Netta Barzilai, the Israeli winner of last year’s Eurovision singing contest, is ready for another round. Last year, in Lisbon, she wowed the crowd with her notorious chicken noises, and her soulful single entitled “Toy”. On Friday, Netta released her third single, named “Nana Banana”, right on time for this year’s Eurovision competition.
The Eurovision international song competition which is taking place in Tel Aviv, Israel this year, begins on Tuesday, May 14th. As reported by the Forward, Netta’s new song, which she will sing live, “has a writhing beat, cheap rhymes, and cheerful refusal to conform”. Netta and her crew will perform the new song at the grand finale, most-likely while wearing crazy and cringe worthy costumes. The lyrics seem to be mostly preposterous, with the repetition of “Nana Banana I do what I wanna”. There also can be found, however, the slightest bit of depth, embedded within the lyrics, which read, “I know I’m wasting my time, but Baby it’s so comfortable. In my bubble I stay always running away.” Netta seems to take on a new persona. In “Toy”, she portrayed herself as a strong, subversive, fearless feminist. Endearingly, here she seems to shed her confident and cocky image. The lyrics seem to tip-off to her true inner fears, her self-doubt and her personal struggles to live up to her own image or potential. The theme also touches upon listening to your own instincts instead of noises on the outside.
The 26-year-old pop vocalist from Hod HaSharon, Israel rose to stardom after winning the fifth season of HaKokhav HaBa (translated as ‘A star is Born”) or Israel’s version of Xfactor. This victory earned her the right to represent Israel in the 2018 Eurovision competition. Her personal victory at Eurovision turned into Israel’s as she earned her country the right to host the 2019 song competition.
Expectedly, the international singing competition has taken on a political tone this year. As reported by the Daily Mail, on Sunday anti-Israeli groups erected a huge banner, near Ben Gurion Airport that reads, ‘Dare to Dream of Freedom’. The banner depicts a picture split in half between a beautiful beachfront lifeguard station and an Israeli military watchtower with clouds overhead. Left-wing Israeli activist group Break the Silence put up the sign as a way of protesting Israel’s ‘occupation’ of the West Bank.
Its director Avner Gvaryahu said he wants tourists to see the sign and be stirred to also tour parts of the West Bank and ‘see the full picture’ of the conflict. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan called Breaking the Silence a ‘despicable hate organization’. Last week, as the contestants arrived in Israel for the rehearsals the air was also tainted with politics. Israel was at the receiving end of a barrage of hundreds of rockets fired into Southern Israel by Palestinian militants. Still, as they say, the show must go on.
