Phil’s Eurovision Countdown – Part 4/37 – Austria

Austria – Teya and Salena – Who the hell is Edgar?

When a now, thankfully, defunct twitter account (Who might be ORF) “leaked” 15 seconds of this my heart both skipped a beat and sank at the same time. I’m still mentally scarred by Pia Maria ruining a song for Austria last year, I couldn’t cope if that was to happen for a second year in a row. For a good couple of weeks all I had in my head was “ POE POE” when I heard that snippet and thought “this is going to be car crash”.

It might still *be* that but by god the sum of its parts is considerably more than I ever expected. Officially what you have is a critique of the music business – Fast Food music if you want to borrow the phrase from Salvador – with the girls complaining that music is written too quickly and the artistes get little or no residuals from streaming services. All very Austria 1977, I think you historians would agree. However its brought bang up to date with a banging backbeat and lyrics which are clearly a breed apart from anything that is in the contest this year. “There is a ghost in my body, and he is a lyricist, It is Edgar Allen Poe, and I think he can’t resist”. Those first two likes after the introduction give you all you need to know about this song. There is also a hidden but very sexy guitar lick between the first half and the second half of the first verse as well. The second verse is equally as good, shoehorning in Exorcist and Shakespeare in the same couplet. Basically after 70 seconds, that’s the song. The remaining 2 minutes consist of what I expect to be a dance break and a middle eight telling you they wont get paid and only get 0.003 cents per stream but it pays to be funny.

By then, though, the damage has been done and if you are not saying “ Poe, Poe, Edgar Allen Poe” and dancing at this point, you have no idea what this contest is all about. This has all the hallmarks of car crash television waiting to happen and yet…. It has this something that just makes you smile. This will be on Prime time BBC 1 in the UK – they wont know what to make of it. I do, it’s genius.

Phil’s score – 12 Points.