Vampires are alive!

No, that’s not my idea. Actually it’s René’s. But first things first...

Every year in May TV-viewers all over Europe gather together in front of their TV to watch the Eurovision Song Contest and rate the 12 finalists from different European countries. Back in the 80s Switzerland once won the contest with a Canadian artist – Celine Dion. But after that, whenever Switzerland had reached the final what we heard was something like ‘Switzerland – 0 points’. Most of the winners were slsciously dressed women and came from Eastern Europe. That’s tough for the proud Swiss soul. Actually we feared we’d lose our pride slowly...

So the word went out to find an artist who could be a worthy representative for our country and make the jury say ‘Switzerland – 12 points’ again. Of course most Swiss artist would rather go on playing in pubs and shabby gym halls than to embarrass themselves on TV all over Europe. But finally one man stood up and said: ‘I’ll do it’: It was René.

Well, most probably you’ll know René as DJ BoBo.

DJ BoBo wrote a song and a matching script for a TV-friendly show and finally presented the song ‘Vampires are alive’.

So finally we have a Swiss artist who’s willing to either lead us to glory or to instantly scuttle his glorious career – and of course you can already hear the prophecy of doom again. There is a line in the ‘Vampire’-lyrics that goes ‘Free you spirit (...) Sell your soul’ which lead some hardcore-Christians of the SEA (Christians with serious brain-damage...) to complain that the song might drive mentally unstable people into suicide. They wrote letters to several members oth the government to ban the song and asked the artist himself to change the lyrics. Here's the link to the story, in best German (sorry, ET ;-)): http://www.factum-magazin.ch/wFactum_de/aktuell/2007_03_13_DJ_BoBo_Vampire.php

Ok, first of all: The government has probably more important things to do than to decide whether a song should get international airplay or not, just because its lyrics are about fictional creatures. Our teenage-heroes were much worse - even Marilyn Manson is a tussy compared to what we used to listen to. And second: DJ BoBo is UN-ambassador against hunger, so he’d probably be the last one who wants people to follow these lyrics.

Now that the first rage has calmed a bit, let’s see what’s left: DJ BoBo is still singing his original lyrics, the Swiss government has not yet decided about the song – and probably never will – , the SEA has reached the desired popularity and we’re back in the 80’s where the P.M.R.C. tried to ban artists like Prince, Sheena Easton, WASP, Judas Priest and other bands with obscure lyrics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center

Thanks chaps, I really had an incredible laugh when I read about your proclamations! Can we get back to business now? ;-)))