Austria has qualified for the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 thanks to its ode to 19th century horror author Edgar Allan Poe.
Female duo Teya And Salena’s song has already gone viral on TikTok – but a new audience embraced the bonkers banger during the Eurovision semi-finals staged in Liverpool. The UK city is hosting the contest in Ukraine’s stead.
While the song, Who The Hell Is Edgar?, on its surface essays the American writer, in reality it is much more layered.
The official Eurovision website says it is about the “experiences as female songwriters in an industry that all too often doesn’t give women enough credit for their hard work and expertise”.
The chorus goes something like this:
Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe
Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe
Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe
Edgar Allan, Edgar Allan
The song also has dig at streaming royalties – referencing Spotify’s paltry $0.003 rate. Whatever you got from the tune, people were loving it ...
Albania, Cyprus, Estonia and Belgium also qualified for the final in the second semi.
The other five countries which qualified for Saturday’s Eurovision grand final were Lithuania, Poland, Australia, Armenia and Slovenia.
Greece, Denmark, San Marino, Georgia and Iceland failed to make it through.
For the second time this week, the M&S Bank Arena was filled with Ukrainian flags flying alongside those from other countries competing for the prize.
Hosts Alesha Dixon, Hannah Waddingham and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina were also back on stage after making their debut as a presenting trio on Tuesday night.