Finland

Missä Miehet Ratsastaa Teräsbetoni

Like buses, you wait ten years for a song in Finnish and two come along at once. ‘Mitäs nyt? Kesävalot nyt’ might not amount to much in the Estonian entry, but repeated four times it amounts to an entire chorus, and as such contributes to an unlikely first in contest history: never before have we seen such prominent Finnish twice in one night at Eurovision. The last time we heard any at all was back in Birmingham in 1998 with the triumph of lyrical minimalism that was Aava. At just six words, it presented the language with understated beauty, employing the same trick as Poland had some years previously of eschewing any of its harsher sounds in an attempt to make it more listenable to the average European ear. And now, a decade later, Finnish is set to burst back onto the scene in a way that bites the heads off minimalism and understatement and spits them straight in the audience’s face.

At least, that’s the impression Teräsbetoni would like to give us. The edge is taken off their entry by the fact that it is the third in a row from Finland out of the same stable. It is seen by many as little more than ‘Lordi without the masks’, and once you take them away what you are left with is men shouting. In this case it is men shouting in a strange language no one understands, and the Czech Republic’s debut last year proved that as flexible as Eurovision is, this is not something televoters are fond of without a bit of theatre to distract them. (The exception of course being Estonian televoters, but applied to Missä Miehet Ratsastaa the point becomes moot.) I fully expect the staging of the song in Serbia to be a showcase of pyrotechnic overkill, but I doubt it will prove very effective as a smokescreen. Most people who tune in every year will recognise that it’s all been done before, even if they don’t realise by the same country, and any initial explosion of interest may quickly fizzle out.

What the song does have going for it, and what may consequently keep that spark of interest alive, is a slightly camp sensibility that was entirely lacking in Hanna Pakarinen’s broody delivery of Leave Me Alone in Helsinki. The origins of the ‘huh! hah!’ hook can be traced back as far as the glamtastic days of the ’70s, lending the song an all too brief and presumably unintended air of Boney M vs any big-haired thrash metal group from the late ’80s. Not that the queer overtones start and end there: there is something hyper-masculine to the point (yet again) of homoeroticism implicit in the idea of a bunch of big brawny men mounting their steeds and rampaging their way across the land, even if it is to rape and pillage. Lines like “where men ride no sheep can pasture” raise an unexpected titter and add to the feeling that the song is an OTT triumph not to be taken in the slightest bit seriously.

If that’s the way Teräsbetoni play it, I would say the song stands a decent chance of qualifying. It is well placed to do so, coming at the tail end of its semi-final and standing out from all of the songs around it. While I’m not convinced it deserves a slot in the final on musical merit - it takes the carrot and stick approach, dangling it tantalisingly close but ultimately always out of reach - there’s no doubt it would add a splash of colour, if not the violent rivers of red it might aspire to. With a good draw it could even find itself doing OK. In any event, whether it is romps into the final or is reined in during the semi, Missä Miehet Ratsastaa will blaze a quintessentially Finnish trail across our Eurovision screens, and that’s a sight worth beholding.