This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
“It’s all a bit beige, isn’t it? Not really catching fire at all.”
Anyway, I’ve recalibrated. This is what they did in the Slovenian final and got everyone very excited with fresh ears about what a great song it is. They’ll be absolutely fine. Right?
The song is “Here for You”, performed by Maraaya: married duo Marjetka Vovk on vocals and Aleš Vovk — Raay — on piano and production. They won Slovenia’s EMA 2015 selection in February, beating Rudi Bučar & Figoni in the public-vote superfinal. The headphones are not just an excellent costume detail, either: Marjetka said they helped her recreate the security of the recording studio and feel calmer on stage.
And yes, that really is Lara Balodis Slekovec doing the deliberately invisible, or “air”, violin. There are also three off-stage backing vocalists, Manca Špik, Nika Zorjan and Karin Zemljič, completing the recipe. It is a lot of carefully assembled Eurovision business for one performance, but the song remains the important bit.
At the time of writing, Slovenia has not performed in Vienna yet. “Here for You” is due in the second semi-final on Thursday 21 May, 16th of 17 entries. So this is not analysis of a result; it is me trying to talk myself into a prediction.
It’s qualifying. Of course it is. There’s a surprise NQ every year, but it’s absolutely not this. And if I say it enough times, I’ll convince myself.
Looking back: the prediction was right. Slovenia qualified in fifth place from the second semi-final with 92 points. In the final — where it performed first — it finished 14th of 27 with 39 points. Safely through, then, but not quite the major final contender that all those ingredients might have suggested.
