Music Sunday

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Eurovision Song Contest that we have here in Europe in May every year. In Sweden this is a huge event, and the hunt for Sweden's contribution officially starts in January every year (although the job in finding songs starts long before that). For 6 consecutive Saturdays the Swedes are sat in front of the telly watching the Melodifestivalen (or Mello as it's commonly called) while artists perform songs. The first 4 weeks will show 10 contributions per week, with the top 2 going straight to the final week, and the 3d and 4th going to a second chance aired week 5. The top 2 of those goes to the final week. These evenings bring family and friends together over some nice food, loud opinions and laughter.

In the end there are 10 songs and artists ready for the big Final week 6. The winner is chosen by the votes of the viewers and jury groups around Europe. I'm not going to get in to the technicalities of how the votes are calculated, but they are.

The winner of all this gets to go to the Eurovision Song Contest, which is held in the country of last year's winning song. 

Nowadays most countries contributions are in English, but there used to be a rule that you were only allowed to sing in the official language of the country you were competing for. This was always unfair because a lot of people understand English, or Spanish, but very few understand Turkish, Polish or Greek. It was fun in a lot of ways, but I prefer it now when I can understand the lyrics of the songs.

Anyway, this is Sweden's winning act, and this year's contribution to Eurovision. There is an official video of this song, but I'm sharing the actual performance that won Melodifestivalen, because the light show is quite spectacular.

This is Måns Zelmerlöw. Måns came in fifth in Swedish Idol in 2005, and he won the first season of the Swedish Let's Dance in 2007. Here is Heroes.

Oh, and beware of his eyes. You might drown if you're not careful. 

Love//

Carina