The bookies’ favourite was Sweden, represented by Eurovision superstar Loreen and her extraordinary nail extensions. As the lyrics of the Slovenian entry, Joker Out’s shruggingly mid-tempo “Carpe Diem,” translated: “The game of hatred is your thing/Don’t count on us.” Yet Eurovision has long developed its own way of confronting reality, even if that’s just turning its back to shake a well-choreographed, gym-toned tush. That grim news landed altogether heavily in the middle of an event that has generally suggested what might happen if theater kids, rather than tyrants, ran the world not even a great pop song can drown out some boom-bang-a-bangs. Swiss singer Remo Forrer’s plaintive “Watergun” built outwards from the refrain “I don’t wanna be a soldier/I don’t wanna have to play with real blood.” The ramshackle Croatian comedy troupe Let 3, fortuitously taking to the stage as most viewers were several drinks deep, offered a mock-Russian folk song about tractors and Armageddon that took an audible swipe at Vladimir Putin (“That little psychopath”).Īs we’d only just learned, Putin was using the cover of Eurovision night to fling further missiles in the direction of several Ukrainian cities, most pointedly Ternopil, Tvorchi’s hometown.

There was no President Zelenskyy address – ruled unduly political by the Eurovision mandarins, a decision that felt questionable even before Ukraine’s 2023 entry, Tvorchi’s “Heart of Steel,” implored “don’t be scared to say just what you think.” Yet the conflict in Ukraine seemed to haunt the background of several entries.

Growin' by Nikki Grimes