World Song Contest

THE WINNER

Country: Luxembourg
Artist(s): Raphaël
Song: Caravane

Raphaël Haroche, born on 7 November 1975 in Paris France, is a French singer who performs under the name Raphael. His father is Russian and his mother is from Argentina. He began his public career with the song “Cela Nous Aurait Suffi (Dayenou)”, featured on his critically-acclaimed debut album Hôtel de l’Univers in 2001. His first major public hit was “Sur La Route”, a duet with French long-time rock legend Jean-Louis Aubert. His second album, La Réalité (2003), was met with successes both critical and commercial, and Raphael has been on the road ever since, playing gigs all over France. After the release of super-hit album Caravane, best-selling French LP of 2005 helped by catchy-yet-thought-provoking tunes such as “Caravane,” “Ne Partons Pas Fâchés,” “Et dans 150 ans,” or “Schengen”, he went on to win three "Victoires de la Musique". He came back with a new album in 2008.

Official website: http://www.raphael.fm/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/raphaelofficiel

Lyrics

Est-ce que j'en ai les larmes aux yeux
Que nos mains ne tiennent plus ensemble
Moi aussi je tremble un peu
Est-ce que je ne vais plus attendre

Est-ce qu'on va reprendre la route
Est-ce que nous sommes proches de la nuit
Est-ce que ce monde a le vertige
Est-ce qu'on sera un jour puni

Est-ce que je rampe comme un enfant
Est-ce que je n'ai plus de chemise
C'est le Bon Dieu qui nous fait
C'est le Bon Dieu qui nous brise

Est-ce que rien ne peut arriver
Puisqu'il faut qu'il y ait une justice
Je suis né dans cette caravane
Et nous partons allez viens
Allez viens

Tu lu tu, tu lu tu...

Et parce que ma peau est la seule que j'ai
Que bientôt mes os seront dans le vent
Je suis né dans cette caravane
Et nous partons allez viens
Allez viens

Tu lu tu, tu lu tu...
Allez viens
Tu lu tu, tu lu tu...

YOUR COMMENTS

Among the 63 countries which took part in the 38th edition of the World Song Contest, new countries joined the WSC family. Asia and South America showed their number of representatives rising with the first participations of Thailand, Vietnam, The Netherlands Antilles and Uruguay. Namibia also joined as the second African countries of this edition. But the "first time lucky" sentence couldn't be more wrong as only Vietnam and the Netherlands Antilles managed to qualify for the final.

The semi finals showed the fall of Colombia, represented by Shakira, with an unusual genre for this singer. Unfortunately it didn't impress the voters. With this elimination, only Coldplay, for the United Kingdom, represented the famous international stars we have in each edition of the contest. But we also had several names familiar to the WSC and ESC fans like Dino Merlin for Bosnia & Herzegovina, Mónica Naranjo for Andorra, Paolo Meneguzzi for Switezerland...

Also we had 4 songs performed in French with the entries from France, Belgium, Monaco, Luxembourg and Morocco. All of them took part in the final, but it has to be said three were directly qualified after the previous editions, so only two took part in the semi finals. So it was probably too early to say French was a sign of success in this contest despite the winner apparead to be a song performed in French.

After they tied with South Africa for the victory in WSC .30, Luxembourg found the way to the top once again, and this time alone. Even if the race for victory was hard, with Australia and Switzerland close behind, "Caravane", performed by Raphaël, collected votes from 22 players, to achieve a 139 points final results, and so a first victory in WSC.

Gallery of Participants

Sam Sparro

Paolo Meneguzzi

VanVelzen

Mónica Naranjo

Bryan Rice