J/BLØG

I watched the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest that was held on 20 May 2008 in Beograd – it was broadcasted tonight on SBS. Amongst the pop rubbish, there was a song that caught my attention and it’s not even up for the prize. It was played during the interval when the votes were being counted. The song is a combination of a western orchestra but with a distinctive Balkan flavour – melancholic and soulful. After some searches through Google and Wikipedia, I found out that the song was called Nebo (‘Sky’ in Serbian) – the singer is Slobodan Trkulja and his group, Balkanopolis, along with the Metropole Orchestra from the Netherlands.

The music is sublime and for some unknown reason moves me deeply. It’s certainly true that music can transcends the boundaries of languages and cultures. It’s as if the sound of the flute can speak to my soul through a language that I don’t understand. Music can certainly move people – it’s quite unfortunate that it’s been polluted and ransacked thesedays, all in the name of ‘style’.

It’s been a while since I can be teary eyed listening to a song which I don’t understand. I’ve managed to track the video from YouTube – I think the song that they play in the Eurovision Song Contest is longer than the original version, but the original is beautiful nevertheless. Their website mentions that they will release a CD this summer with Peter Gabriel. I hope they will hurry up – I’m hooked.