Eurovision 2019 spotlight: Denmark's Leonora with "Love Is Forever"...
Last year Denmark brought the "Eurovision" to Eurovision with their viking epic "Higher Ground" by singer Rasmussen. With a live performance that wowed the audience, he ended up in ninth place with a huge chunk of the televote (5th place there)...
It had everything we wanted in a "Eurovision" song, costumes, harmonies, characters, and flags! So when I started watching this year's national final in the country, called Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2019, I was hoping for something that would give me that sense of excitement. And I did. And it didn't win. Out of ten entries whittled down to three in a "superfinal" that was decided by televote and a music "jury". One of those three entries was from "Julie & Nina", two singers of Greenlandic heritage that performed the uplifting "League Of Light", which included part language of that northern island...
Amazing, no? Accessible, powerful, and the incorporation of the Greenlandic language made it all the stronger. Well, in the "superfinal", where Julie & Nina got 43% of the public vote, another song got 48% of the jury vote, and with the crazy math edged out "League Of Light". What strong submission could have wooed the jury "experts", you may ask? Well, this.
Denmark - "Love Is Forever" by Leonora
Leonora Jepsen, from the capital and biggest city in the country, Copenhagen, started out as a competitive ice skater, winning national awards alone and with her brother. Her skating is included in the music video for the song that won Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, "Love Is Forever". It's written by Lise Cabble (who wrote Eurovision winner "Only Teardrops"), songwriter Melanie Wehbe, and producer Emil Rosendal Lei. Why this oversimplistic throwback needed three writers is the first conundrum. The song could've been written and released in the twenties, as in 1920s. With a child sing-a-long style melody dusted with weird phrases like "Don't get too political" and "Learning our history, but still, we don't take it in". Then instead of us being treated to Greenlandic, Leonora starts cooing nonsense in French and Danish before the "Love Is Forever" chorus that repeats ad nauseum...
And that chair. While looking like one of the children of the corn grew up. But seriously, this song is so rote and overfamiliar that it is just a crime (like Romania from yesterday) that a public vote was negated for this. It succeeds in being oversweet and bitter at the same time in the lyrics, and the plucky string background is just annoying. This is one where I know it's most likely going to make the finals, since Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and Ireland, the country's most reliable source of votes, all are in the same semi. But really, it shouldn't, and I admit I'll be annoyed for the one song at 11th place that will be robbed its chance for this cereal milk. (Rating: 1/10)
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Denmark has been competing in Eurovision since its second year in 1957. It was the first Scandinavian country to take part, and the first to win the contest, which they have done three times so far. The first came in 1963, when married couple Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann made history by becoming the first duo to win the competition, which they did with "Dansevise" ("Dancing Tune"). Two years prior, Jørgen had a top ten pop hit in America with "Apache"...
In 2000, the Olsen Brothers claimed the prize with the folk-pop love song "Fly On The Wings Of Love"...
Emmelie De Forest was the third act to win the contest for Denmark in 2014 with "Only Teardrops"...
As for my personal favorite, that would be in 2017, when Anja Nissen placed in 20th with her stellar ballad "Where I Am". Fun fact: Anja would win The Voice Australia in 2014...
On the other hand, in 2007 the country sent Peter Andersen, aka "DQ", a drag performer, with the song "Drama Queen", which came in 19th in the semi-finals...
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