Slovenia – Klemen – How Much Time Do We Have Left

This year, we have a trio of what might be classified as “cancer” songs, in which the singer was inspired to write and perform the song in response to a loved one’s experience with cancer. The first of these was Kyle Alessandro’s Lighter, which takes a broad interpretation of ‘inspired by‘. The second is How Much Time Do We Have Left by Slovenia’s Klemen Slakonja, a man best known for his comedic impressions. With an acting background, Klemen is able to play serious, but he can’t hold it for long. Take, for example, his version of Arcade that he performed when hosting Slovenia’s National Final in 2020:

So when Klemen entered EMA this year with the song How Much Time Do We Have Left, many of us were surprised. It seems that the guy known for his comedy had brought a heartfelt ballad about his wife’s cancer diagnosis and recovery.

And as cancer ballads go, I think this one starts off in a deeply moving way, with Klemen bringing in specific small details from the day his wife received her diagnosis. But the song then takes a turn into more tropey language:

I admire your power, I admire your will
You made me question the world
Made me question what’s real
I admire your power, I admire your will
Your ability to heal
Oh, I admire your power, I admire your will
The way you never gave up until you grew wings
And you learned how to fly, made a loop in the sky
You landed right into my arms

This bridge is really unclear – when I first heard the song, I though Klemen was saying that his wife had died and returned to him as an angel. (She hadn’t. She’s thankfully alive and appears with him in the video above.)

But secondly, we have the lyric “I admire your power, I admire your will, your ability to heal.” Now, everyone has the right to have and express an emotional reaction to their loved ones dealing with cancer. But language like this suggest that Klemen’s wife was cured of her rare cancer because she was more determined than other patients.

As Daniel Menaker writes in an op-ed for the New York Times, decrying the use of terms like “fight” and “war” to describe dealing with cancer:

[Cancer patients and doctors] say that putting the experience into martial terms means that those who die are by definition, at least figuratively, losers. Not just of their lives — as if their lives weren’t enough — but of personal wars. That they gave up.

I am very glad that Klemen’s wife – Mojca Fatur, a famous Slovenian actor in her own right – recovered, and seems to be doing well. I just wish that Klemen had found different ways to describe it.

(Perhaps I’m a little sensitive to this because I’ve looked up the story behind this song, and the type of cancer Fatur had is the type of cancer that one of my close relatives died from. It was most likely caused by the chemotherapy she had to treat another type of cancer. I can’t be too sad about that, because we had many good years with her after the first round of cancer. However, that’s something that cancer songs never seem to discuss – the aftereffects of the disease itself, and how it impacts one’s health even if you do “win the war” against it.)

Aside from what are possibly personal quibbles around the lyrics of the song, I am also worried that Klemen hasn’t found a way to perform this live which doesn’t make the song about him. I included the music video above because it’s one in which Fatur appears prominently, reflecting her role in the story, but this is how Klemen staged the song at EMA:

Yes, that’s right:

Klemen felt the need to perform a stunt where he was singing upside down because? I can’t figure out what this adds to the song. What it does do is bring attention to Klemen for doing something kooky and unexpected in a ballad.

The problem is that the ballad should stand on its own. It’s a touching story. It’s performed well. It doesn’t need anything extra. So why throw in a trick for applause from the audience, especially when it detracts from listening to the lyrics?

I don’t know whether Klemen doesn’t have confidence in his song or his performance, or his ability to connect with the audience without doing something gimmicky, but it’s disappointing. The song can stand on its own, and I hope Klemen realises this before May.

As a final note, there’s a lot of other controversy going on with Klemen this year, because after his win, he released a video where he impersonated all the winners of Eurovision in the 21st century. To give you a sense of a video where he’s done this well, let me once again show you something he did from his stint hosting the Slovenian National Final in 2020:

Now why am I not showing you the similar type of video he made for the Eurovision winners? Because Klemen did blackface. In 2025. And I don’t care if it’s Europe, and I and I don’t care if people say that Slovenia doesn’t have the history of colonisation and racial animosity the way America does. Blackface is racist. Enough people have been asking the producers of the singing show Your Face Seems Familiar to stop using blackface to make this a known issue in Europe – including in Slovenia’s neighbour Croatia, as outlined in this excellent article by Catherine Baker.

TL:DR – How Much Time Do We Have Left is a song that could be incredibly moving, but keeps getting hindered by the worst instincts of its own singer.