GEORGIA

The Georgian song was unveiled on March 13^th via the presentation of the official video clip. Back in December the folk-jazz fusion band Iriao had been internally selected and that their entry would be released at a later date. Their song is called “For you”

The accompanying video is very simple taking place in a large empty arena and the five members are stood in different parts of the space. Not very much happens in terms of stagecraft apart from the singers moving to and away from each other when the harmonies come and go. There are also interspersed clips of female dancers dressed in white and with white nets around them. This sort of reaffirms the pure, simple and fluid nature of the song and the performance of the group.

Although the song has an English title, it is entirely in Georgian and is a direct translation of the words "Sheni Gulistvis". There is no verse/chorus structure as such but there are short tunes that repeated throughout but with different lyrics. The song is metaphorically about love using the themes of weather – there are many references to snow and sun, The harmonies are very close and it has a choral, even church like feeling to it and this is juxtaposed with the small yet prominent mechanical beat behind the instrumentation. The build up is very clever and the lack of a proper structure makes it seem much longer than 3 minutes. Around the minute to go mark the song resets slightly and builds up again to a very uplifting finish.

This is a very uplifting song and by the end you cannot help but feel enlightened and filled up by the optimism of the song. I say this knowing nothing about the Georgian language (even before I looked up any translation) you just see and feel it in their singing and the tune. Although the song has no predictable formula parts of the tune are very memorable but I think this is where the song lacks appeal for Eurovision. If there was a little more repetition I feel the song would be seen as more ‘eurovision-y’, especially with the fact that it is not in English. The language sounds so beautiful, ethnic and full of feeling. As beautiful as it is, I have to wonder who this would appeal to and who would actually vote for this. As much as I would love to see this in the final I fear it won’t make it.

ARTIST –  Iriao

SONG – For you

MUSIC - Davit Malazonia

LYRICS - Irina Sanikidze