It is difficult to watch a loved one suffer with cancer. Beyond the initial period of diagnosis and treatment with chemotherapy and radiation, the person with cancer often experiences aftereffects for years. This is a Eurovision blog, not a personal blog, but I’ve dealt with this, trying to be helpful from afar with a flurry of practical planning, looking into things like temporary wheelchair hires and dry shampoo and things that could help.
In those days when I was poring over the pages of Amazon for new-to-me medical supplies, I never once thought about pouring out my pain into violin-tinged dance track that I could perform in a full suit of chain mail.
But that’s what Kyle Alessandro did. He was inspired to write his 2025 Eurovision entry Lighter about his mother’s recent battle with cancer.
She’s recovered now, thankfully, and people react to bad news in different ways. And if one is looking at the inspirational content of the chorus:
I feel a spark inside me, I don’t need savin’
‘Cause I’m my own, I’m my own lighter
Claiming inspiration from his mother’s cancer battle sort of makes sense. Alessandro might be talking about how what he went through with his mother’s illness was so awful that nothing else could be as bad in comparison.
However, the first verse of the song is:
Golden girl dressed in ice, a heart as dark as night
You got me to dim my light, no more
I really think I bought your lies
You kept me hooked on your line, no more
So the whole song is actually a breakup kissoff song?
Look, Alessandro comes from the Norweigian boy band Umami Tsunami, who made a bid for Eurovision back in 2023 with the song Geronimo. Aside from all the appropriation, the song was a stone cold banger.
We know that Alessando can craft a song that’s going to get people out onto the dance floor, and I think that Lighter is a worthy follow up to Geronimo in terms of beats.
But in terms of lyrical messaging and selling the song to the public, I feel like there’s work that needs to be done. It’s a leap from “my mom’s cancer experience led me to write a lyric about being your own inspiration” to “I’m dressed like a knight who’s just experienced a bad breakup on stage.”
I understand that most people will be experiencing this song for the first time on the Eurovision stage, and won’t know anything about Alessandro or the background of the song. They’re going to see someone dressed in chain mail playing with fire doing a lot of dance breaks and think that it’s cool or not.
But the best Eurovision songs are the ones with an element of authenticity to them, and Alessandro seems to be giving us faux authenticity – telling us a sad anecdote about his mother to seem relatable. And it momentarily worked on me – I too had a mother who went through a cancer battle and felt a moment of empathy!
However, when that authenticity isn’t easily recognisable in the song – when it’s buried under what seems like a breakup anthem – Alessandro risks squandering the goodwill he’s created with the audience. We feel like the cancer story was shoehorned in to make him seem more relatable. That seems like an awful criticism to make, but at this point, I’d rather he just say something like, “I’m so glad my mother, who recovered from cancer, is alive to see me bring my song Lighter to the Eurovision Song Contest.” Doing so gives him a moment of relatability without trying to make us figure out how his dance breaks are inspired by a cancer diagnosis. His song is strong enough to stand on its own, and I wish he realised that.
As a final note, is Norway buying advertising on YouTube? I know how algorithms work, so I’m not surprised to see Eurovision songs autoplay after I finish watching on. But what does surprise me is how often it’s Lighter, no matter what else I’m watching.
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