SWITZERLAND 2022

The Swiss song and entrant was revealed on March 8th. The song and act was revealed through a youtube premiere on the official Eurovision channel. Marius Bear will be singing the song "Boys Do Cry" 

Marius Bear was born Marius Hügli and started off studying mechanics but decided to change direction and move into music. He upped sticks in 2017 and moved to the UK to study music production at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute. His first EP got into the top 40 in his homeland and his debut album got into the top 20. To top this off he won "Best Talent" at the 2019 Swiss Music Awards. In 2020 he appeared on the RTL show "I Can See Your Voice" and although he did not win his episode, this spawned the release of a cover of "I wanna dance with somebody". His work has an acoustic  singer-songwriter feel.

The song begins with some oohing over a piano. The piano continues as Bear starts with the first verse and first rendition of the chorus. His voice is quite small and crackly and the lyrics are rather sparse with long gaps between the syllables. As the chorus fades out the ooohing starts again and the backing track starts to include strings and a very light drum beat. There is then another verse and chorus however the end of the chorus goes up the scale rather than down. This gives the song a little lift and impetus in the final 30 seconds. He then repeats the final lines of the chorus again before ending with the title of the song.

This has slightly downbeat jazzy feel to it and his croaky over-emotional vocals are a little bit over the top, but maybe might be tempted to actually sing properly when live. Many have described this as a bit 'Eurovision does John Lewis Christmas advert" which not only describes the vocal but also the video. It does have a slightly wintry/log fire feeling which I suppose could work with a Swiss mountain chalet backdrop perhaps. This is a very considered and quiet song and could easily get lost amongst the busy-ness of semi 1. Maybe the delegation needs to make a point of it not being busy and promoting the calm and thoughtfulness. After the first listen I actually found myself getting rather attached to the song by the end, as this normally isn't my kind of thing, although I fear this may have been down to the story in the video rather than the song or the singer. I await with baited breath a live version of this as it may break or seal this song's fate.

ARTIST - Marius Bear

SONG - Boys do cry

WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Martin Gallop, Marius Hugli