THE BOSTON PEOPLE'S FRIEND. 29 Floréal CCXXVII
EUROSONG 227: YOUR GUIDE FROM THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND
Citizens, it’s happening again! Gather round the kinetoscopes, crack open the drink of your choice and leave your taste at the door, because it’s EuroSong 227!
What’s that you say citizen? You haven’t been keeping up with the run up to the competition? Don’t you know we’re taking part this year? Wait… you don’t know anything about EuroSong! Ah! No wonder you’re confused by this great display of culture. It may
look as if the continent which produced Mozart and Moliere has decided to spend one week a year getting drunk and watching very heavily perfumed-and-painted musicians sing terrible songs that alternate saccharine sweetness, blatant lust and calls for political violence- but wait, no, it is what it looks like.
Let’s explain.
EuroSong! Formerly ChanSong. Formerly, The Songs of the Republics. It’s a competition that’s been running for sixty-five years. It started in 162, nine years after the end of the War of the 39th Coalition. Citizen Bezençon, the Director of Kinetoscopic Programming for the Helvetic Republic had an idea: bring together the Republics of Europe around a common cause. The aim was to foster a spirit of unity- and friendly competition- that had held the peoples together through the dark years of the war against the counter-revolutionary coalition. Live Kinetoscopic shows were very rare- there was the nightly news bulletins, but there was no precedent for this kind of mass programming across an entire continent. No one had ever had to work out the challenges of putting on a show to an audience that spanned multiple time zones before. As Bezençon put it, ‘when the Tsar went to the guillotine in Moscow they didn’t have to schedule it for breakfast in Lisbon!’ The competition was an immediate success, however. It went from eight republics entering in the first year to thirteen the next- this year a record forty-eight republics and twelve guest nations have entered. Obviously, when the competition began, they didn’t have multiple rounds!
- So it started in Helvetia… but it hasn’t stayed there, right?
Correct! Since 168, each winning nation took home not only a prize but the responsibility to host the next competition. Of course, in the case of back to back wins the competition doesn’t move. The record is held by Hibernia, who hosted the competition four years running- winning with three all time classics! Shame about ‘Mon Beau Cheval,’ though.
- Where’s it happening this time around?
This year the competition has a whiff of controversy, what with taking place in Alexandretta. As well as the traditionally ugly arguments about whether the competition should have allowed the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean to compete at all- it’s strange how the rightist commentators become so republican when it’s a reason to exclude the Alawiyya states- several commentators have called for a boycott of the competition for ‘normalising the occupation of Armenia.’
- So, what should I expect?
Remember, the key to enjoying EuroSong is to have no expectations whatsoever. It’s the greatest cultural lottery in the world. Look at the Nordic Sister Republics: one year we get Olympeian girl power from Queen Christiana; the next we get controversial Neo-Vikings Astrid, Balder, Bjorn and Audhild with the most horrifically feel-good party songs ever recorded. And though most nations’ now have a televised competition to choose their entry for the continental competition, very few people keep track of the contenders until the international rounds start- so you tend not to have any idea of who’s entered.
- Back up. At the start… You said that some of the contenders aren’t Republics?
Yep! Twelve years ago Egypt was allowed to enter as a wildcard, and their entry immediately fitted in, with a spectacularly camp love song about romance that crosses culture and warzones. It annoyed a lot of commentators who got very sniffy about the fact that EuroSong was conceived as a project for
republican unity, but the only tune anyone could remember from that year’s competition was the Pharaoh pouring her heart out to Antony in the note from her deathbed.
I remember: ‘Letters from Cleo!’
That’s the one! It helped that the competition needed another few nations to even out the new round structure. So now the Alawiyya send entries from Egypt, Cyprus and Palestine and the Ottomans send entries from Anatolia, Rumelia and Mesopotamia. Eureka used to be a regular wild card, but now they’re a standard part of the competition. Even the Tsardom’s been allowed an entry now. And there’s three wild cards- this year they’ve gone to Brazil, Sokoto and Corea.
- Wait, you said there were twelve guest nations. You just listed eleven.
BECAUSE NEW ENGLAND IS IN BABY! THAT’S RIGHT! YOU HEAR THAT, SOUTHRONS? YOU HEAR THAT, NEW YORK? WHAT ABOUT YOU, YOU CANADA, YOU AND YOUR GODDAMN CHEESE CURDS? NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR PISSY LITTLE POP SONGS. NEW ENGLAND- OLD AMERICA, FIRST AND THE BEST- WE ARE GOING TO EUROPE AND WE ARE GOING TO OUT CAMP THE LOT OF THEM!
- So I should be excited about this?
Citizen, not being excited about us going to Eurosong is basically not being patriotic. And you know what we do to citizens who aren’t patriotic?
- Write disapproving commentary in the journals and lament the decline in civic unity?
Yep!
- So what should I say to be taken seriously at a EuroSong party?
Well, again, don’t try and be taken seriously at a EuroSong party. But the acts to watch out for this year are probably Lusitania- they’ve apparently entered a hell of a dance troupe; Illyria and Venetia are causing drama because they’ve entered rival cousins! It’s all for show, but that’s going to be a fun bit of competition in a ‘there’s going to be riots in Trieste’ way; France is meant to have one hell of a showstopper but they won’t get anywhere since the other great tradition of EuroSong is never letting the French win anything; and you can never rule out Hibernia.
- Could this be the year that we see a great entry from the Brythonic Republic?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…(cut for length-
ed.)
Seriously, practice the catchphrase: ‘Brythonia: Nil points.’