We found you, France!

Colour us happy, France finally found their rhythm:

First and primarily, there are a few interesting facts to be noted about France’s entry:

1. The song has lyrics in both French and English, which makes the AUSTRIAN entry the only song in the contest sung solely in French
2. Amir is partially from Israel, which makes HIM the only good Israeli singer in the contest (yeah, we know, stay tuned for our review of the Israeli entry)
3. Amir claims that a certain “you” makes him strong, while the video is about self defence. That should make for an interesting background story

All of those make sense in Eurovision, of course. After all it is a parallel universe with its own logic, which France always seems to master perfectly.

“J’ai cherché” is a modern, catchy tune about belonging, love and making a meaning out of the universe, as taken directly from a Baudelaire poem about the hard life in the industrialized metropolis, only spiced up with a little comprehensive language and drum beats for good measure.

Have to say that works. We have been humming the song since it first appeared in our favorite YouTube playlist and it is widely popular with the fans already. In this contest we do love a song that makes us both want to move around and sing along, and it’s been a while since the once so grande Eurovision nation of France was anywhere near that, so we are truly grateful of course.

Also, we are grateful for Amir, both a great singer and a Romeo. He is also one of the many artists this year that is recycled from the national final of some talent show, in this case The Voice. That could of course make us wonder if the country understands and respects the true importance of their participation in the year’s most important event if it wasn’t for the fact that a)a talent show also gave us Marco Mengoni and b)Amir hasn’t missed the chance to tell us how much he loves Eurovision, which awards him with about a thousand extra points from us of course.

We do have a slight concern about the live performance, though. The song is not developing a lot, apart from a heartily welcomed bridge, and we gather it demands a strong live performance in order for it to succeed as much as it should.

While Amir probably is among the most intriguing personalities to set foot in Globen this May, judging by his live interviews, huge smile and, not the least, fabulous Snapchat videos with our daily fix of French charm, we all know Amir can’t just stand there with twinkly eyes and stomp his foot up and down in a contest where other people show up with their own trampolines, live wolves and enough pyro to blow us all to Jupiter. At least give the guy a guitar, which he seems to handle quite well or surround him with something a wee bit more interesting than three grumpy choir chicks in tutus clapping their hands over their head like they were part of the distant audience.

Then again, we’re talking France here. As long as they don’t let last year’s depressing video artist anywhere near our guy, we’re sure they’ll come up with something great. And they should, because both Amir and his nice, little tune deserve it.

Bonne chance, good luck and מזל טוב to him!