Elisa is wearing a rosey coloured top with puffy sleeves and a pair of maroon/burgundy sequinned trousers. She also is sporting some rather large gold earrings. The backdrop is quite ethereal and looks like golden flecks floating around in water. There is also many beams of blue light too. Elisa is accompanied on stage by 2 dimly lit backing singers behind her and Marta, the writer of the song, who does backing vocals and plays the piano. The two of them harmonise well together and also seem to have good chemistry. It is almost a bit of a shame this is not more of a duet type affair as that would give the song an extra dimension.
The start of the song has a kind of low key jazzy, cabaret feel which extends until the end when the instrumentation becomes much much more prominent. Verse one starts straight away and is quite wordy for such as quiet opening. This runs straight into the chorus which has more of a simple melody and more made of the rhyming syllables the end of the lines. This then runs quickly again into verse 2 and another chorus which gets us just over half way through the song. Here we have a bridge which is where the instrumentation becomes more apparent. The drum parts are almost marching band like and there are some nice string harmonies too. This stops at the end of the bridge and the start of the very last chorus is sung quietly with little backing but comes back in half way through. The ending kind of just stops with a bit of 'oh-ohing' after the chorus which is a bit of a shame.
This song has a lot of promise but the execution of it has been poor. Elisa sings this really well and her voice really suits this style of song, but for me there are two main issues with the song. Firstly the melody of the chorus. The lines in the where Elisa sings the melody going down just doesn't sound right and I wonder if the rest of the backing singers could continue singing up whilst Elisa sings down. At least this way the tune won't feel quite so sparse and will also maintain that catchy refrain in the chorus. Secondly this song needs to decide if it is a subtle tender chanson or a a gutsy power ballad because the backing track is so over the place I'm not sure what it is trying to be. The start of the song works so well, I just wish they kept it intimate and quiet. When it does go 'big' the soundscape just doesn't appear as it feels empty and uninspiring.
As much as Elisa does a good job and the song has a nice melody this just doesn't cut the mustard as it stands. It feels very empty and directionless and this is not going to stand out at all in semi 2. The languages sounds lovely and I don't think any attempt to change the language would be a wise move. After a number of years where they have chosen more interesting songs the Portuguese seem to have reverted back to type and chosen something the rest of Europe is going to find uninteresting. Such a shame.
Artist - Elisa Silva
Song - Medo de sentir (Fear of feeling)
Composer - Marta Carvalho
Lyricist - Marta Carvalho
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