Long gone are the days where Eurovision songs had to be in an official language of their country, now you can sing in whatever language your heart desires! You no longer need ding-dongs, a la la la or a random language-crossing word to let Europe know exactly what you are singing about. You can just sing that English version of your song you were going to release anyway for the charts… But should you?
At first glance it seems like a no-brainer! Singing in English will give you that accessibility you need to get people singing along and get your message out there! On top of that, if you are going to release that English single anyway for the charts what better way to give it exposure now? At least that seemed to be the general consensus for a while. If we look at the language the winning songs were sung in during the 2000s, only Serbia’s Molitva was fully in a language other than English. Going back another decade, despite the language rules being in place for the vast majority of it – English still dominates, with the UK and Ireland sweeping up five of the wins and post rule change, another English sung song winning for Sweden.
This begs the question, is Italy’s 2021 winner Zitti E Buoni (and another 3 non-English language songs in the top 5) a notable exception to the rule or are other factors at play?
In the late 2010’s (and now by extension the 2020’s) we have begun to see more non-English sung winners emerging. 2016 saw Ukraine win with a chorus completely in Crimean Tartar, then 2017 would see a landslide victory for a song entirely in Portuguese. These could be considered the Molitva exceptions to the 2010’s if you would like (as ignoring the odd phrase in Toy) the next two winners were sung in English. However, Italy’s win this year now means that in the past five editions of Eurovision, a completely non-English sung song has won twice and a song with non-English lyrics four of the five times. So the big question I want to address is quite simply: Are we seeing a shift in language preference at Eurovision and what is behind any phenomenon that may be occurring?
The first natural step is to look at the non-English songs sung over the past decade and work out what percentage of the points they were allocated (in the Grand Final). That way we can see if there is a shift in voting patterns. A slight inconvenience here is the shift in voting style from combined jury & televote points to separated. This will mean we cannot do a full like for like comparison, as for example the 2013 splits were only revealed as rankings and not points. It also means that televoters and jurors could cancel each other out and we might not see their full tastes so clearly in these early years. Despite all this, it should still be a good insight but just remember to apply caution.
When we look at these contests then the first thing to assess is the number of songs competing in the Grand Final that were not fully in English. As different years have different numbers of finalists (ranging between 25 and 27), I have expressed this as a percentage for comparisons sake. The first noteworthy feature here is that 2021 is the first year (in our timeframe) in which more than half of the competing songs in the final had at least one non-English word in them. Some of these songs only have a few non-English words (e.g. Adrenalina) but we need a distinct cut-off point for classifications. If we consider songs with non-English words won in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2021 – there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the number of songs containing non-English words and the language of the winning song. However, after the win in 2016 there has seemingly been an increase in Grand Final songs containing other languages – which may ultimately lead to more winners.
What this hasn’t addressed though is whether there is a consistency in the points awarded to either grouping. My question here being simply: “Is there an over-saturation point, where an increase in non-English language containing songs leads to solely English language songs standing out?” To answer this we not only have to look at the percentage of songs sung in these languages but also the proportion of the total Grand Final points they were allocated.
The graph directly above illustrates the grouping each percentage of the points went to. For a more accurate comparison I have also separated songs with absolutely no English from those with a combination of English and another language. Taking the mean value for each grouping we can see that songs with only English lyrics received 68.1% of the points (leaving 31.9% for songs with a non-English word or more). Of this 31.9%, 18.3% went to songs in only non-English languages and 13.6% to songs with both English and another language.
One reading of this then is that the curve displayed in the number of songs for each group is unsurprisingly reflected in the number of points that group received. The main outlier to that notion is 2016 where Jamala’s win is boosting up the “not only English language” points. This could add some weight to the theory that a high proportion of English songs (in this case just shy of 80%) makes it more likely a song with non-English lyrics will stand out and maybe even win. One argument against this is well 2015 had an even lower percentage, which suggests it is not necessarily the case. Although it is also worth noting that both years had 5 songs with non-English lyrics respectively and its just that 2015 had 27 finalists, rather than the usual 26. There is maybe also an aspect of time here, whereas in 2016 viewers might have been missing non-English language songs more due to the lack of them in previous editions being increased by another year.
Ultimately the success of 1944 and then the landslide victory of Amar Pelos Dois the following year led to more countries sending non-English songs. So another possibility is that these victories amplifying the points are not reflective of a shift to appreciate non-English songs as a whole. In other words, these songs are very well loved but audiences who back them still may have a strong preference for English. In order to look at this, I think we need to include non-qualifying results! I know you are probably sick of data by this point but we need it to complete the picture.
Remember everyone’s shock in 2017 when all the songs with non-English lyrics qualified? It stands out but maybe less obviously than you would expect. This is because we can almost split the graph up into two sections; before (inclusive) and after 2013. In 2013 the vast majority of non-qualifiers had non-English lyrics, by 2014 this is the reverse. This is not due to a sudden mass shift in opinion however, there weren’t many songs with non-English lyrics in the 2014 contest full stop to non-qualify (we can see that by their low constituency in the final as well as the NQs). Yet, when we look at years with more non-English lyric containing songs we can see that the non-qualification rate for these songs is much more consistent with what it was in 2014 (when there were hardly any of these songs to NQ in the first place) than what it was in the years before that. At least to me this implies that there has been a more gradual shift towards songs with non-English lyrics succeeding once again – probably at least partially as a result of the successes of Jamala and Salvador but also from possibly a growing appreciation towards these songs that emerged as they had declined.
But who has the shift been with? We know the Eurovision vote is divided amongst industry professionals and viewers at home so we can see if the same trend is happening in both groupings or just one in isolation? We can answer that easily from 2016 onwards due to the groups being separated in the voting. For the years before the splits have been made public (with a few notable exceptions) but we only really require 2016 onwards anyway as this is when songs with non-English lyrics begin to win again.
| Year | Jury | Televote |
| 2016 | 25 | 28 |
| 2017 | 27 | 35 |
| 2018 | 40 | 50 |
| 2019 | 24 | 46 |
| 2021 | 61 | 61 |
In every year (bar 2021 where the jury is ahead by a few decimal points) the televote gave a higher percentage of their points to songs with non-English lyrics. Even in 2021 where the juries are awarding a marginally higher percentage, the televote still voted for more solely non-English songs than the jury did (by 46% to 37%). The televote seems to give out a greater share of their points to songs with non-English languages than their jury counterparts, though it is interesting to note that the juries ‘caught-up’ this year.
So what does all this mean?
Now that is the question! The major positive of this is that non-English language songs certainly aren’t dead at Eurovision and in many ways Måneskin’s victory in both the televote and overall, shows just that! Can this trend continue long-term? Well yes it seemingly has been but in the same way under-saturation of non-English language containing songs (I wish there was a shorter term) played a part in starting their popularity again, it is likely that over-saturation will eventually lead to English language only songs standing out more again. With the language rules abolished though and countries free to change their strategies; at least in my opinion I can see this resulting in a fluctuating pattern. However, music changes quickly, Eurovision adapts and who knows what the future may bring.
The bottom line though is pretty simple. If you have a good song, send it! Sure language probably plays a role but songs in all different languages can be successful in the modern day Eurovision Song Contest.
If you made it this far congratulations! Please let me know if you agree with my conclusions or not, it would be interesting to hear some different perspectives and also feel free to let me know if you enjoy reading this sort of topic or not! Eurovision may be over but there’s always plenty to talk about, so pleases feel free to start a conversation in the comments here or on our various social media pages (which I encourage you to follow). Have a great day everyone!
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