Art by Michael Zhang.
This episode was written & produced by Andrew Anderson, Daniel Semo, and Casey Emmerling.
For millions of people, Eurovision is a cultural institution, and one of the biggest live television events on Earth. But for many Americans, it remains a complete mystery. In this episode, producer Andrew Anderson takes Dallas and Grace on a joyful crash course through the history, music, controversies, and glorious absurdity of the Eurovision Song Contest. Along the way, they discover which music superstars got their start in Eurovision, how receiving “nul points” can ruin or launch a career, and what this competition reveals about Europe itself. Featuring “Doctor Eurovision” Paul Jordan.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Stationary Sign - My Car is My Castle
Spectacles Wallet and Watch - Go For It
Wesley Slover - Indigo Rainfall
View Transcript ▶︎
[20K sonic logo]
[Music in: Stationary Sign - My Car is My Castle]
A while back, I sat down with Grace East, our producer here at Defacto Sound, and Andrew Anderson, our resident European producer.
Andrew grew up in England, and loved sound and music from a very young age. For grad school, he moved to the US, specifically Indiana. There, he worked in public radio, even hosting a local segment of All Things Considered. Then, back in the UK, he was the Editor in Chief of an arts magazine, which is how I met him. Eventually, with his wife, he moved to Bulgaria, where he opened a local book shop, and became the lead singer in a post punk band that was even featured on Bulgaria's Got Talent.
But the purpose of this meeting was for Andrew to try and teach us bumbling Americans about something that we just can't grasp... But that millions of people across the pond are obsessed with. And that's Eurovision.
[music out]
Dallas: So Andrew, you have been trying to convince the Twenty Thousand Hertz team that we should care about Eurovision. Is that right?
Andrew: Well, for me it's just one of those things that is so present growing up. Now as a European person that lived in America for a while, I kind of have some experience with some of those things, like I wasn't really aware growing up about what the Superbowl was, or the huge impact of it. And I kind of see Eurovision as being our Superbowl. So this is kind of a cultural exchange where I'm going to give you our Superbowl, which is Eurovision.
Dallas: And what's your hope for how we feel about Eurovision once we finish this episode?
Andrew: My hope is that you'll learn to love it, but maybe you'll also be inspired, uh, America, to start adopting some of the Eurovision practices within the Superbowl. So I'm thinking more glamorous costumes for the players.
Grace: A hundred percent on board.
Andrew: You've got the halftime songs, fine. But what if some of the players did some numbers? What about when you score a touchdown, you have to break out into a rap track? So I think, my hope is that you'll kind of have an appreciation, both for the glory and pain that I had to live through hearing all of these songs over the years, and having this as my cultural touchstones, but also that it maybe will have some positive influence of not taking things too seriously, and kind of embracing the sillier side of pop culture for Americans.
Grace: Totally.
Andrew: We should start by me asking what each of you knows about Eurovision. So the first person I want to turn to is our super producer, Grace. Grace, can you tell me what you know about Eurovision?
Grace: Sure thing. I have kind of a funny story about Eurovision, which is that my boyfriend and I were like, "Let's watch the Eurovision movie and like, see what it's all about. It looks kind of silly, but like, who knows?"
[clip: Eurovision Trailer]
Grace: Plot twist: I was like crying by the end. It was way better than I expected. And then we had so much fun watching it, we were like, "Let's go watch the 2021 season on YouTube." And so I watched a ton of music videos from artists that I'd never heard of. And then we voted, like, my boyfriend and I voted who we thought were the winners, and...
Andrew: Did you get it right?
Grace: I was like, "The Italian punk band was the best, but I don't think they're gonna win."
[clip: Måneskin - Zitti E Buoni]
Grace: And then they did, and I was like, "Okay, that's pretty cool."
Andrew: Dallas, how about you? What do you know about Eurovision?
Dallas: I just think of tights, and big hair, and...
Andrew: The '80s?
Dallas: ...theatrical flamboyance.
Andrew: You're very on the right track there. I think all of those things do count as Eurovision.
Paul Jordan: I think describing Eurovision is really difficult because it's something that in Europe we've all grown up with. And if you say the word "Eurovision" people exactly know what you mean, and they love it or they hate it.
[music in: Spectacles Wallet and Watch - Go For It]
Paul Jordan: So my name's Paul Jordan, I'm also known as "Doctor Eurovision," and I'm an expert in the Eurovision song contest.
Paul Jordan: To describe Eurovision now is very different to how it was back in the day. So back in the day, I would say it was unique. It was chaotic. Now, I think it's a very, very slick show where countries enter, they compete, in a friendly way, to try and find the best song in Europe for that year.
Paul Jordan: I think Eurovision, part of the appeal is looking at the best and the worst of what Europe has to offer. It's gimmicky. There's loads of costume changes. There's lots of novelty acts, but there's also a lot of great songs.
Andrew: The original idea was actually shared understanding, shared languages, and to prove that television could actually work as an international medium.
Paul Jordan: It was actually an experiment in terms of broadcasting. Eurovision was founded in 1956.
Andrew: ...which was actually before what we now know as the European Union. So it's even older than the European Union.
Paul Jordan: Looking back, it was quite ambitious, really. Television was very much in its infancy. International broadcasting was non-existent, really.
Andrew: All these different national broadcasting agencies were like, "What if we could create content and then share it across Europe? We just finished fighting each other for a second time in a catastrophic way, so why not have something that unites us?"
Paul Jordan: It was basically founded to unite countries, but also to pioneer new broadcasting techniques.
Andrew: Originally they were like, "Hey, what we should do is, to share the talents of Europe, we should have composers come up with a song so each country has a different song and share them." So it wasn't like the format now where it's like pop stars writing songs or like, it was really composers that were given the task.
[music out]
Andrew: The first competition took place in Switzerland, and seven countries took part. And the first winner was a Swiss person.
[clip: Lys Assia - Refrain]
Andrew: She actually there, at the... you hear she actually makes a mistake and they go back and start the song again. And she still won. And another thing to say is that it was always with a live orchestra. Right up until very recently, one of the stipulations was you had to have an orchestra play with you.
Grace: Wow!
Paul Jordan: In the early years, you had kind of serious singers taking part. The kind of music was very highbrow, if you like.
[clip: Gigliola Cinquetti - Non ho l'età]
Paul Jordan: But eventually, songs which were reflecting, I think the charts of the day started entering. In 1965, Luxembourg won, and it's credited as the first kind of pop song.
[clip: France Gall - Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son]
Andrew: Back in the day, the competition was seen as a place that discovered artists. Like, especially in the 60s, there were a lot of British pop artists and European pop artists that did have successful careers off of it. So it was kind of a prestige thing to take part in and it could make careers. People like Cliff Richard, who I guess you wouldn't have heard of in America, but he was sort of our much paler version of Elvis. Like Elvis with all of the testosterone removed.
[clip: Cliff Richard - Congratulations]
Andrew: But then in the 80s, it sort of started to get campier. Like, whose idea was this song? Let me play you a great example of that. "Papa Pingouin!"
[clip: Sophie & Magaly - Papa Pingouin]
Grace: What?
Andrew: Pa pa Penguin, pa pa pa Penguin, pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa Penguin.
Andrew: The song is "Papa Pingouin" by Sophie & Magaly. It's from 1980, and it was Luxembourg. And also, there was a man, a full grown adult man dressed as a penguin, walking around the stage, pecking at the singers as part of performance.
Dallas: What!?
Grace: I love this aesthetic. I'm looking for... for a...
Dallas: I'm looking it up, too.
Grace: Yeah. Importantly, the person dressed as a penguin has...
Dallas: Oh my goodness.
Grace: Has like a... a sparkly tuxedo.
Dallas: It's like two people in the front wearing bright pink with really big shoulders. And then there's one big penguin with a big belly. And then there's like three attractive penguins over on the right.
Andrew: The singer's outfits kind of look like if Elton John's costume designer did the Star Wars outfits. That's what the singers look like they're wearing.
Grace: I know. This is so great.
Andrew: It's kind of questionable with Eurovision how much musical impact it's had. A lot of the biggest songs don't tend to win. Um, I wonder if could you name me, or do you know of any artists that you can think of that have won Eurovision?
Dallas: Nope.
Grace: The only band that I know was the 2021 Italian punk rock band, but I could not tell you their name.
Andrew: Exactly. Well, there is one... When we, as Europeans think of Eurovision, there's one act that comes to mind that won it. And uh, I think you probably will know the song.
[clip: ABBA - Waterloo]
Grace: No way!
Andrew: Waterloo!
Grace: Waterloo! Forever more...
Grace: Whoa.
Dallas: That's... whoa.
Andrew: That was how ABBA broke through. That was their first big hit, and it was because they won Eurovision.
Grace: No way! I can't believe I didn't know that!
Andrew: Yeah, if everyone, if you could, Google "ABBA Eurovision," just check out the trousers they're wearing.
Grace: Oh yeah. I love the bell bottoms that begin at the knees.
Andrew: They begin at the knee, exactly, like that... bell bottoms for days.
Grace: It's incredible. Oh my gosh.
Dallas: Those boots are tall.
Andrew: Yeah, seriously. So, that's a rare example of a big song that many people know all over the world that won. But really, there aren't that many that really have stuck around beyond mainland Europe. And sometimes famous songs are in the competition and don't win.
Andrew: The most... I don't know how much of it, I saw that this like reached number 10 in the US charts. So it might not be a song you guys all know, but this is a... in England, this is like a really like, one of the essential '90s songs. And it was in Eurovision, but it didn't win, but then became a huge, massive hit.
[clip: Gina G - Ooh Ahh]
Andrew: (singing)
Andrew: Can't ignore.
Grace: I need Andrew to cover all of these songs.
Andrew: I mean, I love that. That's Gina G with "Ooh Ahh."
Grace: I love it.
Andrew: So, who can take part in Eurovision? Any nation who is a member of the European Broadcasting Union can take part.
[clip: EBU Promo]
EBU Promo: In today's world, there's never been a more pressing need for media that puts purpose above profit, the very thing the European Broadcasting Union exists to champion, with more than 100 members in over 50 countries.
Dallas: Here's Doctor Eurovision again.
Paul Jordan: The EBU, the European Broadcasting Union do a lot of great stuff in terms of public service media. They train journalists, they do a lot of stuff around freedom of expression. And often when there's a breaking news story, whatever's happening around the world, you know, you've got that live feed. That often comes from the Eurovision network.
Paul Jordan: So very much Eurovision is part of that, but Eurovision is a sideline to the main business of the day.
Andrew: ...which means you actually don't have to be a European country. For example, Israel, Azerbaijan, and Russia have all taken part.
Paul Jordan: Interestingly enough, Australia is part of Eurovision.
Andrew: Each nation has its own system for picking an entrant. Some places have like, they'll play the songs on the radio and they'll have a vote. Some countries have their own like mini Eurovision competition.
Paul Jordan: Sweden is a really good example. So they have a national selection called Melodifestivalen. The winner of that, they go to Eurovision, but it's almost not the point. Most people who take part in that show, it's 40 odd artists, have a hit from it.
[clip: Dolly Style - Habibi]
Paul Jordan: So Eurovision is not the end goal. It's taking part.
Andrew: Then the format is they go through, there's two semi-finals, which you can watch. And, uh, the ones that get the most votes at that stage go through to the final. And the final broadcast, they rehearse it really intensely, especially these days, to make sure it's a really tight show. It's a bit like the Oscars or something like that.
[clip: Eurovision Finals 2026]
Presenter: Welcome to Vienna. This is the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2026.
Andrew: So there's the two presenters from the local country who introduce all of the acts, and then they introduce the voting, and they... they do little jokes and skits and bits that link it all together.
[clip: Presenter Europe joke]
Presenters: Welcome Europe!
Presenter: No, no no no no. Oh no for god sakes. Not Europe the band, Europe the continent!
Presenter: Oh that was embarrassing, we apologize.
Andrew: The way it's done is basically, all of the songs are performed, and then at the end, they go around all of the member nations and like "Calling, uh, London, give us your scores."
[clip: Call on Sweden]
Presenter: Now we're going over to Sweden. God kväll, Jakob!
Presenter: Good evening, Europe. Thank you so much Vienna for a hot and steamy show. Almost as hot as a sauna, oh yes.
Andrew: And the way it works is that each country gets to award 58 points. So you, it's kind of a strange system. You basically give a one to eight. So "One point goes to Belgium, two points goes to Great Britain," and so on, up to eight. Then you give one country 10 points, that's your second favourite, and the song you like best, you give 12 points.
[clip: Germany awards points]
Presenter: Our twelve points go to... Dramatic pause... Poland!
Andrew: So the idea is by the end, the song that gets the most points wins. And what's traditional is that the winning country gets to host it the next year if they want to.
Andrew: But let's hear the winning song from the 2023 competition, which was someone called Loreen, who has actually won twice. And she is Swedish.
Andrew: Uh, so this is called "Tattoo."
[clip: Loreen - Tatoo]
Grace: Once again, for four easy payments of \$19.99, you can get the full Andrew Anderson collection.
Andrew: So the song that does win will have hundreds of points, usually. For example, that Loreen, she had about 560 something points by the time the competition was done.
Andrew: But what are those scores? Who decides them? Back in the day, it was always judges. So you would have like a panel of experts, you know, maybe someone that works for like a licensing body, someone from a record agency, perhaps a famous composer. And what you would get a lot of the time is you would get some really strange decisions, and you would also get countries voting in blocs.
Paul Jordan: Countries do have voting tendencies and voting blocs, and that's been very well established: the Scandinavian bloc, the Eastern European bloc, the Mediterranean bloc. Eurovision voting has always been controversial. Certainly there's allegations of political voting, or cultural voting.
Andrew: This has led to a lot of tension in some situations.
Grace: Yeah, I bet.
Andrew: So one year, uh, Norway hosted it. And they were a little, the presenter was a little bit annoyed with how many points Sweden was giving them.
Norwegian Presenter: Will Sweden give us any points this year? Just a minute. Yes, just wait a minute Ulla, because I have to tell you something that the statistics show that over the years, we have given you Swedes 156 points, while you have given us only 82.
Swedish Representative: I see.
Norwegian Presenter: So you owe us.
Swedish Representative: Let's see if we can change that tonight.
Norwegian Presenter: Yes, because you owe us 76 points. So maybe we can get them tonight?
Swedish Representative: Right.
Grace: I love that it's, like, subject to, I don't want to say negotiation, but there's like a playful, like, banter that happens. I love that.
Andrew: The way they do it now is, 'cause they used to be all of those controversies, they now do a sort of mix of jury plus public vote.
Grace: Oh cool, okay.
Andrew: So, as you're watching along you can vote for which song you like the best.
[clip: People's vote]
Presenter: Always remember, the jury points are only half of the final result. The other half comes from your votes.
Paul Jordan: It's kind of really the first interactive show, if you like. And that really was, I think, before reality TV in the sense of what we know it now. It was an opportunity for the public to give their voice to choose their winner.
Andrew: And in countries where it's popular and it matters, it really matters. Like, you're a celebrity if you win.
Grace: Right.
Andrew: But not everyone is so lucky. And actually there's something that Eurovision is known for: a dreaded score, "nul poits." Zero points.
Grace: Nul points!
[sfx: Shock Horror A]
Andrew: This has actually become like a meme within culture to be like, "nul points." That's like, uh, something that's really bad is "nul points." It's really the worst thing that can happen to you, but on the other hand, it's surprisingly common: 41 songs since it started have not received a single point.
Andrew: Britain has had a really big run of nul points in the last like decade or so, we've had a few. But Norway has had the most, which is probably why they were asking Sweden for those points. They've... They've had four nul points.
Grace: Ugh!
Paul Jordan: But then there was a guy in 1978, and he got nul points for Norway.
[clip: Jahn Teigen - Mil etter mil]
Paul Jordan: And he ended up becoming kind of so notorious in the country, he actually relaunched his career, and he made kind of resurgence on the back of it. So I think for some, it can be devastating, but for others, you know, it's an opportunity to kind of become notorious.
Paul Jordan: Uh, the UK in 2003 got nul points and came last for the first ever time. So that was a big, big moment in the UK media.
Andrew: So here is a song by a band called Jemini from the UK. And this song was called "Cry Baby" that received nul points.
[clip: Jemini - Cry Baby]
Grace: I was ready to be forgiving, but I also would give that nul points.
Andrew: Nul points!
Grace: Nul points!
Dallas: I mean, I would listen to that at the beach.
Grace: Oh, okay.
Andrew: I'm not going to the beach with you then, Dallas. Um...
Dallas: I gotta be honest, I don't see the difference in that and what we heard that won, the... the like Europop stuff. I have no ear for it.
Andrew: I see what you're saying.
Dallas: So the Europop stuff, do people listen to it ironically? Or is it just, "Oh, this is just joy music..."
Andrew: It's just really great music to dance to. It's like joy music.
Dallas: Okay.
Andrew: And the difference, I guess, is that, like, that Gina G "Ooh Ahh" one, it's really hooky, and it, it gets into your brain. And it's got like a... even though it's very cheesy and simple. And so this is... a lot of the nul points ones are just a bit meh. It's not that there's anything inherently bad with them. It's just kind of like, doesn't really have anything to make it special.
Grace: Yeah.
Dallas: When it comes to that Europop music, why hasn't that like Europop sound... why has that not resonated with Americans?
Andrew: Hmm. Good question. I guess you have other genres that would have been around at the same time that would have just been taking up that space, like R&B, rap, which really wasn't so big in, like... you would get rap artists rapping over Eurobeat tracks. Like in the '90s, that tends to be a good format for doing the verses, but the rapping is very much of the like:
[music in: Hallman, Gamma Skies - Supernovas]
Andrew: "And you've got to move so fast and slow because you're dancing along. Hey, hey, let's all go now." It's very much like that style. So I think that's part of it...
Grace: And that's Bulgaria's entry into Eurovision.
Andrew: Exactly, I wish.
Andrew: Eurovision, in the '80s and '90s, it got really brutally cheesy. I think the low point was the 2000s for Eurovision. That was when it was like people spent more effort on the costumes and the gimmicks. It wasn't taken as seriously.
Andrew: As you can imagine that led to both good and bad moments. So here is a song that I just can't get my head around. So this is Lithuania's entry from 2000, and maybe this will give you some clue as to the kind of things that people like to write lyrics about.
[clip: LT United - We Are the Winners]
Grace: Wha!?
Dallas: That's Nana, Nana, boo, boo,
Dallas: Nana nana boo boo.
Andrew: They did a song called "We Are the Winners of Eurovision," and over the years there have been a bunch of songs called like "Nul Points" or like, "We're Going to Win" or like things like that.
Grace: Self-referential kind of meta...
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. So things have started to turn around again. For example, here's Lordi, they're from Finland. So this is their song that won in 2006.
[clip: Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah]
Dallas: It's a little Castlevania.
Grace: Yeah.
Andrew: We've not even got there yet.
Dallas: Ooh. Ooh, ooh!
Andrew: Hard rock hallelujah!
Dallas: Hard rock hallelujah?
Dallas: I have never heard this in my life.
Andrew: Ooh ah ooh, ooh yeah.
Andrew: So they all dressed as zombies, like corpses that have climbed back out of the ground.
Dallas: Oh.
Andrew: And when this was in Eurovision, this was one of the first times that it kind of hit national news, and people started paying attention to Eurovision again. Like, it really broke through that win, and people really loved it, and it's so over the top, and it's actually really fun.
Andrew: Umm, here's another one, this was a Ukrainian entry from a few years ago that... It's very catchy, this one, I really like it.
[clip: Verka Serduchka - Dancing Lasha Tumbai]
Grace: This is a vibe.
Dallas: Oh!
Andrew: (Singing)
Grace: This is so great.
Andrew: That's what Balkan music sounds like... or like Eastern European stuff. And uh, this like mixture of pop, punk, and folk is called Turbo Folk, and it's huge here.
Dallas: I am Eurovision tone deaf. So I... I may missed this. I don't know if you said this, but was that a "no points" or winner? 'Cuz I can't tell.
Andrew: These are... These are just... What I'm playing now is all of the stuff that kind of leaned into that, "Let's just make things as weird as possible," which sort of what the show became.
Dallas: Oh okay, okay. Whew.
Andrew: So here is a picture of Verka, that's the outfit he was wearing during the performance, and everyone else was dressed like this as well.
Dallas: That's playful. Imagine Elton even more sparkly.
Grace: I was just gonna say that! Yeah, wearing a star on his head, no less. Incredible.
Andrew: And Ukrainian playing like polka music, while at the same time singing in German.
Grace: Oh, that's so fun.
Dallas: Oh I like that. Respect.
Andrew: But then there's songs that are just truly nuts, and can almost be respected. I mean, if I was to tell you that jazz funk could be fused with rap, and the person performing it was called Rambo Amadeus. And yes, he is named after Rambo, that Rambo, and yes, he is named after Amadeus, that Amadeus. What... what would you have in mind? Maybe something a little bit like this.
[clip: Rambo Amadeus - Euro Neuro]
Dallas: Oh.
Andrew: Stop that climate change.
Andrew: Do you feel like children of the evolution?
Dallas: Gosh, that did put me in a musical part of my brain I don't think I've ever been in before, and I kind of liked it.
Andrew: So, I'm gonna first... This time, because they're such lovely people, I'm gonna send you a picture of the band first, so take a look at this picture.
Dallas: They... I don't know. They kind of look like they would make a really great soup.
Andrew: Yeah, they're called, they're basically called, like "The Singing Grannies," or, like, the grannies from like a particular part of Russia, and they...
Grace: They absolutely ferment cheese in a shed behind their house. That is so great.
Dallas: So to paint a picture, it looks like grandmothers in their maybe sixties and seventies, maybe even eighties plus...
Andrew: Some of them are in their eighties.
Dallas: ...for one or two in very traditional dresses and dress.
Andrew: Yeah, and those are costumes from the region they actually came from.
Andrew: Well let's hear them drop in some electronic groove.
Grace: No way.
[clip: Buranovskiye Babushki - Party for Everybody]
Dallas: What?
Grace: What!? Sorry, I'm not ready.
Andrew: Come on party with the grannies.
Grace: Obsessed.
Dallas: I would hang out. That sounds like a blast, these ladies.
Grace: Right? It sounds delightful.
Andrew: Okay, so we're almost at the end, now we're talking a little bit about winners. So in terms the famous acts that have won, obviously you knew ABBA, but there's one other that you would probably recognize. I'm gonna play you the song, and I'll see if you guess from her voice who it is that won, in, I think, 1988.
Grace: Ooh!
[clip: Celine Dion - Ne partez pas sans moi]
Dallas: Celine Dion?
Andrew: It is Celine Dion, Dallas.
Grace: Yes, nice!
Dallas: Nice.
Grace: Dallas did not skip a beat.
Andrew: She won for Switzerland. Her husband was Swiss.
Grace: So you can enter if you aren't...
Andrew: Yeah, you can... well, she would have had nationality, but you can also just basically import someone and have them do it for you.
Grace: No way! Oh wow.
Andrew: Yeah, that's not really... It's not really that strict about where you actually have to be from. One of the most famous winners was like a guy in his, he was in his fifties at the time he was from Aruba. Dave Benton was his name. He'd lived in the United States and became a US citizen at one point, and then he moved to Estonia because he married an Estonian, and then he won Eurovision for Estonia, the only time they've won. And he's like a national hero in Estonia.
[clip: Dave Benton - Everybody]
Grace: That's so cool.
Andrew: There's all kinds of stories like that. It probably depends on the country, but... I mean, you Americans, you'll relate to this, um... You always love having competitions where you're like, "Yeah, this is the World Series!" And no one else is allowed... allowed to take part."
Grace: True.
Andrew: So obviously I'm, I'm sure you imagine an American has won Eurovision. And you know what? You're absolutely right, because Katrina Leskanich... Uh, any ideas what band she might be in?
Grace: No.
Dallas: No.
Andrew: The clue was in the name.
[clip: Katrina and the Waves - Walking on Sunshine]
Dallas: Bump bump. Badda, badda, badda, badda.
Andrew: Oww!
Grace: No way. For real?
Grace: (Singing) That's a great song.
Andrew: So that's... that wasn't the Eurovision winner, but that's Katrina and the Waves. And they did win Eurovision.
Grace: No way!
Andrew: She's American, the rest of the band is English. And this is their song from a long time after "Walking on Sunshine," which is obviously like a... a bit of an early hit. This is from 1997, their song that actually did win.
[clip: Katrina and the Waves - Love Shine a Light]
Dallas: That keyboard sounds like the default preset.
Andrew: There's a lot of default preset keyboard sounds in Eurovision.
Dallas: [laughs]
[music in: Wesley Slover - Indigo Rainfall]
Dallas: Another question I have for you is, why should Americans, like, what do you hope Americans would get out of watching and learning about this European Super Bowl in music?
Andrew: I think there's... one of the things that I notice with some of the stereotypes that maybe Americans have about Europe is they tend to be quite serious ones, that the French are always sort of have this particular, like certain personality, or the Germans are a certain way, and it's quite serious stuff. And it... the way that we interact culturally tends to be, you know, when a big political situation arises in Europe, that's what you tend to hear about in America.
Andrew: And what I'm kind of hoping is that this shows that at the very core, Europeans are actually extremely silly. I don't know if you can stereotype an entire continent, but definitely pop culture tends to be sillier in Europe than it is in America. And there's a much more embracing of like, the ridiculousness of things. And... And things that can just be trashy and that it doesn't have to have any upside to it. It can just be trashy, and that's okay. There doesn't have be any more profound reason for it.
Andrew: I think maybe Americans aren't always as aware of that aspect of European culture. You think of the great classical music, the amazing painters, the architecture, and all of this old Europe stuff. But really it is just uh, silly songs, crazy outfits, and a good fun time.
Paul Jordan: What appeals to me about Eurovision is the idea of, you know, I'm there in the audience, or I'm sitting at home, but somehow, you know, someone's auntie is in Slovenia, someone's cousin's in Iceland, but they're all sitting down at that moment watching television. I think that's incredibly powerful. And I think we're actually really lucky in Europe to have this.
Andrew: It's kind of like a chance to catch up with your old friends and like see what people are doing. I think of it a little bit like a school trip, or like a summer camp, where you would all like go and meet up with loads of different people that you don't see for the rest the year. You kind of have like a reunion, you catch up, it's fun, there's a song, a dance, a drink, whatever. And then you go away, and then kind of forget all about it, and then reconvene again in a year.
Andrew: So I think that's kind of part of the love of it: getting together but without the weight of... You know, it's not like when there's a big international political conference, and it's all very serious, and we have to discuss these big issues.
Grace: Yeah.
Andrew: It's much lighter than that. And as a result, I think in some ways, it can be a little bit more honest, which is nice.
Dallas: It's like the opposite of politics, in a way.
Andrew: Yeah. It's very anti-politics for sure. I mean, there's countries that have issues going on, but people forget their differences when they see singing grandmas on stage, and when they see dancing penguins. It's kind of hard to be enemies when your guard is so down and everything is so silly and fun and carefree.
[music up, then under]
Now silly, fun, and carefree is the perfect way to describe Andrew Anderson. And we're very sad to share that Andrew recently passed away. He was a brilliant writer, a bold musician, and a wonderful friend. Most importantly, he was a loving husband and father. In every meeting we had over the years, he would gush about his wife and his young daughter, who we got to see grow up on Google Meet. We're all better people because we knew Andrew, and we will miss him dearly.
[music out]
Andrew: Well, thank you all so much for sharing, uh, Eurovision with me and I, I hope...
Grace: This was a delight.
Andrew: I think I can officially call you honorary European citizens for the next 24 hours until the effect wears off.
Grace: Ugh, I'll wait for my passport in the mail, please.
Andrew: Use it wisely.
Grace: [laughs]
[silence]
