Oceans of sequins! Long, long pointed nails! Headache-inducing lightshows! The corniest of scripted jokes! Politics and scandals! Oh, yes and the music, from operatic to rap to rock and beyond – Eurovision 2025! Everything about the Eurovision Song Contest is over the top and has to be written with exclamation marks!

Last Sunday I sat transfixed on the sofa from 6.55 am, watching the live stream from Basel until it finished four hours and 11 minutes later. As we in Aotearoa New Zealand are not part of Eurovision, I had not known much about it other than that ABBA had won in the 1970s. That changed when I was introduced to it a few years ago by a friend in Australia (you know who you are!). I was hooked, and when my friend texted me a reminder last Saturday evening, I started to prepare.

I downloaded the app so that I could vote from the “Rest of the world” i.e. not Europe or Australia. The voting system is pretty much a mystery, but I did know that I had up to 20 votes. My favourite was Bara bada bastu(‘Let’s just sauna’)representing Sweden, by a band from the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, singing in the Vörå dialect and Finnish. Evidently it is in the epadunk style, which developed in rural Sweden by people driving ‘A-tractors’ (cars modified to have a low maximum speed). I knew nothing of this at the time, and although it got two of my votes and was the bookmakers’ favourite, it came in fourth.

I also voted for the controversial entry from Estonia, Espresso Macchiato. The mash-up of Italian phrases and English, not to mention references to the mafioso, were no doubt offensive to some Italians – although the ‘Grannies of Ostuni’ seemed to enjoy it. Maybe they are my demographic, but I loved the comic exuberance of the dancing.

The official Finnish entry abandoned all pretence of subtlety, with a song titled in German Ich Komme(‘I’m coming’). Check out the lyrics on the YouTube channel Learn Finnish through Music. All too raunchy for me at Sunday breakfast time. However, even though I still have echoes of my upbringing in which references to the afterlife were not deemed polite, I did vote for the UK’s exuberant mash-up What the hell just happened?

I could not vote for Israel, obviously. Deliberately flouting accepted conventions is unforgivable, and listening to the song New day will rise without an article ‘a’ was extremely grating to someone who has taught English language for many years (it must have been on purpose, since ‘a’ is included in the last verse).

Given that the ceremony was hosted in Basel, it was surprising how little Swiss German was included, although the hosts switched between a number of languages. Seeing the national juries give their twelve votes was an exercise in language policy in practice. Most countries made some inclusion of other languages, mainly for greetings and to talk about their ‘douze points’. However, judges from several countries (including Australia and the UK) spoke only in English. France was the outlier, speaking only in French.

For the songs, the language rules of Eurovision have changed over the years, with a short lifting of the language restrictions in the 1970s before being lifted again in 1999. But it seems that songs in English have an advantage, since only four songs in non-English languages have won since that time.

Which takes me back to ABBA – this year 36,000 people in the overflow stadium of Eurovision 2025 stadium joined in singing a tribute to ABBA’s winning 1974 entry in English – Waterloo. How many more millions at home joined in this song by a Swedish group singing English lyrics with a metaphor from the British and Prussian army coalitions’ defeat of Napolean, leading to Pax Britannica? Couldn’t escape if I wanted to…

I was on tenterhooks as the last votes came in, but finally the winner was from Austria, with Wasted Love sung in an eye-wateringly high countertenor voice by a young speaker of English, French, German, Arabic, Tagalog…

A week later and I’m still waking up with ‘Mi amore’, the opening lines of Espresso Macchiato, in my head. It is the most tenacious of ear worms, so listen if you dare!