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Deslocado by NAPA
I have a soft spot for Portugal in Eurovision and have been to the Festival da Canção a couple of times. The first time I ever travelled to the country it took me less than 24 hours to fully understand why they hadn’t, at that time, ever won Eurovision. There’s just a slightly different feel to the whole national mentality, on mainland Europe’s westernmost edge, and it’s because they tend to do their own thing that I love their Eurovision contribution so much. Mostly. It’s not always a hit. This is one of those years.
I missed the final. I was in Bangkok and a 4am start was too much for me, even though I’d stayed up to watch the final of Melodifestivalen before it. I was surprised then the following day as I couldn’t place the winning song at all, despite having seen both semi-finals and made notes on them. I had to check back, and discovered I must have lost concentration whilst NAPA were on as my notes said merely “can’t remember” and I must have felt the song was so inconsequential I needn’t bother going back to watch it again.
The song talks about the homesickness of being displaced from where you belong. In this case it’s Madeira, as the band live in mainland Portugal. As you might expect there’s saudade – the Portuguese sense of longing for something missed – aplenty, saudade acumulado, no less, pent up saudade. The saudade is bursting at the seams. If they’re feeling this much saudade for Madeira, you have to wonder why they want to head 1,000 miles further away from it by going to Basel.
Analysing the Festival da Canção results shows this got a boost from the Madeiran jury, and possible from the Madeiran diaspora too. It may also have polled strongly as a vote against a strong televote favourite which was really just a lot of screaming noise. However it all added up NAPA emerged the winner, but I think it’s the only victory they’re likely to see. I can’t see this getting out of its semi-final.
My marks: 1 point
Photo: Lucas Coelho/EBU