Drukkje min broderѕ blod! Why the best Eurovision songs are no longer in English

While Europe’s lingua franca remains dominant, there has been a definite shift since a Portuguese song triumphed in 2017

There was a time when in order to win Eurovision you had to “fly on the wings of love”, “take me to your heaven” or “sail into infinity while reaching for divinity”. This year, however, there’s a fair chance the winner will estar comiendo el mundo (be eating the world), ridere in queste notti bruciate (laugh in these burnt nights), or even drukkje min broderѕ blod (drink my brother’s blood).

The metaphors may have been mixed, but for the first two decades of the 21st century, the English language reigned supreme at the Eurovision song contest. In the run-up to the millennium, the so-called language rule restricted English songs to countries that counted it among their official languages, such as Britain, Ireland and Malta. But when the rule was scrapped in 1999, the floodgates opened.