Is English still the lingua franca of Eurovision?

This year, the picture looked very different: a slim majority of entries this year were in languages other than English. Seventeen of 37 entries were fully in languages other than English, compared to 14 in English and six which combined English with another language.

Also notable was a comparative lack of bi- or multi-lingual entries that “code-switch” between English and another language: there were only six of these. Indeed, one of the more notable songs that does code-switch is Tommy Cash’s “Espresso Macchiato”, which switches between English and a deliberately error-strewn Italian. If this was a deliberate effort to gain attention by stirring up outrage, it seems to have worked, judging both by some conservative Italian politicians’ calls for the song to be banned, and by the Italian public’s eventual awarding 10 points to the song.

It’s possible that this year is an anomaly, but I’m not so sure. Overall, English has dominated among Eurovision’s winners since 1999. Twenty of the 26 winners since then have been in English, with only four winners in languages other than English. However, three of these winners have come in the last eight iterations of the contest, and the number of non-English entries has progressively increased in recent years. Indeed, here’s a striking statistic: of the top 15 highest-ranked songs this year, only the winner was fully in English.

It’s not hard to imagine the reasons. The Internet, with freely available song texts and increasingly accurate auto-translations, makes it possible to engage with a multi-lingual music spectacle. Artists clearly trust audiences more to have the ability and inclination to find out what their lyrics mean by ourselves.

To me, this ought to be a thoroughly positive development for the European music industries. Effectively, countries are freer to nominate artists domestic audiences already listen to and love, without worrying about whether their English accent is up to scratch. This means, potentially, that the exposure of Eurovision – an event which attracts a larger audience than the Superbowl – is more likely to accrue artists who have built up longer careers, and who are better-placed to build on that exposure.

Take Poland: their entry last year was Luna’s “The Tower” – a valiant effort in English which failed to make the final. Full disclosure: I briefly taught Luna while previously working at the University of Warsaw.

By contrast, Poland’s entry this year, Justyna Steczkowska’s bombastic “Gaja”, is almost all in Polish, with one English-language verse (and a number of pan-Slavic mantras, or so-called “words of power” [słowa mocy], at the end). “Gaja” made the final and was the voting public’s seventh most popular choice, with 139 points.

While Luna was a comparative newcomer, Steczkowska is relatively feted within the Polish music scene. It was widely noted in advance of this year’s competition that she had competed in Eurovision before. Less noted was the fact that she’s the winner of multiple Fryderyk awards (Poland’s answer to the Grammys, named after Fryderyk Chopin), and has collaborated with some of Polish popular music’s most important figures, such as Grzegorz Ciechowski from the band Republika. Polish acts have generally struggled to reach international audiences, and the language barrier is a major reason why. A more linguistically inclusive Eurovision may present an opportunity for that to change – it will be interesting to see whether artists from across Europe take advantage.

At the same time, the liberalisation of ERC language requirements have two clear losers. These are, of course, the UK and Ireland, who coasted on a wave of linguistic privilege to completely dominate the competition prior to 1999, and whose entries have mostly been dead on arrival ever since. In fact, it is now two years since a UK Eurovision entry received any points from the public (and three since we received more than 10 points from the public). Perhaps it’s time to fund the arts just a little more?