World Song Contest

THE WINNER

Country: Russia

A veteran of New York's anti-folk scene, Regina Spektor makes quirky, highly eclectic, but always personal music. Born and raised in Moscow until age nine, Spektor listened to her father's bootleg tapes of Western pop and rock as a young child and also learned to play piano. She and her family moved from Russia to the Bronx, where she was immersed in American culture (at the time, hers was the first Russian family in the borough in 20 years). Eventually, Spektor and her family became part of a community that balanced her Russian Jewish roots with her new home's culture. She continued to practice piano anywhere she could, including at her synagogue, until her family got a piano of their own. Spektor further developed her classical piano training by attending the SUNY Purchase Music Conservatory. During her studies, she was exposed to blues and jazz artists, including Billie Holiday, for the first time; these sounds made such an impact on Spektor that they became a big part of her self-released 2001 debut album, 11:11. At the same time, she was also playing gigs anywhere she could in the city, in venues ranging from basements to parties to comedy clubs. With her frequent performances and another self-released album, 2002's Songs, Spektor developed a following that included Alan Bezozi, They Might Be Giants' drummer; he introduced Spektor to the Strokes' producer, Gordon Raphael. Raphael and Bezozi worked with Spektor on her third album, Soviet Kitsch, in New York and London (where she collaborated with the band Kill Kenada). Soviet Kitsch was initially self-released like her other work, but it eventually found a wider release with Sire Records. Tours with the Strokes, Kings of Leon, Mates of State, and the Moldy Peaches' Kimya Dawson further raised Spektor's profile. Tours of the U.K. and the success of "Us" as a single there led to the release of the CD/DVD retrospective Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories early in 2006; that summer, Begin to Hope, her first album of original material for Sire, arrived.

official website: http://www.reginaspektor.com/ 

Lyrics

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
And kissed me 'til the mornin' light, the mornin' light
And he kissed me 'til the mornin' light

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first

Sometimes there is THE song. The one everyone agrees this is a real winner. The history of the contest is full of close victories (the closest one happened in WSC .30 when South Africa and Luxembourg received the same number of votes), but sometimes we have runaway victories. What happened in the 31st edition of the World Song Contest, which started in September 2007, is the biggest victory ever.

52 countries took part in this edition, among them new comer Belize, Bahamas and Mongolia while Uzbekistan and New Zealand were back for a second try. Unfortunately only New Zealand managed to qualify for the final (where the song finished close to the top 10 with a 12th position).

Once again we had big names in this edition: Alicia Keys, former-model-now-singer Carla Bruni and Vanessa Paradis (famous for her songs written by Serge Gainsbourg and Lenny Kravitz, and for her relationship with Johnny Depp). For once, all of them managed to reach the top 10.

But a name was not enough to stop Russia from winning. With 226 points, not only "Samson" (performed by Regina Spektor) was a clear winner but the song also broke the record of points received, being the first one to receive more than 200 points. It was also 93 points more than runner up Australia. France, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Slovenia completed the top 5.

Ricki-Lee

Carla Bruni

Maja Milinković

Nina Pušlar

Vanessa Paradis

Alicia Keys