To highlight the art of writing song lyrics, for the seventh time Eurostory hands out the Eurostory Best Lyrics Award – an award for the best song lyrics of this year’s Eurovision songs. Previous awards were won by Ukraine (2016), France (2017, 2018) and Italy (2019, 2021, 2022).

The four nominees for 2023 are now known. As in previous years the winner will be chosen by a large international expert jury, and also by you, visitors of our website! You can vote now!

Mahmood: ‘I’m so happy!’
The Eurostory Best Lyrics Award is a growing phenomenon in the Eurovision world. In 2022, just days before the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, Mahmood and BLANCO received the award for their song Brividi. 

The winner was determined by visitors of our website (5.000 votes) as well as an international expert jury. ‘I’m so happy,’ Mahmood replied. ‘With these lyrics we really tried to bring different generations together.’

Professional jury
Beside the public vote (25%) there’s also an expert jury (75%), which consists of international writers, journalists, publishers and past contestants – people who work with written texts and lyrics professionally. They’ll cast their vote over the coming weeks, and during the week of the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool we will announce the winner of the Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2023.

The nominees
These are the nominees for the Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2023:

  • Austria: Who the hell is Edgar? Teya & Salena, lyrics: Pele Loriano, Ronald Janeček, Selina-Maria Edbauer, Teodora Špirić)
  • Italy: Due vite (Marco Mengoni, lyrics: Davide Pretella, Davide Simonetta, Marco Mengoni)
  • Armenia: Future lover (Brunette, lyrics: Brunette)
  • France: Évidemment (La Zarra, lyrics: Ahmed Saghir, Fatima Zahra Hafdi, Yannick Rastogi, Zacharie Raymond)

Read the jury reports below.

Austria: Who the hell is Edgar? (Pele Loriano, Ronald Janeček, Selina-Maria Edbauer, Teodora Špirić)

Jury report
Teya & Salena sing the funniest Eurovision lyrics in many years. Look at the first line: ‘There’s a ghost in my body and he is a lyricist.’ So… the girls are being possessed by a writer? Right. And not just any writer either: ‘It’s Edgar Allan Poe.’ Suddenly there’s a literary element to this Song Contest, as they are really referring to the American author (1809-1849) who is famous for his ghost stories. ‘He’s gonna make me rich,’ Teya & Salena sing, but that turns out to be disappointing. The song evolves into an accusation against the music industry, because the girls keep repeating the number ‘0,003’ which just so happens to be the exact amount of dollars an artist makes for one single Spotify stream. The song ends with a great last line: ‘At least it pays to be funny.’ Followed by a final outburst: ‘Wah!’

Click here for more information.

Italy: Due vite (Davide Pretella, Davide Simonetta, Marco Mengoni)

Jury report
How two lives each take their own turns – that’s the topic at the heart of Due Vite by MarcoMengoni. Two people lie awake at night, after having had a falling out during a club visit. They love one another, apparently, but ‘I still don’t know your desert. Perhaps it is located somewhere in my heart, where the sun doesn’t shine.’ As is often the case with Mengoni, the listener can put in a little effort in deciphering the lyrics, although there are enough clues to understand the underlying meaning, aided by original metaphors such as: ‘We are a book on the floor of an empty house that resembles our own.’ Despite all misunderstanding (Mengoni even literally sings the words‘guarda che disordine’, meaning: look at this mess) there is one original need that keeps resurfacing: ‘If this is the final song before the moon explodes, then I’ll be there to tell you that
you’re wrong.’

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Armenia: Future love (Brunette)

Jury report
It’s always nice when artists open the lyrics of their song by speaking to you, as if you’ve just met them in a casual, everyday situation. That is what Brunette, the Armenian singer does. As if we’ve just asked her about her plans in life, she tells us: ‘I want to make art, read books and find someone who will kiss my face.’ And with that future love interest she wants to ‘visit old book shops’ and ‘drink smoothies in a small café’. After this information, she addresses that person by saying: ‘I hope our love is quiet outside, but loud inside.’ How does she plan on finding this love? ‘I decide to be good, do good, look good.’ And then there’s the third verse, in which Brunette tells us that it’s all just a ‘poetic dream’. That her reality is much more grim: ‘Three minutes of making impossible plans and seven minutes of unnecessary panic attacks.’ Those plot twists turn Future lover into an exciting song with strong, substantial lines.

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France: Évidemment (Ahmed Saghir, Fatima Zahra Hafdi,
Yannick Rastogi, Zacharie Raymond)

Jury report
Singer La Zarra sings a song about a deep disappointment. The complaint about life and love starts of in a fairly desperate state: ‘My heart, my hands, my eyes, my hips; nothing belongs to me anymore.’ And a little further on, this poetic line: ‘In my hellish garden flowers grow that I water with my dreams and my tears.’ Another example: ‘You may be on top of the world, but your fingers still can’t touch the sky.’ The lyrics are filled with disenchantment and even cynicism (‘It’s always too good to be true, but never too ugly to be unreal.’) but in the bridge La Zarra addresses her listeners directly: ‘I stand here before you, naked. Give me a chance!’ And suddenly she lifts her lyrics to the here and now, to Eurovision, to what she is doing right in front of us, on stage, by literally asking: ‘Did I succeed in singing [for] the great France?’

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Voting starts now!
The winner will be chosen by an international expert jury (75%), and also by you, visitors of our website (25%)! In the poll at the top of this page you can vote for your favourite lyrics. During the Eurovision week in Liverpool we will announce the winner of the Eurostory Best Lyrics Award 2023!