Eurovision Countdown 2025: Poland is a pagan rave

Poland
Justyna Steczkowska – Gaja

Poland’s brought out the big guns this year. And by “big guns,” we mean Justyna Steczkowska—Eurovision veteran, reality TV mentor, high priestess of mystical camp, and someone who’s apparently won every Polish music award available without once bothering to take off her heels. Thirty years after her first Eurovision appearance with Sama, she’s back, and she’s brought an entire pagan rave with her.

Gaja opens like a spell is being cast—moody, minor-key, hushed incantations—and then suddenly we’re off to the races with a full-throttle club chorus, the kind that demands bare-chested men in leather harnesses writhe around in a fog of dry ice. Justyna obliges. The preview performance is drenched in that familiar Eurovision gothic: a bit of fiddle-tickling, a lot of long-note holding, and enough dramatic gesturing to summon a small weather system.

It’s all very Eurovision Trick Box Deluxe Edition: ethnic wails, airborne symbolism (yes, there is flying), throaty declarations about nature or womanhood or something equally hard to subtitle, and that unavoidable mid-song slow-down before the tempo ramps back up and everyone starts pointing at the camera. There’s a definite sense that someone at TVP gave the stage director access to all of Poland’s Eurovision budget from the last ten years and said “go wild.”

Musically, it’s not doing anything we haven’t heard before—but it does it with conviction. Justyna’s vocals do wobble a little in places (there’s a distinct “airborne while belting” moment that sounds like it was recorded mid-parachute descent), but she’s a commanding presence, and the sheer theatrical weight of it all might carry her through.

There’s something admirable about a woman who, after 3,000 concerts, 19 albums, and one Eurovision footnote from the 90s, still feels like she has something to prove. She might not win, but she’ll absolutely leave a mark on the stage. Possibly one that’s hard to get off without a specialist cleaner.

5 points