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Eurovision Insight Podcast: Eurovision Castaways, with Samantha Ross Written by on September 29, 2017 | 2 Comments

Île de Bezençon… an island where all you can bring is eight Eurovision songs and a luxury, if you can get them over the border. As the autumn leaves arrive, Samantha Ross is the island’s next visitor on Eurovision Castaways, ESC Insight’s newest podcast series. Add the RSS Feed to your favourite podcast application, or click here to follow us in iTunes and keep up to date with Eurovision as the new season unfolds.

Ellie Chalkley is behind the customs desk as Sam remembers how she found and fell in love with Eurovision from the USA and how her Eurovision journey has taken her to the heart of the contest. There’s also a revelation about the identity of the bar staff on our magical Île, for fans of the growing Bezençon mythos.

Eurovision Insight Podcast: Eurovision Castaways, with Samantha Ross

The ESC Insight crew are off to Île de Bezençon for the summer with their favourite Eurovision related songs and stories. ESC Insight alumnus Samantha Ross has a particularly tough time getting her records past Ellie Chalkley’s custom desk, but we discover Sam’s predilection for vexillology and scruffy jazz singers.

Keep listening to the ESC Insight podcast as the new season gathers pace for more Eurovision news, fun, and chat. You’ll find the show in iTunes, and a direct RSS feed is also available. We also have a regular email newsletter which you can sign up to here.

About The Author: Ellie Chalkley

Ellie Chalkley is an all-round music, media and culture enthusiast and citizen of the internet. As an overly analytical pop fan and general knowledge hoarder she finds the Eurovision Song Contest bubble to be her natural home. She comments gnomically and statistically on Eurovision matters at @ellie_made.

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2 responses to “Eurovision Insight Podcast: Eurovision Castaways, with Samantha Ross”

  1. A note re: Minn Hinsti Dans

    It was only after the podcast went out that it was pointed out to me that while Pall Oskar’s song is presented in an eye-catchingly sensual way, the lyrical content focuses on a rock star suicide attempt. I take mental health really seriously, so I can’t do anything now but apologise for having left my research on this item incomplete by focusing on the visuals and not looking at the lyrics.

    Like Sam says in the show, this is a multi-layered, complex song with more to it than first meets the eye. I also feel like Pall Oskar is laughing at me for having fallen into his deliberate semiotic trap more than 20 years after he laid it.

    So, in summary:
    a) I’m a bad fan and will try to do better
    b) Iceland need to send more songs in Icelandic so that we can be wrong-footed and discomfited more often.

    And also, if you’re hurting, reach out to someone. More people than you think have felt just how you’re feeling now.

  2. Martin says:

    Blimey, a tannoy now – you got a decent duty-free? And Sam, don’t talk about Oceanic flights – it means you’re in Limbo! Maybe we all are in a Eurovision sort of way…

    Wonderfully eclectic selection here – I’d be surprised if anyone else would have selected some of these entries! Apart from the 2017 ones – I can totally understand your love of “Beautiful Mess”…

    Educational stuff too from you Ellie – I’d never looked at the lyrics of “Minn hinsti dans” before either, powerful stuff that if sung in English would have given that impact and got everyone thinking. And after that choice we get the gold standard Yé-yé of Frances Gall, another entry with so many levels of unseemingly complexity.

    I like the ‘there is no correct Eurovision fan’ too – that can be our version of ‘everybody is somebody else’s weirdo’!

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