Tim: As is tradition here, let’s stick with the Melodifestivalen final for a while.
Tom: With the ones who were less successful.
Tim: Well, yes, I suppose. I’ve had a lot of time for John Henrik’s previous entries, in 2015 and 2017. This year, singing about the Northern Lights, he steps it up somewhat, by serenading a reindeer.
Tom: It was nice of Sweden’s 1976 Winter Olympic team to lend him one of their old dress uniforms, wasn’t it?
Tim: You mean, you…
Tom: Disclaimer: this was a joke, I have not bothered to look up old Winter Olympic dress uniforms
Tim: Oh, okay. Though, wouldn’t have surprised me. Anyway, what was I going to say? Ah, yes: I know it would have been phenomenally difficult (and I guess risky) to do, but I would have ADORED it if they could have lined up the camera, a precise pose from him and the backing screen to have the reindeer erupt out of his microphone, Patronus style, to really hammer home how utterly ridiculous that scene is.
Tom: I mean, they’d already set the stage on fire, it’d get a bit much.
Tim: Would it, though? Would it really?
Tom: I think that was the point when it really sunk in for me just how ridiculous the track is: the middle eight is literally just a man singing at a reindeer. Kind of breaks it all up, doesn’t it?
Tim: It’s a nice song, all flutey and everything, and like I said I enjoy the genre every now and again (though I tried to listen to one of his albums a while back, gave up after three tracks). It has FIRE, and DANCING PEOPLE WITH SHEETS, and an INEVITABLE UPCOMING KEY CHANGE but suddenly it drops everything for him to tell a reindeer how much he loves it, and I start giggling. A shame. A lovely track, spoiled by fifteen seconds of baffling stage design.