Eurovision Copycats

The musical alphabet is quite limited, strictly speaking it includes only seven different notes. It starts off from note A, goes on to G and it starts all over again. Or else we start on an A and finish on the next A in order to form a complete octave. In any case, these notes, octaves, chords, scales…whatever, can be intertwined, mixed, and manoeuvred in many ways to form different melodies. Over the centuries great composers have created operettas, musicals, symphonies, arias, marches…and they all differ from each other.

The possibilities are endless, but sometimes ‘accidents’ might happen. Occasionally a particular piece of music may remind the listener of another piece of music, certain songs may be similar to each other…and there have been such cases in the Eurovision Song Contest too. Were the songs copies for a purpose ? Were the similarities just accidental ? Were they pure cases of plagiarism ? These questions cannot really be answered, but it would be interesting to investigate some of these cases which have occurred during the years and which I will refer to as Eurovision Copycats.

Lets go back in time and revisit Eurovision 1966. Yugoslavia was represented by Berta Ambroz with the song Brez Besed (Without Words), sung in Slovenian. It was a typical Eurovision ballad which placed seventh on the night and was probably forgotten by everybody on the next day. Yet the song gained much more importance in 1973 when Spain was represented by the group Mocedades. Their song Eres Tu (You Are) caused a scandal and was criticised as being merely a re-write of the Yugoslav entry in 1966. I have listened to both songs and I have to admit that there are some evident similarities. In any case, Eres Tu was not disqualified from the competition and placed second. Not just that, it went on to become an international hit. Furthermore, Eres Tu was chosen to take part in the Congratulations 50th Eurovision Anniversary in 2006 and voted as the 11th favourite song ever since the beginning of the Contest!
 

Two years after Mocedades, so in 1975, Eurovision was held in Sweden. Two members of Mocedades were representing Spain once again as a duo, but this time they were not accused of being copycats. Yet, Geraldine Branigan represented Luxembourg with the song Toi (You). Her voice was angelic, her dress made her look like an angel as well…but the introduction and middle-part of her song are an exact copy of Ave Maria. Just listen to it, I still wonder why the song was not disqualified! In my opinion it is one of the most obvious cases of plagiarism ever…but anyway the song ended up in fifth position.
 

Another Eurovision song, actually a winner, that sounds very familiar especially to the Maltese public is the Norwegian entry in 1995. It was a lovely piece of music, featuring the violin player rather than the singer who just sang the opening and ending of the whole song (30 words in all). The group was called Secret garden and the song Nocturne. I doubt very much the possibility that the song L-Ahhar Bidwi f’Wied il-Ghasel by local legendary group New Courey was ever played in Norway, but the two songs definitely sound alike. I remember many local commentators, presenters, journalists…commenting on this but the Maltese jury still gave Norway 6 points on the night. The popular song by New Courey has been recently covered by Italian superstar Claudio Baglioni.
 

Eurovision 2000 was held in The Globe Arena of Stockholm, following Charlotte Nielsen (Perelli)’s victory. At this stage, it was already quite evident that young singers were being preferred on the Eurovision stage. But the first contest of the new century was won by fifty year old Jorgen and forty six year old Noller from Denmark; the Olsen Brothers. Their song “Fly on the Wings of Love” was never considered to be among the favourites, but they won by a landslide. It was a surprise for many, but the song managed to be rated as one of the 14 most popular Eurovision songs ever. Three years later, Ireland was represented by Mickey Joe Harte and the song “We’ve got the World”. It was an OK song, quite pleasant to listen to, but it placed eleventh. If one compares this song with the Olsen Brothers’ one might notice some similarities. The beat is almost identical, the rhythm doesn’t differ much and certain notes in the chorus are even the same. So I would consider this as another Eurovision copycat case.
 

Last year Maria Serifovic from Serbia won the contest. She had already caused a stir by having man-like looks, by wearing men’s clothes…practically by showing no sign of femininity at all ! I met her this year in Belgrade, and believe me, she’s a real tomboy, but her character seems to be quite nice. Her song was a simple ballad with an ethnic touch and it managed to impress. Infact Molitva (Prayer) made it to the finals and won the contest. Two days after the final, it was under handedly claimed by a particular tabloid that the song was plagiarized from Albanian artist Soni Malaj's song Ndarja. This has however been strongly denied and substantiated by Marjan Filipovski, the Macedonian composer of Ndarja.
 

Copycat cases made headlines even in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Before the contest it was being argued that Paolo Meneguzzi’s splendid song Era Stupendo is very similar to another song called It Can Only Get Better released in 2006 by a very young Swedish singer by the name of Amy Diamond. Actually the two songs do sound similar especially in the beginning, but does a successful singer like Meneguzzi need to copy a song of an unknown fifteen year old from far away Sweden? Ok, here I have to admit…I happen to be an avid fan of Paolo Meneguzzi so this case is dismissed! Whatever they say, Era Stupendo is a beautiful song and Paolo Meneguzzi happens to be a very nice and down-to-earth person. I met him almost every day while I was in Belgrade….anybody feeling jealous?
 

Dima Bilan, who won for Russia this year with Believe…and I must say that just like many other Eurovision winning songs, it hasn’t made a huge success anywhere. Other songs that took part; like Shady Lady, Qele Qele, Hero, Era Stupendo, Wolves of the Sea…are frequently requested on radio and TV shows. Anyway, it has been argued that in a way, Dima’s song might be similar to Rihanna’s Umbrella.  Another plagiarism call against Dima Bilan's Believe is that the introduction sounds similar to Cat Stevens' Moon Shadow.  I’m not trying to defend Dima, but I can’t really note any similarities between the two songs. Yet some people think so, and I believe that everybody has the right of an opinion.