I used to believe that Denmark was bad at Eurovision because it regularly ranked as the happiest country on earth. It takes some angst to make good music. Without it, you get stuff like Love Is Forever. But then Fyr og Flamme entered Eurovision 2021, and Finland got ranked the happiest country on earth, and my hypothesis crumbled to shreds.
So what does that mean for Sand, this year’s song from Denmark? Well, I don’t know.
That’s not me being coy. I honestly don’t know.
You see, when Sand comes on my Eurovision playlist, I enjoy the experience. At a club, I find it fun to sing along to. There’s something cathartic about screaming the words “SAND! SA-AH-AND!” at the top of one’s lungs. It’s not my favourite song of the year, but I like it! But when I start to think about Sand and its components (no, not quartz and igneous rock), the whole song tends to fall apart.
I do want to acknowledge its singer, SABA, however. In what is an increasing rarity in Eurovision these days, she was a voice matched with a pre-written song, rather than a performer who had a hand in creating the entry. Despite having the barest of stagings – a riser and some fingerless gloves – SABA sells the emotion of the song in a way that almost made me forget about the lyrics.
But just like a castle built of sand, this song falls apart with the slightest prodding. The first thing I can’t figure out is the tone. It’s a breakup song, and yet it’s matched with a relentlessly upbeat chorus of “woo-ooos.” Based on the tone of the music, SABA should be experiencing some sort of epiphany or empowerment, but instead, she’s still very much in breakup mourning phase. Now, maybe this is a thing we should be celebrating. The relationship could have been awful but comfortable, and SABA’s now finally free to pursue something new. But the focus is on how the whole thing is fragile like sand. It just seems weirdly happy at the wrong time.
I also feel like the lyrics – written by three songwriters – are an example of why songwriting collaborations sometimes need a little more work to cover the joins. The first half of the song is full of very specific imagery from a fight; the second half of the song is full of very specific imagery from a beach vacation. Now, both of these could have come from one person – couples fight on beaches all the time – but it seems like one person wrote the first half, one person wrote the second half, and the third person came in with the ooh-oohs as a connecting feature that just did not work.
If I pay attention to it, I don’t think Sand is a good song. If I just let it flow over me as part of a playlist experience, I think Sand is a good song. To be honest, I think viewers on the night are just going to be left remembering the five second snippet of SABA belting the aural equivalent of this:
dudepoints.fun 