The Wiwi Jury — our in-house team of music unprofessionals — is reviewing and rating the 37 competing songs in Eurovision 2025. Next we review Latvia, who have chosen Tautumeitas with “Bur Man Laimi”.
Is it one of our favourites? Read on to find out!
Tautumeitas – “Bur Man Laimi” (Latvia Eurovision 2025)
Review: Tautumeitas – “Bur Man Laimi”
Lucy: I’ve become a bit of a Latvia superfan of late, with national final Supernova becoming a favourite. When I listened to the full line-up for 2025, I immediately knew Tautumeitas were the answer. The harmonies work, and the song is adventurous, giving us those cultural Eastern elements that we typically get from countries like Ukraine. It’s classy, and evolves from quieter, lower moments in the verses through to the bigger ones in the chorus. I love the high note near the end with the harmonies accompanying it. If they keep the same engaging and beautiful staging from the national final, they’re qualifying.
Score: 9
Antranig: There is a really fine line between a beautiful, traditional song that steals the show at Eurovision, and one which is just too strange to excel at a wider scale. Last year, Norway’s Gåte proved what happens when you send a song which errs on the wrong side of that fine line. Unfortunately, Tautumeitas also fall on the wrong side of the line. While “Bur Man Laimi” will have its fans, it is unlikely to connect with a wider audience and achieve grand levels of success at Eurovision.
Score: 3
Tom: This is three minutes of pure escapism. “Bur Man Laimi” takes me to a magical fantasy land surrounded by pretty Latvian forest nymphs dancing and singing around, to perfect choreography and in perfect harmony. Like a traditional, historic ritual that they are performing under the stars — I love it. Will Europe like it too? I really hope so but I am not convinced somehow. I would be disappointed if it doesn’t qualify.
Score: 7
Tomas: What a lovely surprise from Latvia! We’ll be hearing this beautiful language for the first time since 2004. I’m really excited, Latvia has sung in English, Italian, Russian, all languages except Latvian for the last two decades. I applaud this and really enjoy “Bur Man Laimi”. The staging is a sight as well, very interesting and fitting performance to this mysterious Baltic goddesses’ chant.
Score: 5
Latvia Eurovision 2025 ranking
In the Eurovision 2025 Wiwi Jury, we have 17 jurors but only have room for four reviews. The remaining scores are below:
|
Andreas: 7 Bernardo: 7.5 Burak: 7.5 Cinan: 5.5 Deban: 8 Jonathan: 5 Jordi: 5 |
Pablo: 5.5 Ruxandra: 8 Scarlett: 8 Simon: 5.5 Suzanne: 3 William: 8 |
We have removed the highest and lowest scores prior to calculating the average. This is to remove outliers and potential bias. We have removed a high of 9 and a low of 3.
Wiwi Jury verdict: 6.37/10
What do you think of Latvia’s Eurovision 2025 entry? Share your own score and review for Tautumeitas’ “Bur Man Laimi” below!
My god definitely not. 0/10
This isn’t a song to listen in car. It’s an experience and it’s meant to watch and enjoy as a performance. I really hope Europe will award this for being different and cultural and they will qualify. Staging is amazing and I hope they will make it even better
8.5/10
Never have we had a song in Eurovision that’s so repetitive yet so unique at the same time throughout the entire 3 minutes of it. Tautumeitas are the epitome of professionalism and their song is absolutely magical and beautiful, their harmonious vocals are absolutely perfect and extremely well coordinated. It’s one of my favourite entries of the year and I desperately need them to qualify. 10/10 from me.
They were amazing at the London show, they sound incredible, and the melody has a gorgeous warmth, like something from the Lion King. Surely it will qualify.
Tomas: “I applaud this and really enjoy “Bur man laimi””
Score – 5
Soooo… How does this make any sense???? There’s absolutely no chance you enjoy something that you rate 5/10
I cannot speak for Tomas, but…
I enjoy all 37 entries, though that doesn’t mean I give them all 12 points. I hope that makes sense.
Dark hose of 2025!
With things happening in the world right, this gives the right dose of beautiful escapism and takes you on a nature-fused journey!
Just not for me but big props for being so ethnic. Eurovision needs more of that.
My notes on this song are actually very short:
Nice harmony vocals, percussion abound. This song takes us to another world. It’s so different to anything else in the contest, and it wouldn’t be out of place on an “Avatar” soundtrack. It’s 3 minutes of uplift, basically. The staging for this can be as elaborate as you like, so go for it.
Too conplec to ,connect to wider audience, but I can appreciate its boldness. Hope they do well.
COMPLEX, dammit!
whilst it’s repetitive, and not the best song in the word… i love it so so so much and omg this at the national final sends shivers down my spine! please please please let’s not leave this in the semi’s like aij? was!!!!
9.5/10
Latvia has been in my top 10 since 2018 (only in 2022 they were out :v) and they were my favourite to win in 2023. This song is not an exception. The haunting harmonies, the mix of traditional sounds with modern ones (it reminds me of Kenji Kawai works), the cute choreography, the meaning of the lyrics and the use of the unique Latvian language… This is a great entry and I hope they qualify.
24th place: Latvia: I appreciate some things about the track: First of all, I really like some of the ethereal elements present, that wouldn’t sound out of place in an 80s-90s indie British song. Also Tautumeitas always give great live renditions through their amazing harmonies. Nevertheless, I find the song too repetitive and even if it does end up being stuck to your head, I haven’t had the tendency yet to replay it. I applaud them for the lively staging but I am weary of their stylistic choices. Kudos to Latvia though for constantly upping their game, even if I… Read more »
Latvia 7,5/12
It took me a long time to get into this one. At first, the voices and skittering beats didn’t seem to gel, but after a lot of listens a swtich flipped and now the kaleidoscopic complexity is a huge plus. Sometimes I can get entranced by this. I’ve got it at #10
19. Latvia – Tautumeitas Bur man Laimi 7/10 – a solidly ethereal track that is accentuated by the visual performance. This is not a track that would live outside of the contest for me but it will be a pleasant tonal change in Basel. It perhaps lacks the production variety to sweep me up completely into its unique world but I appreciate that world nonetheless.
i like the choreo, if that helps your cause
Seeing this at pre-parties made me realize just how much staging elevates this song. It’s wonderfully harmonious but the song itself is kinda lacking without good staging.
I suspect this will NQ. Totally disagree with Wiwi jury rating.
I agree with you sadly. This is verrry like Czechia 2023. And to think of all the good options Latvia had to add to Dons’ success. We’ll probably be wrong!
In a public vote only i think we are correct. Loved Dons song
not me and Lucy have a similar opinion regarding this entry
i also find some bits in the instrumentals giving me Go_A vibes
This is my favorite proposal this year. I hope they go very far in the contest, even if unfortunately in general the songs I like are the opposite of what the public votes.
Full of encouragement from France, I hope they will at least get through the semi-finals.
Latvia – This song for me is absolutely sensational. It’s like a bunch of fairies are singing a happy song to you in the middle of the forest, which is pretty much what they’ve gone for here. The staging in Supernova was one of my favourites of the entire NF season and I hope it stays the same in Eurovision. I will be absolutely gutted if this one fails to qualify. 9/10
This is my 5th place as it stands 🙂
LATVIA – After so many years of not qualifying, seems like Latvia could be back on track! Despite being a NQ, Aija is a masterpiece, and Dons has actually made it to the finals (and had a good result there) despite of the odds. And their new entry is perhaps my biggest grower of the 2025 season! The song is quite repetitive, which could be its downfall, but much like in Moldova 2023, the repetition comes in the form of chanting, giving it variation and purpose. I find it to be quite charming. It creates a calming, yet uplifting vibe… Read more »