In these weeks between the selection season and Eurovision itself, in Basel, artists and delegations are touring Europe through pre-parties and other occasions to showcase their entries, trying to get closer to victory. But what is the road to Eurovision victory? As we wait for the first rehearsals, we at ESCXTRA look back at the last eight winners of the contest, and at their own road to victory. This week, we continue with the 2017 winner, Salvador Sobral from Portugal, with “Amar Pelos Dois”.
Don’t forget to check our previous article, from last week: “The Road to Victory: 2016 – From tragedy to trophy“.
Genesis of a song: a Sobral story
An invitation to Luísa Sobral
Our 2017 story begins just like our 2016 did: with a comeback. Ukraine, having withdrawn from the contest for the 2015 edition, came back in 2016 to snatch a small victory over Australia and Russia. Portugal, having withdrawn from the 2016 edition, came back in 2017. Their eventual victory, however, would be very different, in scale and story.
With its return to the contest, Portuguese broadcaster RTP also brought back its national selection, Festival da Canção (the Song Festival). Despite a few changes to the formula, the principle of the festival remained the same: it was a competition for composers.
As usual, RTP invited a number of composers to take part in the contest, giving them the greatest possible artistic freedom, to compose their song in the genre and language(s) they wanted, and to choose the singer to interpret it. The only rules were, of course, to abide by Eurovision rules (no more than three minutes, no political content, etc.), and to be a ready product by the time of the selection, with RTP unwilling to have its entry revamped after being selected.
Sixteen composers were invited: a few were alumni of the festival, but most were newcomers. Among them was Luísa Sobral.
Although this was her Festival debut, Luísa was already an established artist in Portugal, having released four albums at the time, and having taken part in Ídolos (Portugal’s Idol) in 2003 and finished third. Although the Festival had not been something very important in her family’s traditions when she was a child, as an adult she grew interested in the idea of taking part, and accepted the invitation, also interested to participate in something along other songwriters she knew from the Portuguese scene.
Brother and sister
With absolute freedom regarding the act, Luísa immediately thought of writing a song for her younger brother Salvador to sing.
I never thought about singing this song myself because when I wrote it I already had my brother’s voice in mind. I was very fond of seeing him playing my song, because I think he is an extraordinary singer and because it gives me great joy to see him at the Festival da Canção and also that it turned out to be a family thing. I think it’s great that we’re both in this.
Luisa Sobral, about writing “Amar Pelos Dois”
Even though “Amar Pelos Dois” was always meant for her brother, Luísa still poured much of herself in the songs she wrote. A lyrical example of this brother-sister combination was highlighted months later, during the Eurovision winner’s press conference in Kyiv. A journalist from LGBTQ+ Portuguese outlet Dezanove asked the Sobrals about the gender-neutrality of the song lyrics, with no pronouns or grammatical gender agreements in them, something which is not easy in a Latin language. Luísa answered that it was likely because she had written the song for her brother, but also as her own, as a heterosexual woman, singing to a man.
This family element permeates “Amar Pelos Dois”, but something else also does: its non-competitive nature. Luísa herself said it before the Festival: she did not compose the song to win it, she just wanted to show a bit of herself.
I did not write it thinking of the competition. I wanted to write a beautiful song. Then I noticed, reading blogs, that the only goal is to win… and I’m not like that, I wanted to write a song that represents me, that could be on a record of mine, a song that I could be proud of and that’s what I did.
Luísa Sobral, about “Amar Pelos Dois”
Earning the ticket: The unexpected victory
In the end, this authenticity paid off. In Eurovision, of course, but before that, in the Portuguese selection.
The semifinal
Performing seventh in the first semi-final, Salvador gave the first ever performance of the entry on February 19th, a Sunday.
Reactions from the Eurovision fan community (and from Portugal) were contrasted. Some loved “Amar Pelos Dois”, finding it timeless, authentic, and fresh because nothing similar would be present at Eurovision. Others saw it as a boring, old-fashioned ballad: something people would play during the 1950’s. Salvador’s mannerisms faced the same contrasting reception: from endearing to off-putting.
Was it dated? It clearly drew inspiration from older styles, as Salvador himself admitted when comparing it to bossanova, the Brazilian jazz “new wave” of the late 1950’s from Rio de Janeiro.
Perhaps the harmony and melody are a little reminiscent of the American songbook and at the same time of bossanova.
Salvador Sobral, about “Amar Pelos Dois”
Juries loved the song, and gave it their 12 points. The public was not yet as sold on the performance, and put it in third position, giving it 8 points. With 20 points in total, “Amar Pelos Dois” was the runner-up and qualified to the final.
The final
Three days later, on February 22nd, Salvador underwent surgery, something that would become an important part of his path to Eurovision and to victory. This meant that even though the final was not held immediately after the operation, he was still in a weaker state for the show, and admitted later on that it was “the hardest thing” to perform physically in these conditions.
On March 5th came the final, at the Coliseu dos Recreios, in Lisbon. Performing in fourth position, out of eight entries, Salvador gave a performance that started to show some variations in his singing melody, some improvisation: a key element of his jazz background. The song was clearly recognisable, but started to grow more organic through these different interpretations.
The song was once again the jury favourite, earning 12 points from five of the seven regional juries (with Algarve and Lisbon jurors putting it in second position, giving him 10 points instead). With 80 points, “Amar Pelos Dois” was well ahead of “Gente bestial”, the jury runner-up, which only had 53.
Like in the semi-finals, these were converted on a classic Eurovision scale, giving Salvador 12 points only, meaning a bad televote result could still block his way to Kyiv. In the end, “Amar Pelos Dois” performed better than in the semi-final, finishing in second place in the televote, earning 10 points. With 22 points in total, the Sobrals’ entry won the Festival and earned its ticket to Eurovision. Invited to sing again to close the night, Salvador brought his sister on stage, and they sang the song together, improvising even more with the melody, with the full line-up of the Final behind them, muttering the song along.
The performance itself was an improvisation, with both siblings being unsure about who would sing which part, especially at the end of the song, as you can see in the video below:
Thus did the Sobrals earn their ticket to Kyiv. But it was not immediately a ticket to the crystal trophy: another country from southern Europe was the solid favourite.
