Anthem - Intellect
Anthem - Intellect
Anthem - Intellect
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<strong>Anthem</strong><br />
depiction of expanded and intensified European integration. Other topical Europe<br />
songs have also competed in the ESC’s national qualification competitions as well as<br />
in the ESC semifinals. Let me just mention two interesting examples.<br />
In the 2008 Swedish finals the ESC included a hit by the popular dance music<br />
veteran Christer Sjögren, ‘I Love Europe’, composed by Torgny Söderberg and Magnus<br />
Johansson, with lyrics in English by the veteran Swedish hit author Ingela ‘Pling’<br />
Forsman. The song title is a melodic hook that is insistently repeated, often by the<br />
female chorus in a call-and-response fashion. The song is like a glimmering pastiche<br />
or parody of traditional German-Austrian Schlager, and the visual performance is<br />
full of kitschy elements, starting with the flirting interplay between Sjögren (dressed<br />
in black suit with dark blue shirt), the camera and the can-can choir-dance girls with<br />
small hats who generously lift their blue skirts and happily dance around the singer<br />
(Figure 7.6). Sjögren has a deep and warm masculine voice that contrasts with the<br />
almost metallic voice of female background singers who remind somewhat of the<br />
ABBA sound. Metallic carillon shimmers reminding of Christmas seem to place the<br />
tune in the north, but the rhythms of an acoustic guitar and a shining trumpet instead<br />
add a sunny Spanish spice to the mix, illustrating the love of Europe ‘from the sun in<br />
the south to the ice in the north’. The trumpeter is a bald musician in white suit that<br />
contrasts Sjögren’s dark colours, and he also adds several funny gestures to illustrate<br />
turning points in the music. At a key moment when there is an upward chord lift<br />
(in fact the second one in this), the women fold their skirts and magically transform<br />
them into a mix of European flags, completing the symbolism in a combined verbal,<br />
musical and visual climactic moment of ecstacy. The words speak of dancing and<br />
romancing in an enchanted Europe where ‘a party’s going on, and we are invited’.<br />
Being together is what creates the excitement, and it is fun to hear the EU described<br />
in so enthusiastic terms:<br />
This is magic! C’est magnifique!<br />
And all our people are together<br />
Ciao! Buenos dias! Que tal? Wie geht es dir?<br />
In Paris or in Rome, the same good vibration<br />
It’s just like coming home, in all of our nations<br />
I feel it all around, this groovy sensation<br />
I love Europe, we’re a part of one big family<br />
Yes, this is the place for you and me, we’re a part of one big family<br />
Again, only ‘old’ West Europe is mentioned, in a touristic approach that had obviously<br />
already become a strong but also somewhat outmoded tradition, as it did not manage<br />
to even get a chance to represent Sweden internationally that year. This comically naive<br />
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