Germany: Michael Schulte – You Let Me Walk Alone

Shi: Until a couple of months ago, there was only one German entry I didn’t like since 2010. Now there are two.

I’ve been told that I’m heartless for feeling absolutely nothing for “You Let Me Walk Alone”, given the lyrics and the personal story behind them, but with all my sincere and honest sympathy for the pain in the loss of a parent, I still can’t justify the level of saccharine attack this song is on my nerves. There’s nothing subtle in either the music or the lyrics, so instead of gently tugging our emotions, it tries to pull them as strongly as possible.

I could maybe have forgiven some of the cheesiness if Michael Schulte, while quite obviously a nice person, wasn’t a living personality vacuum. However emotional the song may be, whenever I look at his face I find myself thinking that what he really wants to do right now is be done with the singing already and go to bed. It’s hard to be excited when the performer doesn’t look like he particularly cares, and considering what the song is about, you’d think he would. He probably does, but he has about two weeks to learn how to show it.

Martin: Arbitrary annoyances are the best. In this case it’s the Denglisch title that bugs me. Michael is, I guess, trying to tell his dad either “you enabled me to walk this road alone” or “you left me to walk this road alone”. “You let me walk this road alone” means neither of these things. Gah. Oh well – at least it’s a distraction from the relentlessly bland song.

Felix: Watching their national final, you could tell the Germans were trying to do their homework, as some things about it were indeed improved. The result, however, is from the same mouldy box as the last four German entries. Germans hate experiments and trying new things. It shows.

video and title image source: eurovision.tv