At last year’s Junior Eurovision, the Netherlands brought the very first Japanese-titled song in Eurovision history. For 2022, the nation is once again looking beyond its official language and bringing some Italian flair. Luna will represent the country with the song “La Festa”.
Scroll down for “La Festa” lyrics
Netherlands in Junior Eurovision 2022: Luna with “La Festa”
The Netherlands is the only country to have taken part in every edition of Junior Eurovision since its inception in 2003. Not about to stop for the contest’s 20th anniversary, the country chose Luna and “La Festa” through the national final Junior Songfestival.
Luna was the only solo artist who competed at the national final. She went up against three groups, but sometimes less is more. The result was determined by a professional adult jury, a kids jury and the public vote, with Luna earning top points from each of them. The members of the adult jury — comprised of Chantal Janzen, Glen Faria and Flemming — commented that Luna’s song is “very catchy and gets stuck in your head right away”.
Luna, full name Luna Sabella, is 12 years old and hails from the village of Belfeld. She began auditioning for musicals from the age of seven and is currently attending Babette Labeij Musical Academy. Luna already has experience of singing competitions, as she participated on The Voice Kids. Beside music, Luna also enjoys ballet and skiing.
What do the “La Festa” lyrics mean?
“La Festa” is Italian for “The Party”. And indeed, Luna’s entry is an open invitation to a fun-filled celebration!
The song is about enjoying and celebrating life, about having fun and having your friends around you: “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go / Tonight will be beautiful / Enjoy the party, party”.
Starting off slowly, the power and speed increasingly grows ahead of the first chorus. This catchy and uplifting chorus mixes English and Italian, while the verses are in Dutch.
The party atmosphere of the lyrics is enhanced in Luna’s music video and live performance. Showcasing her dancing skills, the young singer maintains an incredible vocal control throughout the song.
For sure, the Netherlands’ song is an invitation that is hard to refuse, as Luna’s charisma melts everyone’s hearts.
“La Festa” lyrics – Luna (Netherlands JESC 2022)
Music and lyrics by: Robert Dorn
Dutch, English & Italian textVier vandaag |
English translationCelebrate today |
Are you ready to join Luna’s “La Festa”? Do you think she’ll get all of Europe partying at Junior Eurovision 2022? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Fantastic song! Well done Luna!
“IIIII’m coming up, so you better get this party started.” Remember that?
This and North Macedonia have put the fun into Eurovision this year……well done to the Netherlands.
I like the song very much !! Go Luna, make us proud !!
Hm, shouldn’t there be at least some sort of educational value in this contest’s lyrics?
oh my god you are at it again with the lyrics
Sorry, no conversation allowed. Propaganda only, I keep forgetting.
You are just being so unnecessary. The goal of JESC is not for the best song intended for toddlers, yet every new JESC article is a new comment of yours that talks about how it is too adult. The answer to your question is no. Of course, songs like Senorita cross the line, but La Festa? It’s a girl singing about a party, nothing more. Is a girl displaying joy too much? Same with Lose My Head. The line “Your kind should have come with a warning” seems to set you off, but honestly, when I was a kid, I… Read more »
I don’t for one second think this song is too adult. It’s not adult enough.
what is your goldilocks song because it seems you have a specific way you want the lyrics to be.
Educational, wise, erudite, poetic… anything that might guide or inspire. I wouldn’t mind if these lyrics were actually written by a child, but they’re not. An adult wrote them. An adult who obviously thinks children are stupid and this is all they are able for.
It doesn’t even need to be serious. Humour can be good. These lyrics are just bad by any definition.
To be fair, they’re worse in English than they are in Dutch. Not to say that it’s poetry, but in Dutch it’s not as ridiculously childish. They’re perfect lyrics for a 13-year-old or whatever her age is. And the Italian words are just in there to give a nod to her Italian ancestry.
well i’m sorry that we are having fun instead of sending times tables songs to the junior eurovision song contest.
if we don’t like the song then we won’t vote for it, and if we don’t like the show then we will stop watching.
Most have already stopped watching, if they ever even started.
Do many Dutch kids speak English these days? I expect they listen to a lot of English language music, and many parents might teach them the basics, but I’m curious to know what the average is
I think a lot of people in Germanic language speaking countries learn English a lot.
It’s actually getting worse. I think the main reason is that where kid’s cartoons used to be in English and subtitled in Dutch, now they’re mostly being dubbed in Dutch. Also, Dutch language music rules the charts, which is also different from 10-15 years ago, when it was still uncool to sing in Dutch. Now it’s the other way around, hardly any Dutch artists sing in English anymore (or if they do, they’re not successful).
I lived there 15 years ago and I remember seeing all the cartoon channels were all 100% Dutch dubbed. Stuff like Recess and the Fairly Odd Parents, which I used to watch in English.
Are you concerned by this trend? Think Dutch kids will be disadvantaged?
Its really not a problem. Cartoons where indeed always in Dutch, it was just the tv-shows for tweens like icarly that weren’t dubbed in the beginning. Kids get a lot of English influence through social media and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if kids these day speak way better English than 15 years ago. Yes, songs in Dutch are a lot more populars these days than they were before but international stars are also very popular
Not fluently, but most Dutch kids do speak a little English. They are learning the basics at school, starting at a very young age(5/6) But it’s more playful than serious??
Cute song! Gives me J’imagine vibes which of course won. I feel like the Italian words in the lyrics are a bit shoehorned in similar to last year with Ayana. Kind of like “Hey look, our contestant can also speak another language!” Still, I hope she does well, and maybe even get us a long-awaited second victory after 2009! 🙂
It’s a solid song that is just exceptionally performed.
This is like the JESC equivalent of “Heroes” where the live performance is just SO much better than the actual song and potentially so much better than what anyone else is going to bring, that it can win the whole thing.
this song is fun for all ages. a real contender.
This year’s set of songs feels like the type of Eurovision lineup in which an upbeat entry will win, and with this song being very popular in people’s YouTube rankings, it could very well be the winner.
I think France may stand out from the competition a bit more though.
If you look at the entire top 16 videos and the comments from people and also the reaction videos, the following picture emerges: The hot spots are: UK, Netherlands, Spain, Armenia, Ireland and Georgia. Although France has a good song – but for unknown reasons the song does not go down well with the people.
I think people are sleeping on the french song here. I’m not a fan of it but I think it will surprise a lot and score a top 5. Every year there is at least one song that do way better than expected (for example Ukraine last year with the great performance from Olena).
Tbf, I think France were *that* song last year. Nobody had Enzo getting as high a position as he managed. In fact, even in the year they won, I don’t think a lot of people talked about France winning before the contest.
France will probably do a lot better this year than most of us think they should again!
The vid reactions about France are really positive, it’s again this biased fandom who underrates France for their pleasure…