FRANCE 2011 - Sognu

I have to say one thing before anything else in this post: I LOVE the French entry this year. Seriously, I LOVE it. LOVE it!!! :-D It is FANTASTIC and I LOVE IT!!! :-D

OK, with that out of the way, I won't be at all surprised if this entry totally bombs and they end up with a really shitty result. Not that they don't have a chance of doing well ... there's always a chance, you never know. I will certainly be voting for them. IMO, they deserve to do very well with this song. But I can't in all honesty say that this really is an ESC song. This is more of a West End song. It sounds like it's out of Les Miserables or some other musical in that vein. It's a wonderful song, it's beautiful, but I can't help but thinking that the ESC really isn't the place for it.

It's also sure to draw some intimations of plagiarism, because, let's face it, it sounds almost exactly like Con te partirò. There is what is sometimes referred to as an eerie similarity. :-D That's not a plus. What is a plus, though, is that it's in Corsican. At least it's a plus to me. I like it. :-) The singer's voice is good and he's young and pretty. The song is quite striking and, as I've indicated, unusual for the ESC. Unusual may very well translate to inappropriate in this context. But I'm hoping for the best.

One thing that gives some legitimacy to that hope is that the UK did surprisingly well with the same type of song two years ago. Andrew Lloyd Webber came fifth with It's My Time. However, he's Andrew Lloyd Webber. He is quite probably a fluke. :-)

But don't let me keep you from enjoying this brilliant song any longer! This is Amaury Vassili performing Sognu by Daniel Moyne, Quentin Bachelet, Jean-Pierre Marcellesi and Julie Miller. This quartet will be competing for France on Saturday, May 14th - they will not have to go through a semi-final as France is one of the Big Five*. But that too will, alas, most likely be in this entry's disfavor. :-( The best of luck to France!!



Widescreen here.

Lyrics with translation here.

*Big Five, rather than Big Four, is in fact correct this year, because of a surprising but wonderful development - Italy is in the ESC again!! For the first time in 14 years!! Yay and hooray!! :-D