The Eurovision Song Contest has been an official thing since 1956 but I couldn’t really care less for the performances.
Sure they’re good and all (mostly) but the moments I truly live for are things like finding out that Euron Greyjoy hosted the 2014 Eurovision contest and that on-stage kiss between Krista Siegfrids and her back up dancer in 2013 to protest Finland’s gay marriage ban.
But of all the crazy things that have happened over the last 60 or so editions of Eurovision, my favourite has to be that time when a country sang a song in a completely made up language and nearly won the whole damn thing.
This great “middle finger to the man” moment from Krista ranks up there though.
Eurovision has flip-flopped on its rules on permitted languages over the years and the most recent ruling in 1999 states that songs may be performed in any language.
For the 2003 contest, Belgium decided to take advantage of this little updated free language rule by entering a song, “Sanomi”, that’s performed in a completely made up language.
This whole act was so brilliantly quirky that BBC commentator Terry Wogan best summed it up when he remarked, “They’ve got 4 languages in Belgium and they’re singing in an imaginary one, the very essence of the Euro.”
Touché, Terry. Touché.
Not only was this malicious rule compliance of the highest order but “Sanomi” nearly won the entire 2003 Eurovision contest as it placed second behind Turkey by a mere two votes.
Since 2003, singing songs in made up languages has only happened two more times, in 2006 by the Dutch entrants and Belgium once again in 2008, but the results were no where near as successful as “Sanomi.”
With Australia’s Kate Miller-Heidke still in with a shot to win the 2019 Eurovision contest, maybe it’s time to do something a little left field with the language rule once again for that unlikely chance of victory.