We don’t know nothing about those drugs

Eurovision is fast upon us and I’d promised that I would tell you more about Estonia’s amazing entry.

Well, actually, I said I would translate the whole song but in the meantime, someone else has done it for me, so I’m just going to rely on them.

Here’s the video from their performance at the Estonian final:

I immediately fell in love with the energy and fun that they brought to the performance.

The song is called (Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi which I translated as “We don’t know nothing about those drugs” but the Wikipedia translation does a better job of maintaining the parentheses with “We (sure) know nothing about (these) drugs”. Either way, it’s the longest song title ever for a Eurovision entry. The song explains that the band have been caught with drugs (hence the “these” in parentheses as opposed to drugs in general) and are explaining to the police that they couldn’t possibly be drug addicts because they are too poor.

The song and performance is a collaboration by two popular Estonian bands: 5miinust (sunglasses) and Puuluup (no sunglasses).

Puuluup, who composed the music, is an Estonian duo who combine modern music with traditional folklore to make what they describe as neo-zombie-post-folk. In the video, they are playing the hiiu kannel that I mentioned when I wrote about An Estonian Odyssey of Awkwardness. I’ve since discovered that in English, it’s called a talharpa.

5miinust, who wrote the lyrics, is an Estonian hip-hop band with front-man Estoni Kohver. Estoni Kohver is a pseudonym, referring back to Eston Kohver, which is the name of an Estonian man who was kidnapped by Russians in 2014. He was a member of the Estonian Internal Security Service and had gone to a border area to meet a possible informant, as a part of an investigation into cross-border crime and smuggling. It turned out to be an FSB sting. The member of 5miinust, on the other hand, is Estoni Kohver which literally means Eston’s Briefcase. All this to let you know what type of sense of humour we are dealing with. The other three members are Päevakoer (sun dog or parhelion), Pöhja-Korea (North Korea) and Lancelot.

Here’s the official music video that they created a few weeks ago. In it, Puuluup are the (innocent until proven guilty) drug users and 5miinust, in wigs and false mustaches, are the police.

Although the drug references are allowed to stay, Eurovision have insisted they change the line in which they insist that “the only bag on our table is green Lay’s”. Green Lay’s are green onion flavored potato chips (crisps) so it could be construed as advertising. Apparently, the new version of the line now refers to the bag being full of recycled bottles; in Estonia, you get ten cents deposit back per plastic bottle. I suspect the Frito-Lay company is quite relieved to hear of the change.

Apparently, the rehearsal in preparation for the official event this week has not gone well. I found this article from last month in which Estoni Kohver said he was concerned about their ability to pull it off.

ERR interview in Estonian

I do not know if either or both of those are what went wrong in the rehearsal. :grimace: I hope it goes all right on the night!

Now even if you didn’t play the previous two videos, I BEG OF YOU to watch this version, in which the sign language interpreter totally rocks out and does what looks to me like the best interpretation ever. I’ve watched it four times now and I just cannot stop smiling every time I see him.

So, the plan is to get somewhere between 7th and 2nd place. They don’t want to win, as that would mean the next Eurovision would be hosted in Estonia and that’s expensive. But they do want to beat Belgium, because, from what I understand, the guy is kind of a crow whisker. I have no idea what that means but apparently it is not good.

Even if you don’t watch the Eurovision contest, at least when Estonia gets second place this year, you’ll know what the hell everyone is talking about. Glad to have been of service!