Song Of The Day 5/20/2015: Elina Born & Stig Rästa – “Goodbye to Yesterday” (Estonia)

I'm Ovision -- Eurovision! 2015: Like I said in the gurgling haze of getting this whole thing together, there are some dark-ass numbers being paraded out into the world for this year’s Eurovision contest. There are a couple of entrants who seem to have found their particular video muses in vials of red dye. Because it looks like blood, you see. Take Belgium’s Loïc Nottet’s song “Rhythm Inside,” wherein everyone is revitalized and washed anew towards the end of the video by being splattered in red paint as if they’d stink-bombed a PETA office in chinchilla loafers. (It’s obviously red paint because of the visible clotting qualities of the liquid, unless there’s some Belgian sacrificial ritual I don’t know about that’s better left to the Norwegians anyway.)

The careless dumping of the source of life also plays a prominent role in Elina Born & Stig Rästa’s “Goodbye to Yesterday,” the Estonian entry that has an decent shot at victory (currently listed 5th on the oddsmakers’ charts). There’s a lot going on here, not the least of which is an advert for Mercedes Benz for the brooding sort. It’s another one of those picture-stories where everyone seems a little upset without any real obvious cause. Stig & Elina have obviously just completed a hot night of romping. He idles his Mercedes in dappling rain and she reclines in silver satin sheets, leaving the morning’s tai chi ritual at something of a standstill. Nobody is happy coitus just occurred, if in fact it did. He’s got a bandage with bloodstains wrapped around his hands, which makes us fear he’s done the worst, but it turns out he only punched out the bathroom mirror. Meanwhile, in flashbacks we see that somebody draws a knife, and again we are concerned that a greater tragedy has occurred, but in the end Elina’s only slicing up onions (I want you to know!).

Again – maybe I’m just one of these cretin Americans who demand more traceable motivations for people being so visibly upset and destructive to property. So I need to travel more. I’m workin’ on it, I’m workin’ on it. In the meantime, cheer up, my Baltic friends -- you're in the Eurovision Song Contest, fer Chrissakes.