As promised, here is Proletarian Democracy’s preview of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest’s 2nd semi-final. Excitement mounting. Can you feel it comrades? Same scoring system as part 1. Note how our all our predictions thus far have been spot on. Not even Montenegro’s cynical last minute decision to pass themselves off as Posadists by dressing up as cosmonauts was enough to win the people’s favour.

Anyway, without further ado…tunes.

1: Latvia – PeR – Here We Go

Ladies and Gentlemen, I need a starlight

‘Cuz never have I had a day without a fight

I’m surrounded by problems, I got to run

(But no) I keep pulling myself up

I’m on a mission to fulfil my vision

All day everyday – never ever, ever give up

Here we go, here we go

What’s it about?

Alerta, the network of antifascist football ultras. Here we go, yes indeedy we do.

Sounds like:

Freedom by George Michael with a spangle studded hat tip to J-Roc from Trailer Park Boys. At first listen this is an unlikely soundtrack to the serious business of nazi-battering, but time and time again, the people come up to us in Stroud and say “Look, we love football and hate racists but we want to dance as well! Why oh why do all antifash tunes tend to be either shrieking Oi! nonsense or *shudder* Billy Bragg?” When the people speak, proper communists (in this case, Latvia’s PeR and composers Ralfs Eilands & Arturas Burke) listen.

VERDICT

2: San Marino – Valentina Monetta – Crisalide

Start emerging from your chrysalis

Find the kind of freedom that you miss

Like a butterfly

Times they are changing

The wind blows the clouds of tears away

As you rise to the sky

What’s it about?

Look no further than brainy Frenchman Jean-Marie Guyau’s 1895 beermat scribble – The Philosophy of Hope. “All of us, scholars and workers, we are like the butterfly: our strength is made of a ray of light. Not even: of the hope of a ray.” The second tune to brandish a proletariat as butterfly motif, the other being of course the Ukrainian entry from the first semi-final. Oh, some Dylan in there as well. For the benefit of younger comrades, Bob Dylan turned out a few bits and pieces of half decent rebel rock ages ago before promptly disappearing up his shambling amphetamine addled arse.

Sounds like:

A haphazard stop start mess, like the republican general staff ‘s prosecution of the Spanish Civil War, and then, most UNlike the Spanish Civil War, goes all Gloria Gaynor in the last 30 seconds.

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3: F.Y.R. Macedonia – Esma & Lozano – Pred Da Se Razdeni

It’s not like it used to be

The good times are over

We have been together

Through thick and thin

Until the day breaks

Stay right here next to me

There will be

Good times ahead for you and me

What’s it about?

The criminal destruction of the Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart (the so-called Berlin “Wall”) the subsequent plummet in life expectancy throughout the pseudo-socialist Warsaw Pact states (slow handclap for Noreena Hertz), and 20 or so years of rapacious capitalist carpetbagging and humiliation tempered only by the indomitable conviction that proper communism is a nailed-on certainty. Just around the corner. Any decade now.

Sounds like:

Erm. The greatest Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart tribute you will hear this century.

VERDICT

4: Azerbaijan – Farid Mammadov – Hold Me

Should have seen it coming when I saw you

Should have had the sense to stop and walk away

It was gonna turn out complicated

We´ve hit overload about to explode

What’s it about?

The decision of the CNT-FAI to join Largo Caballero’s Popular Front government, leading to consolidation of power by Stalinists and liberal republicans, the dissolving of the workers’ militias, the Barcelona May Days, and ultimately, according to comrade Mammadov at least, the loss of the Spanish Civil War. Coulda shoulda woulda combabe.

Sounds like:

Barry Manilow but not a ‘Can’t Smile Without You’ Barry Manilow, more of an off-his-game ‘Where Are They Now’ Barry Manilow because his pool-cleaner didn’t turn up or something and he’s distracted.

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5: Finland – Krista Siegfrids – Marry Me

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ding dong!

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ding dong!

I don’t think there are no ladies

Who will give you cuter babies

Isn’t that amazing?

I’m your slave and you’re my master

Oh, baby come on take a shot!

What’s it about?

A ruthlessly “ironic” blistering radical feminist anthem with a timely Thatcher death party twist. A stiletto heeled boot to the pimpled bollocks of patriarchy. Comrade Siegfrids will give you something to get teary-eyed about Osborne you nasty botched abortion faced Eton fuck.

Sounds like:

A sort of Spagna/Pink/Katy Perry polycephaly experiment.

VERDICT

6: Malta – Gianluca – Tomorrow

His name is Jeremy

Working in I.T.

Never questions why

He has always been

An extra careful guy

Sensitive and shy

Risk assessment is his investment

In a life of no surprise

‘Til she walked into his life

She’s spontaneous indeed

Uncertainty’s her creed

Oh oh time to follow her tomorrow

What’s it about?

The campaign to place lefties in key sectors of the economy and target members of the favoured labour caste with a view to recruitment or intelligence gathering. In this scenario, a member of Malta’s Communist Party (which received 0.1% of first preference votes in 1987’s sham elections) accepts a mission to join an IT company and induce “Jeremy”, a pre-selected risk assessor, to “follow” her on the twitter and “friend” her on facebook.

Drawing on her training as a Malta Workers’ Union (UHM) branch secretary, she wins Jeremy‘s confidence by offering to help him claim his travel and subsistence expenses entitlements from the company, as she knows from his file that he’s too much of a scaredy-cat to do it himself. So far so good, but will a devil-may-care invitation to share a “meal” at the local grey vegan goo café drag him too far out of his comfort zone and prove to be the mission‘s undoing?

Either that or else it’s a searing indictment of anomie in late capitalist Malta where frustrated and irredeemably alienated males, who, in bewildered neighbour parlance “always kept to themselves to themselves”, are turning willy nilly to voyeurism and stalking in order to gratify sexual desires and/or assuage overwhelming feelings of crippling loneliness. “Risk assessment” how are you.

Sounds like:

Featherweight indie twee cobblers. See also Lisa Hannigan. A bit She Bangs The Drums by The Stone Roses as well maybe but with ukuleles and a singer who doesn’t sing like the sedative is wearing off in the middle of his colonoscopy and hasn’t threatened to chop the hands off any airline cabin crew lately.

VERDICT

7: Bulgaria – Elitsa & Stoyan – Samo Shampioni

Only wild ones,

Only champions,

Golden boys and girls for millions

Give us the young ones,

Give us the happy ones,

And the whole village comes.

What’s it about?

A rural recruitment drive for the Proletarian Defence Squads. Contains eyebrow-waggling levels of ableism and ageism at first glance. Check your good-at-sports privilege comrades! But look closer. It’s made perfectly clear that they’ll take absolutely anybody. And anyway, in the new society, all proletarians will be champions sort of, and everyone will be relatively happy.

Sounds like:

A particularly shaky Alvin And The Chipmunks side-project.

VERDICT

8: Iceland – Eythor Ingi Gunnlaugsson – I Am Alive

I set out upon that long journey

I walked on lost and restless

I climb over the high mountains

I am alive, I am alive

What’s it about?

A comradely reminder to lefties everywhere that just like Mao and the glorious Chinese Red Army on the Long March before us, we are engaged in a seemingly horizonless tactical retreat, but hey, everything’s under control. We got this. “The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”

Sounds like:

A fishing boat disaster memorial service approximation of Lean On Me – the Bill Withers version not the Glee one thankfully. Chin up Eythor!

VERDICT

9: Greece – Koza Mostra feat. Agathon Iakovidis – Alcohol Is Free

Caught in a sea storm on Egnatia street

Gales are drifting us too far from the shore

Our route might be wrong

Lights are blinking on and off

The ship is headed towards Grevena.

What’s it about?

“Alcohol Is Free” is the Greek wing of “Heavy Drinkers Against Capitalism” a Proletarian Democracy front group. Egnatia Street is the commercial centre of Thessaloniki (bastion of anti-Nazi resistance in WW2) and is a symbol of the corrupt, criminal and decadent bourgeoisie which lies at the root of Greece’s current predicament. Syriza’s futile funnelling of revolutionary energy into useless parliamentarianism is allowing the Greek working class to drift violently towards “Grevena“, the site of a 1995 earthquake.

Sounds like:

Thoroughly banging turbo folk, rebetiko, ska punk, klezmer mashup. Victory to Greece!

VERDICT

10: Israel – Moran Mazor – Rak Bishvilo

Only for him,

I forget the cold

And thanks to him

I find light in the darkness

Only for him,

I will cross the borders

Only with him the answers to questions

What’s it about?

Barry Mainwaring, Proletarian Democracy’s suprahuman leader, and cult figure on Hapoel Tel Aviv’s terraces.

Sounds like:

Celine Dion getting her hair done but she’s realised she may have left the immersion on and she hasn’t even been offered a cup of tea and Jedward have walked in and they’re playing at James Bond with hairdryers, but for all that, it’s an adequate performance and a fitting bit of panegyric fluff.

VERDICT

11: Armenia – Dorians – Lonely Planet

Who’s the one that starts a war?

Who’s dictating what is less and more?

Who can change the night and day?

Who’s the one with clever face?

We can stop it.

We can stop it…

We can stop it….

We can stop it…

For the world.

What’s it about?

The near unspeakable rubbishness of capitalism and a fairly categorical confirmation that yes, communism is the answer.

Sounds like:

A sea of CGI’d swaying molotovs, a bloke on a cliff, one foot on the monitor and a light breeze and camera crew helicopter‘s downdraft playing havoc with his pattern baldness. So pedestrian it could do with a walking frame in case it keels over but nevertheless, wafer metal doesn’t get more communism than this, more‘s the pity. Penned by Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. (!)

VERDICT

12: Hungary – ByeAlex – Kedvesem

Say did you know she reaches around the globe

She plunges into the deep sea

Dancing up on top of clouds

The one for me – she is the one for me Cuz I’ve got, nothing now

Just the one for me – just the one for me

She’s all around

So lovely – so lovely

What’s it about?

The first Workers’ Bomb to be constructed entirely from foraged materials, with an ICBM delivery system capable (in theory anyway) of a global reach unless it just falls into the sea like it says in the tune. Scotch science fiction behemoth Ken MacLeod had a go at us last year over our nuclear armament policy and our whole approach to communism in general you know. See here. Prepare to be proper disgusted. Ken MacLeod, Rachel Khoo, Aprons And Betrayal.

Sounds like:

Sexy Boy era Air? Or a bit Sebastian Tellier. Or Lucy Spraggan? Dunno really. Not a clue.

VERDICT

13: Norway – Margaret Berger – I Feed You My Love

You put a knife against my back

And you dare me to face the attack

You say for cowards there’s no reward

I have the future on my tongue

Now I can see the whole world is mine

What’s it about?

The necessity of having blocking units on demonstrations in order to discourage early withdrawals to the pub, similar to those deployed by the NKVD in great patriotic war, or the SWP at Nusle Bridge in Prague during the anti-IMF protests in 2000.

Sounds like:

A competently executed scandi pop dirge that like many a Norwegian glacier, doesn‘t seem to go anywhere very fast and just isn‘t that bothered. Mid 1990’s Bjork minus the tiresome pretend weirdness.

VERDICT

14: Albania – Adrian Lulgjuraj & Bledar Sejko – Identity

We’ll speak in one language

So there will be no more tears

You’ll be found anywhere around the world

You won’t be a stranger any more

Let it be a new beginning

What’s it about?

An actual letter from the Weekly Worker that may or may not have been written by us, which suggested that in the post-revolutionary world, all languages would be outlawed and Esperanto would become the sole permitted language, thus delivering a possibly fatal blow to the load of old toilet that is nationalism.

Sounds like:

The sort of plodding poodle do mid 80’s metal, superfluous widdly widdly fretwanking solo and all, that Nirvana and co killed stone dead back in the day. Bet they had “Scorpions” scrawled on their schoolbags. Did Def Leppard front man Joe Elliot put up them to this?

VERDICT

15: Georgia – Nodi Tatishvili & Sophie Gelovani – Waterfall

There’s no me without you

Don’t know what I would do

You’re my heartbeat, I’m breathing because of you

What’s it about?

To me, to you. Please have a shufty at our article on Chuckle Theory because there’s a back to back triple whammy coming up.

Sounds like:

The Chuckle Brothers doing Andrew Lloyd Webber.

VERDICT

16: Switzerland – Takasa – You And Me

When the times are getting rough

Gold and silver turn to dust

The people build their barricades

Out of “jealousy” and hate Let it hear from near and far

This is how it’s meant to be

We’re together you and me

What’s it about?

Zwingli, the anabaptists, 1653 and all that, plus naked class hatred and the second helping of applied Chuckle Theory. Note the sardonic swipe at the doctrinaire bourgeois slur that we are motivated by “jealousy” and “the politics of envy” rather than dialectics, very big bearded books and the implacable conviction that capitalism is an organised swindling racket that’s at the end of its historical tether.

Sounds like:

The Chuckle Brothers doing Rocket From The Crypt.

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17: Romania – Cezar – It’s My Life

It’s my life and I know it’s not forever

It’s my life and I’ll share it all with you

It’s my life, we were meant to be together

I’ll give my life to you

What’s it about?

Full, unwavering and unconditional commitment to no holds barred class struggle via the illuminative prism of Chuckle Theory.

Sounds like:

The Chuckle Brothers doing, and we sincerely hope this isn’t taken the wrong way, The Communards, The Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Lloyd Webber, in no particular order.

VERDICT

A preview of the final including the Swedish, UK, German, Italian, French and Spanish entries will be published on Saturday, May 18th.