If you watched our backstage live stream from Albania’s Festivali i Këngës 60, then you already know it: Ronela Hajati will revamp her Eurovision 2022 song “Sekret”.
Speaking to us exclusively and just moments after her live performance during the final, she explained that the song came to life in English and will likely include English in Torino.
“When I did the first demo, I made those words in English. The demo is in English. That’s why I chose just two phrases to sing again in English — like I have them in my demo.”
“I always do my demos in English and then for me sometimes it’s difficult for me to find the words in Albanian. My demos are always in English. I don’t know why it comes up like that.”
“Sekret” revamp likely to include English lyrics
She may have won in Albania, but she isn’t resting on her laurels. Ronela knows she needs to up her game for Eurovision.
This is partly practical — her song is currently too long and needs to be cut down to three minutes. But she also wants to choose the best combination of lyrics across languages. She plans to revamp the song and choose from among several versions.
“I have ideas, but I don’t want to do the full lyrics [on my own]. I want somebody that is more professional than me and I’ll try and I’ll decide later what to keep and what not.”
“I’ll try a lot of versions and whichever I like more, I’ll keep it.”
In our earlier interview in Tirana, she made it clear she wants to include English lyrics in the final version.
“I know people are really sceptical about the song being revamped in English, because sometimes words are only translated. I don’t want to translate. I want to do other lyrics that have the same meaning, but other lyrics.”
“I want to keep it in Albanian — a lot of parts — but I want to add some English too if it goes well.”
Where do you stand on the language debate? Do you have as much faith in Ronela as we do? Let us know in the comments box below!
I like it. Like her. Like everything
I personally love when a song is mostly in the native language and has some lyrics in english, or vice versa. It just adds a little context for people who don’t understand the language and gives us something to sing along to.
Maybe 30% English and 70% Albanian.
I THINK RONELA SHOULD SING IN ORIGINAL,ALBANIAN,,IT FITS TH ESONG PERFECTLY AND IT LOOKS MORE SPECIAL
I’m not against the English language in Eurovision, or any language for that matter. I just can’t think of any song that has been improved by translating it into English. And I don’t think the problem with this song is that it’s sung in Albanian…
I feel they should just focus on getting the song revamped properly in its current form I think it may struggle. A little bit of English might make it more accessible. Albania have sent some pretty decent songs in recent year’s but struggled in the finals possibly because of the language who knows! But if a song is good enough any language can win. Admittedly probably a little easier for a song sung in English or one of the latin language’s but definitely not impossible.
watch her change even the name of the song to ‘Secret’ in the next couple of weeks lol I get revamps are necessary but sometimes people simply don’t know when to stop
I’m afraid that due to the last year success for songs in languages other than English, more countries will send “unique” songs. I don’t mean it to be bad but I don’t want it to backfire for those countries so that later on when failing with huge expectations they would no longer consider singing in their mother tongues. That being said, I still think Sekret is more interesting to be heard in Albanian instead of just another wannabe JLo song where sexiness is all what matters, aka, Albanian language would not sound as immorally as it would sound in English.… Read more »
Watch out Ronela the anti-english zealots will be on your back.
95% of the contest must be in native languages they don’t speak themselves, because being able to relate and connect to a song is so overrated, much better to not have a clue what’s being said, more authentic or some such nonsense.
On the bright side, your chances of qualifying will increase, because the average voter at home does speak English and will be more likely to vote for you, but you’ve lost the niche bubble.
There are still people who think casual viewers that english is not their borned langage do pay attention to the lyrics and would do the effort to try to understand them even more harder with some Balkanic, slavic accents; I bet anyone have understood MELOVIN lyrics LOL.
I think that for the voters at home the language isn´t very important. For example they loved Shum…
Oh yeah, and in albania english has worked so well. All translated songs since 2016 flopped and all songs in albanian qualified, just saying…
Don¨t know why fans get so up in flames over anyone not using native language. Diversity is about allowing every artist to perform in whatever language or genre they feel the most comfortable in. Diversity isn’t about forcing everyone to sing national language so that fans can hear a language they otherwise are to bothered to check up with. She does not want to use 100% Albanian and that is that. Let her sing how she wants and don’t throw tantrums!
Say Hello to Lindita Halimi.
Ronela is a better performer than Lindita
Lindita was an excellent performer tho…the vocal performance was not the issue in 2017
Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t expecting it, but I did find the seemingly random inclusion of English a little sonically jarring. Using multiple languages can be done well, but hopefully in this revamp they manage it in a less forced way.
I’ve noticed my opinion on the language topic is quite unpopular. I don’t mind the english songs or songs being translated to english. Yes sometimes the song being in the native language gives the song an extra sprinkle of authenticity but it depends on the song. Different languages give ESC diversity but at the end of the day I hope the artist sing in a language they want to and feel comfortable singing in. And judging by the article Ronela likes to sing in english. So if she likes to she can. She isn’t obligated to sing in Albanian for… Read more »
I wholeheartedly agree. The majority of the people who demand that artists sing in their national languages barely ever listen to anything other than in English (and their language). That’s so selfish and hypocritical. Most of the artists go to Eurovision with hopes of launching an international career. Sadly, most of the time all they can look forward to is having a summer hit and that’s if they are lucky. Why would you want to limit their reach? It’s perfectly acceptable to have Russia compete almost exclusively in English even though they could sing in Russian and easily reach 200+… Read more »
Albania has no chance in English.
That Is untrue. It is all about the song
If the artist don’t usually sing in any other language other than the ones they know professionally and if the lyrics are written with questionable grammar by supposedly English-speaking songwriters, those are the things Eurofans really take issue with.
Alekseev’s “Forever” sounded miles better language-wise in Russian while production-wise, the many revamps it undertook severely weakened it.
Plus, it is after all an international competition so how representative are the songs to the countries that they rep these days if a good majority of entries are linguistically homogenous.
As I said, most artists look at Eurovision as a way to launch their international career. Why would you sing in any language other than your own if you have no reach outside your country? I agree that singing in the artist’s native language makes more than sense than broken English but you guys keep rewarding ”thunder and lightning, it’s getting exciting”, ”uno, dos, quatro”, ”Ma-Ma-Ma-Mata Hari”, Wild Dances, Lasha Tumbai and countless more songs with nonsensical English lyrics. I don’t remember many people complaining about ”you got me pelican fly-fly-flying”, but as soon as Loco Loco title got revealed,… Read more »
The title might be misinterpretated. She will basically maintain those English words from final version, but she won’t add more English lyrics.
thank heavens for that
I don’t understand what great Albanian Eurovision result keeps compelling them to translate so many of their FiK winners into English. If anything, their best recent results were in Albanian (2012 and 2018) and even the most biased reading of results would suggest that English has no positive impact on their result.
Hmm, I’m not sure if that would be a good idea. Obviously it needs a revamp but I wouldn’t change to much of the language part. The Albanian language is unique and it brings the whole song alive! We will see what her team comes up with…
She didn’t say the revamp would be fully in English. She’s planning to make the new version of “Sekret” a bilingual song.