Norway’s New National Anthem
Friday, 22 May 2009 -- 6:00 pm
Last Sunday was probably the greatest day Norway has seen in years. It was May 17th (Norwegian Constitution Day). Despite the weather forecast, it was beautiful and sunny and warm (unlike last year). And in a perfectly-timed coincidence, Norway won the Eurovision Song Contest the night before, completely annihilating the record for highest total score.
We were out late watching the Eurovision broadcast and cheering ourselves hoarse as Norway raked in the douze points, and when we finally made our way out into the sunshine the next day, the entire city of Oslo was radiating national pride. However, the entire day I only heard the national anthem once. Instead, enthusiastic renditions of “I fell in loooove with a fairytaaaaale!” would spontaneously erupt from every passing crowd of revelers (especially those of the Russ variety). I now have much more respect for Alexander Rybak after hearing hundreds of Norwegian teenagers butcher his song.
Since Saturday, he and his song are literally everywhere! The song is on the radio. The song is in our heads. It’s at the top of pop lists across Europe. And in the past week, I’ve only seen one newspaper that didn’t have a photo of Alexander somewhere on the front page. He’s even in my Facebook ads, which hint that I should download the song as my ringtone as well. Can you imagine having the most popular song in Europe as your ringtone? You’d think your phone was ringing off the hook!
But Sunday was indeed a good day to be in Norway. Every May 17th I’m impressed by the overwhelming display of national pride, and the timing (and weather) this year couldn’t have been better. You couldn’t help but be swept up in the fervor. Ja, vi elsker dette landet!
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Too bad it couldn’t have been a song that didn’t suck so bad…
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
So I watched the video, and I was extremely interested in the dancers. They looked like they were doing moves from the Alaska native games, like the seal hop and the high kick. Does Norway have these same games?
May 24th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I don’t know what was up with the dancers. A friend here described them as “floor humping.” They reminded me of some kine of exaggerated Russian folk dance, so I chalked it up to paying homage to Alexander’s Russian heritage.