to assume they know about us. I’m listening to the song here now which I had somewhat fortunately never heard before. I don’t care how gutted John Waters is, the song was never going to win even with a techno beat.
Just stumbled across this blog and wanted to give a bit of support to Ireland. Although the song wasn’t the best there, it certainly wasn’t the worst by a long shot. But you’re right in saying that it needs to be the kind of song that can be remixed into a drum and bass track to be played in nightclubs throughout the continent. It was a nice, safe choice going with a cultural feel but that might have been its downfall. As to why Ireland didn’t get more votes, I think a lot of the blame can rest on us here in the UK. I didn’t expect either country to get anything from the Eastern bloc, which is exactly what it is. If anything, I assumed Ireland would get most of its votes from the UK (after all, 7 of our 19 points were from Ireland, and another 12 were from Malta. Perhaps they feel indebted because of the whole colonial thing?) If anything, I was hoping the UK would come in dead last, because there’s a fine line between a great dance song and complete rubbish, which is what our song was. Dancing with arms outstreched like aeroplane wings and making in-flight comments over bubblegum kiddie pop music? I had to leave the room. In the future, Ireland should perhaps take a nice solid pop tune that the country can be proud of. It worked for Serbia. If you want to point the finger of blame towards anyone outside, though, it should be at us. We let Ireland down, and with this Eastern bloc, we need to support each other.
Since quite a sizable proportion of Eastern/Central Europe is working here, you’d have to assume they know about us.
You’re well-travelled enough to know that the the amount of Eastern/Central Europeans working in Ireland as a percentage of the population of Eastern/Central Europe is a drop in the ocean. As a percentage of the Irish population they are quite significant but I think that was my point. We assume that every house in Poland is pining for a loved one in misty Ireland.
(And yeah, I do read far more into the Eurovision then is really there, I’m a bit like John Waters (no relation by the way) in that regard. I could go on all night with theories about how it’s a reflection of how Irish culture as been hijacked by the forty-something U2/Riverdance crowd and how the kids have been pushed to the margins etc. etc. you know the drill…).
Oh Mark, come on…it’s not that simple. You must know by now that the Eurovision is an irrelevancy and that in fact, what is a reflection of Irish culture is the pre-eminence of Westlife and Katy French. After all, what else have we left in our lives only what the Sunday Independent peddles to us each Sunday if we are not rebellious enough not to buy it or access the website. Culture is as culture is defined by Barry Egan, after all.
Darn it I thought I’d get through more than four days after my holiday before cynicism started to bite again. Mea culpa.
Anyway, although I spend a lot of time in the grey areas of life, I still think that the song was rubbish and sometimes things are just that simple.
By the way I thought this was my best line in a long time “We think we’re playing chess but actually, we’re playing online Tomb Raider and no one has copped it here.” I’m disappointed no one picked up on it. Maybe I should have used YuGiOh instead. Oh well.