Political analysis of Eurovision song - what song?

[u/GSamSardio]

Hey friends!
I’ve got an upper secondary school project in social sciences, where I need to present a song and make a political analysis, as in looking for indications of political messages or ideologies, of the song. I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to pick a Eurovision song, as it is among my favourite things in the world.

These are the exact instructions if you really care (but honestly I doubt you need to read them to save your kind soul some time):

“* IN-DEPTH ASSIGNMENT: IDEOLOGIES and ROCK ’N’ ROLL

Your task is to activate your knowledge of political ideologies and try to find traces of the ideologies and their political ideas in some song lyrics, which you choose yourself. Keep in mind that the lyrics are rarely obviously linked to an ideology, without you having to look for, for example, social criticism – which can be both woven into talk about a lot of other things and also in many cases perhaps implied or ironic. You therefore have to interpret the lyrics yourself and explain what you think the lyricist means. Also keep in mind that interpretations are precisely interpretations, i.e. There are rarely any completely correct answers, instead it is important that you can explain what connections you think you can see to some set of political ideas (which do not necessarily have to be the same as the author of the text intended from the beginning. A text can contain examples of several different ideologies, which may be contradictory, without the author of the text thinking about it himself.) As long as you can present reasonable justifications for why you think that the social criticism (e.g.) that you think you can distinguish can actually be reasonably connected to some political idea(s) (which in turn are part of one of the ideologies we have gone through) – then you can't go wrong. Keep in mind that pacifism, racism, feminism, etc. are not ideologies in their own right, but are part of the overall ideologies.*”

(I used Google translate and I don’t think you can blame me for not translating all of that myself, so sorry if the grammar is shit)

That being said, what song should I pick. I really like the pre-2000s Eurovision, so that would be preferable although not necessary. I had thoughts about picking Dancing Lasha Tumbai, but the lyrics are really not too much to discuss, so I’d have to discuss the context around it which I don’t know if my teacher wants, at least not as a focus.

TL;DR: School project. Political analysis. What song? Preferably, although not necessarily, pre-2000. Preferably lyrical depth.

Thanks for your help!

[u/Alpaca_Investor]

Italy 1974 is an interesting one - it was censored on the radio in Italy when it came out, due to concerns about the potential political messaging of the lyrics. 

It’s somewhat obscure, but famously placed second that year, to the incredibly famous “Waterloo” performance by ABBA from Sweden.

[u/GSamSardio → u/Alpaca_Investor]

I recently grew to like this one quite a lot. I struggle to see the political message in it, although I suppose I could find it if I researched some. I just remember they used the song for campaigning for voting ”yes” in a referendum in Italy and therefore broadcast the contest much later than everybody else. Thanks you for your response!

[u/Alpaca_Investor → u/GSamSardio]

You have to keep in mind that 1) only 30 years earlier, Italy was infamous for this politician leading the country, and 2) the country was going through a great deal of political strife at the time. 

So, if you look at the lyrics that describe following a man, and saying “yes” to him to experience a better future than you ever dreamed of…you can see how, in the context of Italy’s history, this touches on what would have been recent political imagery at the time.