The third esctoday.com TOP TEN list continues today with the places 5 and 4 being announced. As announced on Saturday, this week's topic are the TOP TEN bizarre cover versions of Eurovision entries.
All kinds of cover versions could be submitted. The ranking is purely subjective this week as a special exception and because of the high number of suggestions, we do not just rank ten single cover versions but ten groups of cover versions.
Sadly, we cannot feature all cover versions that were submitted. Nevertheless, we promise to feature those that did not make the top ten in the round-up article on Saturday. Anyway, we want to thank everybody who took part in creating the list.
So we continue…
No. 5 – International cover versions of more recent entries
Many of the cover versions we have presented so far were cover versions of Eurovision classics. Number five is dedicated to international cover versions of Eurovision entries of the last ten years, that either feature lyrics in a different language or a local music style.
Duo Edy Talent & Malina recorded a Romanian version of the 2009 Turkish entry Düm tek tek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84X6LW-kIy4
The next example is actually a cover version of a Junior Eurovision Song Contest entry, but it is just too bizarre not to be mentioned here. Mexican group Los Horoscopos de Durango recorded a cover version of the 2004 winner Antes muerta que sincilla transferring it into a "duranguese" country-folk kind of music style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96hDpZiWP_4
The winner of the Big one 2004 also received a remarkable international cover version as a Vietnamese singer recorded the song Wild dances in her native language. Some lines still stayed almost the same as "Shi-di-ri-duy, shi-di-ri-da-da" obviously happens to have the exact same meaning in English, Ukrainian and Vietnamese:
The 2009 winning song Fairytale was covered in Arabic. Although the vocal style might be unusual to "Western" ears, the cover version is not too bizarre per se. However, it is quite remarkable how well the new version matches the original MGP video with Alexander Rybak singing the song in English:
Many thanks to BG Fan, Paschalis and Ruben Rangel Ramirez for their contributions.
No. 4 – Parodies of winning entries
There are many parodies of Eurovision Song Contest winning songs and many of them feature new lyrics that make fun of the contest in general. Others just make fun of the song itself.
German comedy duo Dennis & Jesko presented a cover version of the formerly only German winning song Ein bißchen Frieden. The lyrics complain about Germany not getting any votes anymore and Eastern Europe getting all the attention. Of course, at the time the parody was made, nobdy had expected that the country would win in the near future:
12 Punkte Serbien, 10 Ukraine, noch 8 für Moldau, für Deutschland keine! Nur mit Musik ist da nichts zu machen. Wir sollten da wieder einmarschier'n! |
12 points Serbia, 10 Ukraine, another 8 for Moldova, for Germany none! Nothing can be done with music only. We should march in there again! |
One of the most classic UK parodies of a winning song was recorded by Northern English comedian Bob Williamsson. He turned the 1976 winner Save your kisses for me into Kippers for tea:
Two-times Cypriot Eurovision Song contest representative (and backing performer on various occasions) Alex Panayi recorded a parody of the 1994 Irish winning song Rock 'n' roll kids under the title ESC kids:
Other notable parodies, of which we unfortunately could not find footage online, include:
- Viva Vagina by Rally, a proady of 1998 winner Diva
- Merci chérie, a parody of the 1966 winner in French by Dominique Petitgrand
- Boom bang-a-bang, a parody of one of the 1969 winners by Prima Vera
- De troubadour, a parody of another 1969 winner by De Apres-Ski-Hut
Many thanks to Alexander Klein, David Birch and Chris Salonika for their contributions.
Tomorrow, we will introduce the numbers 3 and 2 on the list.