Francesco Gabbani is going to be this year’s Italian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv with his song Occidentali’s Karma, after winning the Sanremo Music Festival in February. The video clip of the entry which was released in VEVO has a 3:37 minute length. However, according to the rules of the contest each competing song cannot last more than 3 minutes.

A few moments ago, the official Eurovision Song Contest channel in YouTube released the Eurovision version of the Italian song, where a part of 37 seconds has been cut from the previous version.

Here you can watch and listen to the Italian entry in its Eurovision 3 minute version:

About Francesco and his song

Gabbani released his first album Greitist Iz in 2013. He was a competitor in the newcomers version of the Sanremo Music Festival 2016 with the song Amen, with which was the winner the competition. The song also won the Mia Martini Critics Award. Amen was released in 2016 as the lead single from his second album Eternamente ora, which was certified platinum in Italy.

Occidentali’s Karma (in Latin: Western Karma) is a song which talks about people who want to take Eastern cultures and to “westernize” them. In the song there are references to Eastern religions, such as Buddha and Nirvana and man’s evolution from the ape. With that song, Francesco wants to show how much the society desires to satisfy both its spirituality and appearing. The writers are its singer Francesco Gabbani,as well as Filippo Gabbani, Fabio Ilacqua and Luca Chiaravalli.

Francesco Gabbani is leading all the betting odds as of today and is the hot favourite to take the trophy back in Italy.

Italy, as a part of the Big 5, will automatically compete in the Eurovision Song Contest final on 13 May. The 62nd Eurovision Song Contest is going to take place at the IEC in Kyiv, Ukraine.