When it comes to the final of “Our Song for Europe” — Eden Alene’s Eurovision 2021 song selection in Israel — “Ue La La” is in….but the lyrics mon chéri are most definitely out.
As reported by Israel Hayom, ahead of the song’s revamp producers at KAN demanded that the lyrics be re-written after it emerged one of the songwriters — the well-known model and entrepreneur Aline Cohen — may have referenced her own eponymous make-up line in the song.
“Ue La La” lyrics re-written over alleged links to Aline Cohen
As you’ll recall, the song submission process in Israel was totally anonymous this year. As a result, KAN had no way of knowing who the songwriter was behind “Ue La La” — or about any potential conflicts of interest that may relate to them.
Last week, in a series of Instagram posts, Israel Hayom editor Eran Swissa revealed that “Ue La La” was written by 19-year-old model Aline Cohen. Cohen’s growing beauty empire includes “Mon Chéri” — her trademarked lip tint product. The use of the phrase (which means “my darling” in French) stirred controversy. Could the song have been released with the intention of promoting Aline’s lippie?
The EBU rules strictly forbid that. As the rules state: “No messages promoting any organization, institution, political cause or other company, brand, products or services shall be allowed in the shows”.
Since the song is in breach of this rule, specifically the “promoting a brand” part, KAN had no choice but to either disqualify the song or have Aline change its lyrics.
But darlings: this wasn’t just about my darling. The lyrics also featured jargon frequently used in commercials for Aline Cohen’s eponymous make-up line. The repeated phrase “be be be” could be seen to allude to Be Cosmetics, a partner chain that sells Aline’s popular cosmetics. The song also talks about lips in the Hebrew verse. Pucker up, y’all!
Israeli Eurovision site EuroMix has subsequently confirmed that Aline Cohen wrote the song. They previously suggested that the lyrics of “Ue La La” would have to be changed, which is exactly what happened.
At the time of publication of this post, Aline Cohen’s team have not responded to our queries regarding the matter.
Besides cutting down potential brand references, the revamp of the song also added an additional minute of time! That’s the exact opposite of what happens in, say, Albania, where songs in the national final sometimes run for five minutes. In a social media exchange, KAN appears to have referred to the song’s lengthening as an “Albanization vice-versa”.
Revamp of “Ue La La”
What version do you like more? Should “Ue La La” have been disqualified? Let us know in the comments below!
This is so weak, it almost hurt. The juries will bury this….
More trash than this is hard to find
replace it with shoulders…
Here’s one still image from a day of shooting of Ue-La-La: My oh my… If she’s damned to embrace this song and say goodbye to the contest after her semi, at least she’ll go out with a bang by living this kind of sassy and sultry fantasy on stage. Maybe she’ll get an unexpected offer from industry insiders like artist managers or booking agencies. I usually don’t believe in Cinderella stories but the song could do well in post-Covid clubs and beach parties so who knows what’s in store. The selection show is just a premier of the 3 videoclips,… Read more »
I understand if they are not allowed to use words like facebook or google-maps (as it was the case in the past with Valentina and Teo), but “mon chérie”? This is ridiculous! If a brand uses words, that have a “normal” context, there’s no need to change the lyrics! If we start that nonsense, we will have the dumbest lyrics in the future EVER. btw. I’m pretty sure there are perfumes with the name of “Fuego” or “Euphoria” out there – thankfully no one had similar ludicrous ideas back then.
Israel 2021: Songs cannot contain ads
Israel 2010: Here’s a commercial break as a video clip, enjoy!
This will not win. They cannot simply let this win. It is between la la love and set me free now
Can they go back and change more of it? This was my least favourite of all the nine demos.
Wait, so you’re telling me they changed the lyrics to one song because of some lipstick brand or whatever, but they wouldn’t change the lyrics to another song that has clear distasteful parallels to covid???? Are you freaking kidding me?????
It’s a matter of the rules. Since what is ”tasteful” is so hard to define objectively, it is hard to define rules that mandate good taste. However, it is easy to enforce a ban on referencing brands because it’s just a matter of whether or not the song references them or not, which can be determined objectively by just finding references to the products in the song. Hence why we have a rule for brands but not for taste. Since no rule exists to prohibit bad taste, the song is not at risk of disqualification, reducing the incentive to change… Read more »
See, that doesn’t make sense to me either because Netta was allowed to reference Barbie and that was still allowed despite the fact that Barbie is a brand
Three things:
The point remains, in a world and year dominated by Covid, KAN did not see any problem with the following:
“I don’t need no medication
I’m going to infect my generation”
Remind me again, how many people have died from Covid? This is completely and utterly irresponsible.
I think KAN chose a tricky solution by getting around the topic they wanna emphasize. 1. “Disease, medication, infect”, which relates to C-19 without further explanation, or; 2. “Love”, as if rather that infecfing people with C-19, let’s infect them with love! And I think the board went away with “Love”. Still pretty deaf, I’d say, but at least it’s a bit more… positive? Eh, I can’t decide. Aside of that, it’s still one of the top 2 chosen songs, and since KAN is technically lettinng the public decide… might people be tasteless enough to vote it through? Who knows,… Read more »
The “love” part is not great either when you consider that HIV is also an existing pandemic as well (yes, it’s technically considered an ongoing pandemic)
Also I kind of feel like the better of an english speaker you are, the more you realize the tastelessness probably. People with weaker english skills may not care as much, but people with enough fluency will. How that reflects to how well it will do if it gets chosen, I’ve got no idea.
the last chorus is fire
This should be the song chosen. It’s modern and catchy and unique. I could picture Ue La La at dance clubs in Europe. The other two songs are so generic and forgettable.
Bring back shoulders? this should be between Ue la la and Shoulders, to me La La Love has too much going on, its so noisy and set me free misses a chance for a big moment at the end sinking back into the chorus, for example it could have turned gospelish, Ue la la is super strong, i hope shoulders is entered for another NF, imagine Ana Soklic??? i guess the Israeli rules this out although adapt Shoulders less Israeli and Destiny could have a bop, although she could sing anything well
There is no universe in which Shoulders would fit Ana Soklic.
Kind of weird that an expression so basic can be trademarked, but I get where they are coming from.
I think if a French song used the expression it could be fine, but context might be important here. In a Francophone country the expression would be associated with a figure of speech, which exists in the public domain and can’t be copyrighted, but in Israel it may be primarily be associated with the lipstick, and so could potentially fall afoul of ESC rules. The fact that Aline is the songwriter is probably important here as well, as it might be that it only comes off as promotion due to the songwriter’s identity, and would not be immediately associated with… Read more »
Maybe this is why Eden forgot the lyrics, they’d only been written just as she was closing the car door.
It’s OK, I love the new version sooo much I don’t even remember the first one…