Patriotism is attractive.
And its message is easily shining through when it's said clear and simply. When I first listened to "I love Belarus", the thing that first cought my attention was not the worn-out folk elements or typical simple and also worn-out melody. What made me actually pay attention to this song and not press the "next" button, as I usually do when encountering over-formulized songs, was the line "I love Belarus". It came right at the start of the chorus, clearly and powerfully sung, almost shouted out loud by Anastasiya Vinnikova and her vocalists, shining through and spreading warm feelings of belonging to one's country, land and nation. Just a simple one sentence, and still, powerfull because of its straightforwardness. A simple phrase that can elicit so many images and thoughts in one's mind.
I recently found out that Belarus also had a non-entry. As you all might already know, they had a former entry named "Born in Belarus" by the same singer, which was disqualified because the song was released and published before the allowed ESC date:
I think they were quite smart in Belarus, when they decided to keep the same theme and write a new song with the same spirit of love to their country. Lyrics almost never really matter when it comes to Eurovision, but I think that this case is an exception, and I want to believe than the song writter or composer knew that and did that on purpose. Anyway, I'm so happy they used this opportunity in order to improve a existing song instead of taking a chance and creating something completely new. Instead of a boring strange song with awkward performance like they formerly had, now we got a powerfully-arranged and straight-forward entry which is so much better, and that's such a big luck.
If relating to the lyrics, the case of Belarus 2011 is, as I said, an ESC exception. But maybe it isn't. Because I cannot really decide if the song;s maguc is all about lyrics, or all about theme. If we take a closer look at the lyrics, we discover a usual dull text which could be also interpreted as a love song that was written in 5 minutes - typical Eurovision. A nice exceptional line is maybe "I'm feeling great and it's easy to be strong, when all the hearts keep on beating as one" - again, So typical Eurovision to put effort only in the very beggining in order to catch the listener's attention. So on the whole, this song, like many other songs in Eurovision, is about NOTHING.
But, and that's a big but, the fact that there is one very strong line like "I love Belarus", which is brought forward so clearly, turns it from nothing into everything. When I hear "I love Belarus", I imagine immediately a song about a connection, a song about a country with a hard past and hope for the future, a song about being simple and still proud. It doesn't even matter that all of this is not written and said in the song at all. But since the watchers of Eurovision are not going to catch the rest of the lyrics anyway (with the exception of native English speakers) - they could maybe "hear" the eco of the associations mentioned above instead.
But, and that's a big but, the fact that there is one very strong line like "I love Belarus", which is brought forward so clearly, turns it from nothing into everything. When I hear "I love Belarus", I imagine immediately a song about a connection, a song about a country with a hard past and hope for the future, a song about being simple and still proud. It doesn't even matter that all of this is not written and said in the song at all. But since the watchers of Eurovision are not going to catch the rest of the lyrics anyway (with the exception of native English speakers) - they could maybe "hear" the eco of the associations mentioned above instead.
Now, let's take a look at the music also. As I said at the start of this post, I don't think this song has anything special in it's melody, not to speak about the harmony which is just SO boring. But it has a very good arrangment and playback. It reflects power, and its constant beat and rythm, together with the Belarus theme, make it sound a little bit like a national anthem in remix. Which is good. Very good and highten it's chances in Eurovision, because a simple message is so important, and here we get it in it's simplest form wrapped in a gleaming package. The folk elements are SO Eurovision and give the impression of "okay, didn't we hear that already, million of times before in each and every second song from East Europe?" But it seems like Eurovision fans stay always hungry for folk tunes, no matter how second-hand and banal they would be (judging by the excitment over Dana International's April fool version to ding-dong which supposedly had a cut-and-pasted bagpipes melody in its opening.
Performance? I'm hoping for a typical eastern-european pefrormance, and by this I mean a good performance with a lot of effort put and a lot of sex-appeal and dancers and fun. The best would be if they keep the folk dancers from the video clip and add a sexy Anny-Lorak-touch to them. I am very happy to know that Belarus is not in charge of the shootings for her own song in Eurovision, because if to judge by the youtube performance of their non-entry and the occasional enthusiastic-girl close-ups from the audience, they are not so good in making a performance looking attractive on the screen. The video clip is, on the other hand, completely fine, like it's usualy with those countries that do not hold a glamorous preselection, but then put a lot of effort in improving the winning / chosen entry.
I personally think that Belarus has a song that could really surprise and give a fight. Now it's a source for disrespect and it's quite ignored, but a growing number of fans who claim that "they know that it's obviously not a quality song, but still can't help liking it" makes me feel quite sure that it's simplicity and frankness would help it go very far.
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