What Eurovision Can Teach Us About the Craft

Maybe this is an excuse to blog about Eurovision. But maybe there's something we all can learn.

It's all the Spawn's fault, really.

My Spawn is the most wonderful child ever, and I say that because I am his mother and I am very biased that way. And no, I won't be the least bit remorseful about that.

My Spawn is the one who first got into the Eurovision Song Contest, the annual television event that has been promoting a united Europe through the power of song, now in its 69th year.

I had no idea what he was on about at first. I remember there was a movie with Will Ferrell by the same name a few years before, but other than that, Eurovision meant nothing to me. But my son was absolutely over the moon and bewitched by it. So I opened up the Peacock app on my TV and watched the 2022 Eurovision Finals.

I was uplifted. I was horrified. I was transfixed. I was a now a fan for life.

For those of you who don't know the basics of the Eurovision Song Contest, it was started in the wake of WWII, and now every national broadcasting entity in Europe plus Israel and Australia (and not Russia since it invaded Ukraine), is eligible to choose a song through a national selection process and submit it for the Semifinals. The song has to have never been released anywhere prior to the September of the year before the competition. The song can be no longer than 3 minutes, and can't be too political and suitable for a family audience. There can't be more than 6 performers on the stage. There's no autotuning or lip-syncing allowed.

Not every country that is eligible to put a song in the contest does so. Every year, there are countries that, for whatever reason, decide not to compete. A frequent deciding factor is the national economy. Because the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest must host the event the following year, and hosting is a major undertaking involving 3 nights of performance, hosts, production numbers and a parade, countries will often cite the expense of winning for why they won't submit to the competition. Despite the potential expense, there are usually enough of the 37 eligible countries that participate to populate two semifinals where voters select 20 countries to join the host country and the "Big 5" (the 5 countries who pay the majority of the broadcasting costs and therefore get a bye into the Finals -- UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany) in the Grand Finale.

The Green Room during the second Eurovision Semi-Final Thursday evening © EBU/ Alma Bengtsson

The 2025 Grand Finale will take place tonight.

The songs that get submitted are supposed to be "Pop" songs. Over the 69 years that the contest has been active, it's produced hits like the Italian classic "Volare" and put ABBA on the map with "Waterloo." A young, not-yet-famous Celine Dion won Eurovision in 1988, and US hip hop star Flo Rida rapped as part of team San Marino in 2021. Over the past three years, songs like Destiny's "Je Me Casse," Chanel's "SloMo" and Gustaph's "Because of You" would be at home on rotation at any big city pop music station in the US.

There's other songs that are gorgeous, that bring soaring vocals and innovative staging to showcase singers that have commanding stage presence. Last years "Grito" from Portugal's Iolanda and this year's entry by Clavdia from Greece stand out in this regard. Slimane's performance on behalf of France last year, where the singer delivered the last verse of "Mon Amour" acapella, standing a few feet back from the microphone, was a high caliber vocal flex that made the otherwise forgettable song stand out.

But some songs inevitably bear the marks of what happens when pop music is decided on by a state-sponsored committee. National Pride, hopes and dreams and tradition often combine to create some rather flat and forgettable moments, usually in the form of overwrought song stylings. Then there are the efforts that are a little too "try hard." There was a brief moment last year, after the phenomenal success of Chanel's "SloMo" where it seemed like every entry had to offer up a slick dance break in the middle. After Loreen's otherworldly power ballad vibe for her winning entry in 2023, "Tattoo," several of this year's entries are going for a mystical fantasy feel -- dragons, water nymphs, knights in armor, fire wraiths all making an appearance in this year's Grand Finale.

Eurovision also loves to get campy. Whether it's a couple of guys in yellow foam masks singing about giving a wolf a banana, or this year's Finnish entry, which features blonde bombshell Eirka Vikman clad in leather, straddling a 10 foot long golden microphone on a stand suspended six feet off the ground belching sparks out the back, singing "ICH KOMME" which is German for "I'm coming!" Eurovision doesn't mind a little bit of fun.

And then there's the stuff that's just plain weird. My son and I still talk about an entry from San Marino in 2022 that featured the singer shirtless riding a diamond studded velvet mechanical bull that left both of us asking "what the fuck did we just watch?" The irony is that while sometimes the weird is horrible, sometimes the weird becomes genius. When I describe the setup for Konstrakta's entry for Serbia that same year -- the singer in a sterile white jumpsuit seated and washing her hands in a basin while 5 men in priests' robes dance around her as she sings about the fact that Serbia does not offer nationalized healthcare to its artists -- most people are in disbelief. They are even more astonished when I tell them that the song is one of my all-time favorites and the chorus and the hand movements are still burned in my brain. And their brain breaks yet again when I show them the video and they have to agree that it's a bop.

But why the hell am I writing about Eurovision in a substack about witchcraft? What does all of this have to teach us as witches?

See, the thing is, Eurovision largely accomplishes its goal of uniting Europe through music. Over the past 69 years, most Europeans may think the contest is kitschy or cringey, but they pay attention to it, they watch. They may groan when you mention it, or give a knowing smile, but they know who won last year, where the show will be next year. And it’s something that belongs wholly to Europe. America has only lately come to the party. And just in case anyone is fantasizing about a US entry, give it up now. They’re never letting us in, nor should they. Not now. Not ever. And that is as it should be.

Eurovision’s magic works. It works in ways that are both serious and silly, sacred and profane. The magic of Eurovision is in its openness to all comers. Other than a few basic rules, that are largely about creating a frame that gives some standardization to the format of the performances, there's nobody telling the participants that they can't try something.

Want to do a campy dance tune about how Edgar Alan Poe lives in your head? Go for it! Maybe a high energy song that draws off of the instrumentation of your nation's folk music is your thing? Sure! How about a power ballad about missing your mom? There are lots of ways to express yourself in song.

And campy songs often score just as high in the rankings as serious ones. Eurovision's judging includes two elements, industry professionals and a popular vote, and both can feel unpredictable at times. While some songs do come into the Grand Finale with a following because of social media, that's not always a predictor of success when the scoring is all said and done. And sometimes what causes a country to get votes has as much to do with its relationships with other countries as it does with the song it's entered in the competition.

Eurovision is so successful because it doesn't have a set formula for success. There is no "Eurovision sound." There is no one type of entry that is always more successful than the others. It embraces all of the human experience in its songs. Powerful, passionate, sad, happy, silly, and even weird. Whatever direction you want to go, whatever vibe you want to bring, Eurovision doesn't flinch. It's all part of the show.

We as witches could take a cue from the Eurovision approach to songs. Offerings and rituals don't have to be serious to get the job done. Whether the intent is spellwork to acheve a certain objective or devotional work to establish relationship with deity, or whatever your intent might be, there is room for a wide range of approaches. You can be beautiful and serious. You can be cute and campy. You can choose references that are traditional or you can choose things that mean a lot to you, but might not make sense to anyone else.

We most frequently think of the Craft as serious business. And there's a vibe and an aesthetic -- dark and mysterious -- that tends to rule the day. But there can be sacredness in being silly. Our gods do not need us to be dour and intense all the time. Our practices have enough room in them for laughter and jokes. Even now, when we're facing dark times, a hard economy and rising fascism, there is room for lightheartedness amid the urgency. The human experience we are trying to protect contains light and dark, serious and silly, loud and quiet, melodic and jarring. We can't fight for what we can't acknowledge. We need to find a way to embrace it all.

Eurovision's sixty-nine years of success come from being a contained space where all of Europe in all its strangeness, with all its different languages and cultures can come and be however it needs to be. Finns and Spaniards and Irish and Azerbaijani. Albanians and Danes and Belgians and Croatians. Hell, it's such a great container, it can even stand having outsiders like Australia and Israel, who aren't really part of Europe, as part of the mix. And that mix is all the moods. Whatever mood whatever country happens to be in at whatever moment, the Eurovision stage is broad enough to bear it, to give it a voice and celebrate it.

The Craft is much the same. It is wide enough to include lots of different vibes, lots of different practices, and the more you can make space in your Craft for all the moods and all the ways of being and doing, the more powerful and effective your Craft will be.

As you watch the Eurovision Grand Finale today (you will be watching, won't you?) Revel in the wild ride from passionate to quirky, from savage to fun. That's what makes this whole contest a joy to watch. And that kind of openness can make your Craft a joy to practice.

Right now we need that more than ever.

Blessed be, witches.