Armenia have released the penultimate Eurovision 2023 song, Future Lover, by 22-year old, Brunette.
Following Armenia’s disappointing result, but incredible outside success, with Rosa Linn’s Snap in Turin, there would’ve been a lot of pressure on AMPTV to replicate such a formula. Likewise Armenia’s recent win and second place at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest provided AMPTV a lot of pressure to also replicate that formula and take it to the Eurovision stage. However, what Brunette offers us is something entirely unique and fairly unlike anything else in the competition.
It has been noted, very quickly after release, by fans that some of the lyrical content in the song might be running the risk of breaking Eurovision Song Contest rules. The entirety of Future Lover‘s first two verses seem to be pulled directly from a bunch of Tumblr and Pinterest quotes from over a decade ago:
As you can see above, there are just a few examples of the lyrics of Future Lover being plastered across the internet over 10 years before the September 1st 2022 deadline.
While this is technically against the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest, there has always been a grey area when it comes to using quotations in lyrics. Similar concerns were raised about the Albert Einstein quote at the beginning of Croatia’s My Friend in 2017, however, this seems to be on an entire different level to just using a famous quote as the first two lines of an entry. The entire first two verses are essentially stolen from the work of many others, without any credit, and being passed off as the work of Brunette, as the “sole” lyrcist.
The fact that we are now far past the deadline for final submissions to the EBU for Eurovision 2023 makes the situation difficult if the EBU deemed it necessary to interfere. Given the situation, it could result in Armenia’s disqualification. Many fans have pointed out, however, that the EBU may not be aware of this, and because the “quotes” are so obscure, it could easily be ignored and “brushed under the carpet” even if they were.
Armenia will perform in the first half of Semi Final 2 on 11 May, which means Brunette is placed in what many in the fandom “consider” to be the weaker Semi Final, and therefore, in any circumstance, her song is far more likely to make it through to the Grand Final on 13 May.
Speaking about being selected, Brunette said: “I am happy to share the news with you. I just create music, and this time I will share it with the European audience.”
Georgia will complete the Eurovision 2023 line-up of songs when Iru releases Echo tomorrow.
