Song Of The Day 5/13/2016: Francesca Michielin – “No Degree of Separation” (Italy)

I'm Ovision – Eurovision! 2016 – As I'm sure you all know, there are five countries who automatically advance to the Finals Round of Eurovision every year: the UK, Spain, France, Italy and Germany. This is because these countries are the ones who've paid the most for Eurovision over the course of its existence. Money's been flying out of their coffers for this sucker for decades. They've sent their boys to the front to die for Eurovision. Entire ecosystems supporting Eurovision have sprung up in abandoned steel towns and countrysides. Tourism money just pours into Eurovision, and when they run out of tourism money they kidnap people and force them to become tourists and take their money, then drop them off five miles outside of Stonehenge with revised passports. So these five countries, perhaps rightly, figure they should have a leg up on the competition.

Today's song is my favorite from the five shoo-in countries this year. Francesca Michielin won one season on the Italian version of X Factor back when she was a teenager. She's parlayed it into some measure of success, whatever they call the level where you do guest appearances on Italian rappers' records. "No Degree of Separation" is also sung, at least partially, in her native tongue, although she does one lyric in English just so the NASCAR set can get some inkling as to what the song's about. I like the Lorde-y (as opposed to Lordi) video and the retro 3-D glasses. I get the feeling they serve the same purposes as blowtorch masks for this clip. There's also a jewel heist and an Italian restaging of the credit sequence to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. At least that's what it seemed like when I looked up from my book.