If music is art, and art is subjective, can you make a black-and-white ruling on the eligibility of a song for the Eurovision Song Contest?
The EBU states in the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest that it is an apolitical event where political statements and actions are not allowed. The new Code of Conduct is even more explicit; the Song Contest must not be instrumentalised. But how can you rule if a song is political when any artistic message is subjective and open to interpretation?
The Matter Of Intent
How art is discussed is a deep and complex subject, which will forever spark the academic world over interpretations or creative works. To simplify this, there are two broad theories: Authorial Intent and Reader Response.
Reader Response views the text as wholly separate from the author once published, with the importance of the art existing in the experience of the reader consuming the text. That reaction is likely unique and cannot be guided by any consideration or decision made by the author. It can be highly circumstantial, with the environment around the art contributing to the response.
There is no subjective measure here. What the art makes you feel is what the art is about, irrespective of the author’s intentions.
The Stockholm Green Room (EBU/Andreas Putting)
Authorial Intent is the other end of the scale, where only one interpretation of the art is correct, and that interpretation belongs to the author. This places a constraint on those studying the art and pushes critical discussion toward the feelings and emotions that the author wishes to convey. Anything that was not considered by the author cannot be considered when critiquing the work.
Naturally, there are variations between these two points; information present in the text can be included alongside the author’s initial intent, a response that the author expected to happen, and a disregard of extreme viewpoints that ignore key points in the text can all be used. However, there will always be a discussion preponderance that leans to the Author or the Reader.
The EBU’s Interpretation
Which approach is usable when organising the Eurovision Song Contest? How can the EBU decide what a song is about and if it breaks any criteria?
It’s clear that a personal interpretation of a song will be impossible for a large organisation to accept. Even within a small circle of people discussing a song, there will likely be different individual interpretations. Start widening the circle into something approaching a small steering committee, and you can begin to see how difficult it can be to agree on a single official interpretation of a song.
With its ten members, the Eurovision Song Contest’s Reference Group is one such committee. It carries the burden of deciding the nature of every song submitted to the Song Contest. Is it political in nature, does it instrumentalise the Contest, does it use the Contest to make a statement, is it derogatory, is it inflammatory, is it intimidating? These are all questions that need to be answered when considering an entry.
EBU Headquarters in Geneva (Image: EBU)
Practically, the Reference Group cannot rely on Reader Response. The decisions required and the conclusions reached would be highly subjective. That’s before you bring in the production team for the show, the various delegations, and the broadcasters. They all have their individual viewpoints on what a song is obviously about, and these viewpoints are not guaranteed to be similar.
Reader Response is messy, awkward, and neither scales through the layers of management involved in the Song Contest, nor can it be clearly defined through a legal flowchart of considerations and decisions to arrive at a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
If you need a definitive and repeatable process, then Authorial Intent is the appropriate tool for analysis for Eurovision: What is this song about? Let’s ask the songwriter what their intent was, what they were trying to express, and what the song is ultimately about. With that definition of intent in hand, it is possible to cleanly answer if a song is suitable for the contest.
If the songwriters say it was written to be suitable, then it’s suitable.
The Grey Area Of Decisions
You can probably see a loophole, especially if a titular “bad actor” tries to get a specific message around the rulebook and onto the stage. As long as they say that the song is built around an alternative message and that is the one they were writing about, then a strict reading of Authorial Intent means this is the interpretation the song must carry through the assessment process.
There is, of course, the small matter of using common sense to balance this out.
The Eurovision Song Contest is not an Ivory Tower of academic rigour or definition. If a song and delegation are egregious in pushing the rules, I would hope that there is sufficient moxie to push back on such actions. Yet the debate would need to remain within strictly defined boundaries. I think that means the EBU will be using a form of ‘Moderate Intentionalism’, where the intent of the author is the primary view, yet the emotional response it creates in the reader will be considered.
Historical Intent At Eurovision
Let’s look at some Eurovision songs with tensions between Authorial Intent and Reader Response. Ask yourself how these songs could be judged by the Steering Group and which approach was more likely.
Ukraine’s winning entry in 2016, Jamala’s ‘1944‘ sings about the persecution of the Crimean Tatars by Joseph Stalin, and Jamala said it acted as a musical memorial to her grandparents who were caught in these actions. It also took place under the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014.
Teapacks’ ‘Push The Button‘ in 2007 depicted a world full of terror with crazy rulers with nobody willing to recognise what was happening, and if that was the case, they (switching to “he”and “I’m” in subsequent choruses) would push the button. Their entry came at the same time as a belligerent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the expansion of Iran’s nuclear programme. Yet Teapacks denied they were singing about Iran’s president. How could they, it was argued, when no countries, continents, or individuals were mentioned?
Going back to 1961, Luxembourg’s ‘Nous Les Amoureux‘ saw Jean-Claude Pascal sing about two lovers who were constantly pulled apart, unable to find love, but they would overcome the challenges. The path of true love was a popular trope in Eurovision at this time, rooted as it was in the Chanson style. In later years, Pascal would confirm his intent that the song was about a homosexual relationship and how it had to be hidden away. While his Authorial Intent is evident today, Pascal did not indicate this intent at the time. A close reading of the text will associate the challenges faced as those faced by countless LGBTQ+ relationships in the sixties, but this was not a reading the EBU acted on.
Intent For Basel
As we wait for the final Super Saturday of National Selections, a handful of Internal Selections to be published, and the subsequent confirmation of this year’s thirty-seven songs by the Reference Group, a handful of songs are pushing the limits of critical analysis.
Malta’s Miriana Conte has stated that ‘Kant’ is a celebration of song, and kant itself is the Maltese word for singing. It starts with a tribute to ‘The Sound Of Music’ and is using the song to teach children that they must be the ones to lead their own life; any connection to the popular expression of strong self-confidence in queer and drag culture is incidental.
Reports by the Maltese broadcaster PBS on Wednesday, March 5, suggest the EBU has asked for the lyric to be removed. PBS sources believe this was due to a complaint from another participating broadcaster.
According to singer Go-Jo, Australia’s ‘Milkshake Man‘ is a call to action for people to “embrace the loudest and proudest version of themselves” and inspire them to greater feats of self-expression. Although some of its lyrics explicitly state, “the shake is not a drink/it’s a state of mind’, Go-Jo has also recorded a TikTok video where he teases viewers looking for authorial intent.
Erika Vikman’s ‘Ich Komme‘ has the cleanest approach. It has been clearly stated that the song is about pleasure, ecstasy and trance states, with achieving sexual pleasure reflected in the song’s structure. Her performance of the song at the Finnish National Final simply featured Erika on stage with microphone stand props, letting the text stand alone.
No doubt there will be other challenges to address in the final batch of songs published in the next week.
When Rules And Expression Collide
The clash between art and the EBU is a tension that sits just below the surface of the Eurovision Song Contest every year,
In the controlled world of the Song Contest, the rulebook looks for definitive answers to simplistic questions to facilitate the smooth running of the Contest. It has to be able to publicly state, with confidence, that songs are not political, not instrumentalising the Contest, and they all reflect the aims and values of the Contest.
Art can never be that clear-cut. Art is about pushing boundaries, challenging viewpoints, finding meaning, creating emotion, and speaking truth to power. Art is muddy and opaque, both maddening and magical in the same breath.
There is art, there is the Song Contest the EBU needs to see, and then there’s the Contest that everyone experiences.
What there is not, is an easy answer to the complicated question of politics, platforming, and messaging at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Further Reading
Irvin, Sherri (2006). Authors, Intentions and Literary Meaning. Philosophy Compass 1 (2):114–128.
Bennett, Andrew, ed. (1995). Readers and reading. Longman critical readers (1. publ ed.). London: Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-21290-9.
Johnson, N. (1988). Reader‐response and the pathos principle. Rhetoric Review, 6(2), 152–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/07350198809359160
Barthes, Roland, “Death of the Author”, in William Cain, Laurie Finke, John McGowan, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Jeffrey Williams, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, 3rd edn, (London: Norton & Company, 2018).