Tim: You may (but probably won’t) remember that about six months back we discussed 1982’s Ein Bißchen Frieden, the mystifyingly second most successful Eurovision song since the current scoring system began.
Tom: I remember the conversation, but not the song.
Tim: It seems that success has rubbed off on Kamferdrops, a Norwegian artist who’s chosen to redo it. In Swedish.
Tom: Advance warning, there’s some potentially-disturbing body-horror imagery in here, albeit dolled up with a lot of candy-coloured graphics.
Tom: It turns out I do remember that song. Or, perhaps, I remember every other schlager song that sounds exactly like it.
Tim: It does, obviously, sound considerably different from the original, and just because of the language – Eurovision then was about about live orchestras, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if Kamferdrops has never once touched a violin.
Tom: I’m now wondering if I’ve ever touched a violin. Seen, sure. Heard, of course. Touched? I don’t actually know.
Tim: Somehow, though, it still has the same issues for me as the original does – it’s just a bit dull, a bit plodding. Sure it still has the pleasant up and down melody in the chorus, which is almost comforting in it’s gentleness, but in terms of things to get excited about, I’m still mystified by the popularity of it.
Tom: Right! This is exactly the same middle-of-the-road schlager as the original. Which, sure, might have worked back then, but why publish it now? Surely there can’t be that much nostalgia?
Tim: Not a clue.