Eurovision – Croatia

I predict that this song will not win the Eurovision competition.   The song is good as a romantic ballad, but without the glitz factor that more upbeat numbers provide, a ballad must really be stunning to win the competition.   “Lijepa Tena” is not exciting enough to earn a win in this year’s competition.  It does not have several of the key elements such as sex appeal and overly dramatic key modulations.   In addition to this, the song is just a little bit painful to listen to since Igor and Andrea are often out of tune especially on the longest, loudest notes of the melody.   One commentor on the BBC message board said that the song will probably make it to the finals by winning the “Balkan Block” of votes.   After hearing some of the other songs from Balkan countries, I would say that this is pretty likely.   I do not believe that the song will survive much longer beyond that.   A song like Franka Batelic’s “Pjesma za kraj” probably would have fared better in the finals, but may not have won the “Balkan Block” votes since it is not as close to Balkan heritage as “Lijepa Tena”.

The performer, Igor Cukrov is a 24 year old singer from Split, a city on the Southwestern coast of Croatia.   His career began on the television series Operacija trijumf.   This is a series which started in 2008.  It is similar to American Idol in that it finds young musical talents, cultivates them, and has them compete over the course of the season to in order to win a record deal.   It was on this series that Cukrov met the future composer of “Lijepa Tena,” Tonci Huljic.   Tonci Huljic is a famous songwriter and musician in Croatia.   In the past, he and his band, Magazin, have been criticised for introducing the genre Turbo Folk into Croatian popular music.   This was controversial because Turbo Folk is a genre that started and was cultivated in Serbia, the nation that Croatia was in a war with at the time.   Since then, however, Tonci has gone on to write 4 of the 16 Croatian entries into the Eurvision song contest, including their highest scoring song, “Marija Magdalena.”  The combination of a young celebrity and an older music legend gives the entry a bit more star power than some of the other Dora 2009 contestants.  This may help explain why this song was picked over some of the more popular ones.

I couldn’t find ANY INFORMATION about Andrea.

Here is Igor Cukrov’s “Lijepa Tena” being performed on at Dora 2009:

After looking at the lyrics to the song, I can begin to see why the jury selected this song over the other more popular ones.   They probably thought that the biblical references in the lyrics would make the song more popular with the Roman Catholics, who make up about 88% of Croatia’s population.   The song “Marija Magdalena” was similar in that it was a love ballad which contained several biblical references.   The song itself is a minor key ballad sung in hrvatska with the acoustic guitar sounding prominently throughout.   The more acoustic sound of this song in comparison to the other entries makes it sound closer to the folk musics of Croatia, which also may have caused its selection by the judges.

English Translation
Beautiful Tena

I was a cloud, floated,
and haven’t seen the sun
was waiting for you

God has sent you to me
detached you from his heart, so that he could live
and waited for you to give me the miracle of love

Hey darling, hey darling
You’re turning tears into cotton
You’re a sight for sore eyes,
you enchant

Hey beauty, hey holy
You’re turning water into wine
You’re praying for all of us, for all of us

Tena, Tena…

I was a cloud, floated,
and haven’t seen the sun

Hey darling, hey darling
You’re turning tears into cotton
You’re a sight for sore eyes,
Do you know?

Hey beauty, hey holy
You’re turning water into wine
You’re praying for all of us, for all of us

Tena

Tena

Tena, Tena, Tena

Dora is the annual song competition held by the national public broadcaster, HRT, to select a song and performer for the Eurovision competition.    There isn’t much information about how the selection process actually works, but after some investigation on the Dora 2009 website I found out that the decisions are made by an “Expert Jury” of 6 individuals.  All of these individuals work for the HRT in some capacity, usually as director of some entertainment or music division.The winner of this year’s Dora  is Igor Cukrov featuring Andrea with the song “Lijepa Tena” (Beautiful Tena).

However, when I search “Dora 2009″ on youtube, the first video that shows up is not “Lijepa Tena”. What shows up is “Pjesma za kraj” performed by Franka Batelic.

Igor Cukrov isn’t even the second or third artist to appear when searching for Dora 2009 on youtube.  The video of his performance has received fewer views than three other Dora 2009 artists on youtube.   Looking at the comments for the videos sheds a bit of light on the situation:  “…we always send some shit to euro song contest, because some old people are constantly voting for those shitty songs…” The comments for Cukrov’s official Eurovision performance are riddled with “sucks” and “boring!” while the comments for  Batelic’s video show that she had the popular vote for this year’s contest.   It’s obvious that the opinions of the “Expert Jury” do not reflect those of the viewing audience.   The reasons for the jury’s choice are unclear.   Since the more popular performances are a bit more risque (women in tight fitting outfits), I would say that the jury was trying to project a more conservative image of Croatia.  But in the past the entries have not shied away from more sexual images, such as in Doris Dragovic’s “Marija Magdalena” and Claudia Beni’s “Vise nisam tvoja”.   After that, I would guess that the judges found Cukrov’s entry to be more musical, but even the fans agree that Cukrov’s singing is inferior to the more popular performances.

Prior to 1990, Croatia was represented in the Eurovision contest as Yugoslavia.   During this time, it was Yugoslavia’s most successful republic, having produced half of the country’s 26 entries.   In 1989, Croatia produced the only song that has ever won the competition for Yugoslavia, Riva’s “Rock Me”. 

After the breakup of Yugoslavia 1991, Croatia was absent from the contest for two years before entering as a newly independent nation.   Croatia’s very first entry was the song “Don’t Ever Cry” by Put in 1993.    The song was meant to serve as a plea for peace during the time of the Croatian War of Independence against Serbian nationalists.  It’s pretty surprising that Croatia participated in the contest that year, since it was during one of the most violent wars in the nation’s history.  The lyric “Don’t Ever Cry, My Croatian Sky,” could be seen as a metaphor for the bombings of Croatian towns and cities.  The song placed 15th in the competition that year.

Since then, the best they have done was in 1999 when Doris Dragovic placed 4th with “Marija Magdalena”.  The song is a love ballad and has the singer swearing in the name of God and Mary Magdalene.  Despite the religious themes, the performance uses sex appeal to attract more votes.   After the second verse, Doris Dragovic removes her white robe to reveal a more tight fitting dress.   

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