Anna Book – Himmel För Två

“We have a POP EMERGENCY on our hands.”

Tim: Ladies and gentlemen, sound the klaxons: we have a POP EMERGENCY on our hands, and it was all caused by THIS, a song submitted (but rejected) for the Moldovan Eurovision qualifying round in 2014, by Moldovan singer Felicia Dunaf.

Tom: Oh, that’s lovely! I mean, it’s by-the-numbers schlagery Europop, but they’re good numbers. Every little trick in the book: that counterpoint-melody from the backing singers, the cheesy 808 clap sound effects… oh, I like it a lot.

Tim: As do I, but it seems Moldovan TV producers thought otherwise, and so no-one else ever heard it. Nonetheless, the writers still reckoned they had a hit on their hands, and hell, why WOULDN’T they? As such, this year they played with it a bit, wrote new lyrics, got it recorded by Swedish singer Anna Book, and submitted it to the Melodifestivalen guys. Confirming their views, it got accepted, and was due to be performed tomorrow evening at heat 1. With me so far?

Tom: Yep. And I’ll bet it’d place well in its heat — probably enough to make it through to Andra Chansen — but not get near Eurovision itself.

Tim: Unfortunately, we’ll never know – check out the date on that video. Back in 2014, after it was rejected, Felicia thought she might as well get some promo from it, and uploaded to to her YouTube channel, without telling anyone, where it got about 24 views. Except, well, rules is rules, and while having a song previously on YouTube isn’t *technically* against Eurovision rules, it very much is against Melodifestivalen rules.

Tom: They’re that strict? Blimey. Eurovision will allow it as long as it hasn’t had significant exposure, but… crikey. I suppose all the others have abided by the rules and passed up other promotional opportunities, so I guess that’s fair.

Tim: And presumably they didn’t want to worry about potentially having to haggle about the extent of “significant”. Anyway, the news surfaced yesterday after people started watching Anna’s rehearsal clip, so the Swedish version of COBRA rushed together, had a chat, and then said to Anna, in hopefully sympathetic terms, “You’re out.”

Tom: I believe that’s “CÖBRÅ”.

Tim: Ooh, good work. But aaaaanyway, now we’ve got through all of the story, shall we hear Anna’s version?

Tim: And oh, GOD, it’s INCREDIBLE. Dammit dammit DAMMIT, this would have been fantastic. Like you said, it probably wouldn’t have won, but with the pink lighting, the backing dancers, that wonderful wind machine and ALL THOSE TRUMPETS, it would have been a whole lot of fun. She’ll still be performing tomorrow, mind, so we can at least see what would have been, and I very much look forward to it, but as for her Melodifestivalen 2016 journey? Sorry, Anna.

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