Editorials & Opinion

Xtra’s Pick of the 21st Century

It’s Friday and so it’s time for a recent Eurovision song.ย Nick takes us back to a Turkish favourite this time…

Turkey 2005: Gรผlseren – Rimi Rimi Ley (13th place)


I am not a big fan of most Turkish Eurovision songs. Often they just didn’t send anything remotely appealing to me. However, some songs I quite like and this is one of them, even when it took me some time…
Over at our partner site escChat.com, the chatroom I visit on a daily basis, this Turkish entry has turned into a real classic. And that is how it started to grow on me and it is now one of three Turkish entries I enjoy – the others beingย Dinle andย Petr’oil.
So what is it that I enjoy so much about this? It’s just the sheer happiness that Gรผlseren delivers on stage. This is just being Turkish without knowing the limits and interestingly, I’ve seen many Turkish fans saying this was a ‘disgrace’ for their nation. And you know, that’s something I don’t understand. This is an entry that’s hard to forget, mainly because of Gรผlseren’s performance.
The highlight in this performance for me is the drum section in the middle, started by Gรผlseren shoutingย Allez go!, which just gives the song life. My least favourite bit is when the Kyiv technicians accidentally threw Moldova’sย Boonika Bate Dobaย into the backing track about a minute in (in case you were wondering what that noise was).
All in all, it just goes to show that if you hear an entry a lot, you can’t really stay indifferent about it. It’s hard to feel ‘nothing’ in such cases – you’ll either like it or dislike it. In the case ofย Rimi Rimi Ley, I grew to like this three minute tourist advert for Turkeyย quite a lot.

Nick van Lith

I'm one of the founding members of ESCXTRA.com. Eleven years after the start, I'm proud to say that I am now the Editor-in-Chief of this wonderful website. When I'm not doing Eurovision stuff, you should be able to find me teaching German to kids... And cheering on everything and everyone Greek, pretty much. Pame Ellada!

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