The Swiss song was revealed on March 7th via the premiere of the official music video on you tube. Two weeks earlier, the Swiss broadcaster SRG announced that Remo Ferrer had been internally selected as their entrant. His song is called "Watergun".
Remo Forrer is from Hemberg St Gallen, a mostly German speaking area of north Switzerland. As a child he played the flute, accordion, piano and took singing lessons. He then began playing the piano and singing. In 2020 he won The Voice of Switzerland and in April of the same year, he released his winning single Home , which was written by his team coach on the show Noah Veraguth. In July 2022 he appeared on the RTL television show "I can see your voice" and was introduced as an estate agent.
The music video has Remo walking around an abandoned building. The colour palette is muted, foggy with flashes of red. At the end he walks into a wall of sparks and comes out the other end into a green field The song begins with a piano intro which is almost classical in its playing. Remo starts with the first verse which is unexpectedly low in its tone and gets even lower during the pre-chorus. The chorus is a little higher in his register and is repetitive in the lyrics and is accompanied by some strings. The piano introduction concludes the chorus and on the start of verse two there is a slow but prominent beat which vamps up in the pre-chorus. During the chorus it increases more and has almost a military snare drum feel. The song them momentary drops the beat for for the build up tot he final lines which include the title of the song and repeats the piano played at the very start.
This song isn't breaking any new ground. The most interesting thing about this entry is the distinctive quality of Remo's voice in the verses - his face and his voice don't quite go together! The video is rather basic really especially as the words are rather visceral and the video is rather generic. He could literally be singing about anything if you had it on mute. The song is not particularly spectacular and the video does nothing to inspire one's imagination about a possible stage show. The more I listen, the more I am reminded of Hungary's entry in 2016 "Pioneer" which is similar in tune but not theme. I also don't like the way he over-exaggerates the 'er' sound on the end of the words 'soldier' and 'water' but maybe these may sound different when live.
When I first heard this song I was kind of speechless - and not in a good way. Maybe the writers thought this was allegorical enough, metaphorical enough - seeing war through the lens of a boy play fighting. However, when you have repeated trigger words such as war, real blood, tanks, guns, bullets and body bags the negative connotations these words have instantly taint the song also in a negative light. There have been plenty of Eurovision songs that have contained warlike imagery or been about conflict but all of these have had some tact and empathy, Yes, I understand that this is full of anti-war rhetoric but many people will be watching this show to get away from the woes in the world for a few hours and this 3 minutes basically sucks the life out of that escapism. This may chime strongly with some people, but not me.
ARTIST - Remo Ferrer
SONG - Watergun
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Ashley Hicklin, Pele Loriano, Tom Oehler, Argyle Singh, Tribbs
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