Eurovision and Philosophy (mp3, video)
The biggest news this weekend is of course the triumph of Finnish monster Lordi at the Eurovision song contest in Athens, Greece. As always, WFMU's Beware of the Blog was on the ball very early and predicted the outcome. Since Mr. Lordi expressed his love for Greek history and Greek food in this interview, it seems appropriate to remind everyone that Eurovision has brought more to the world than the tasteful costumes of Lordi and Dschingis Khan.
I will only highlight two of dozens of deeply philosophical songs from the rich and colorful
Eurovision history. In 1979, Elpida from Greece entered the contest with a song about Socrates (MP3), finishing 8th. But the epitome of European high-brow songwriting, and the answer to all of Socrates' questions was 1975's winning entry from the Netherlands, Ding-A-Dong (MP3) by Teach-In. It isn't quite complete without the visuals, but you can see them perform it live on the legendary German TV show Disco in this clip on YouTube.
And if you haven't had enough yet, check out lots of great pictures from past Eurovision song contests here.
Damn it, that song is going to go round my head for days. Have to say though, the disco kids in the audience seem as confused and bemused by the Ding Ding Dongs as I am. Maybe it has something to do with wearing pink and green sequined jump suits...?
Posted by: MsMoll | May 21, 2006 at 10:06 PM
One time I ding-a-donged like, 20 times in a week, and I got this blister. So it's not all good, fair hippies.
Posted by: [[[[]]]] | May 22, 2006 at 06:50 AM
Not only did the finnish monsters win, but they won with the largest amount of points anyone has EVER won that contest with!
The viewers saw the other perfomer, the scantily-clad women ,the girly-men and the monsters.. can we say the people have spoken?
Posted by: nartub | May 22, 2006 at 08:45 AM
Its all a pack of lies! Germany has won the Contest!
Eurovision: The German Horrorkabinett wins Song-Contest!
They cant govern and they cant sing neither: Still the German Horror-Kabinett won!
Get all the Infos and Pics at Fettisch.de!
Eurovision: German Horror-Kabinett wins!
Posted by: fettisch | May 22, 2006 at 11:56 AM
If you haven't watched it, you need to listen to the whole thing.
Really. And you can, thanks to the wonder of the web.
It's on BBC Radio 2 on demand for the rest of the week (until sat 27th).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio2_aod.shtml?radio2/r2_eurovision
Also still available is a 50 year anniversary show (which will leave even sooner)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio2_aod.shtml?radio2/r2_eurovision50
Posted by: Dan Jolt | May 23, 2006 at 04:11 PM
I rather like the Dutch version here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglNVmvY1yQ
Tick-A-Tack op zu Bim-Bam-Bom!!
Posted by: jayKayEss | October 01, 2006 at 01:14 PM
If there is a real 'hommage' - THIS ist it.
http://www.eurokonkurs.org
Posted by: Zoltan | November 06, 2006 at 06:01 PM