714/917 Csaba Szigeti: Új név a régi ház falán (Hungary 1995)

Hungary is one of those new Eurovision countries (well, they started their Eurovision career 20 years ago, so the word "new" may sound exaggerated) who'd never really got their act together. They started extremely well with fourth place in their first year 1994. After that, however, in spite of some great entries they have never really reached the same heights.

After the smash start by Friderika and her Kinek Mondjam El Vetkeimet expectations were high on the second Hungarian entry in 1995. Instead of a tender ballad sung by a beautiful girl we got a dark man hidden behind the dark glasses singing somber ballad with a title that no-one outside Hungary attempted to pronounce.

Therefore it was no surprise that the song received mere three points and came to next to last in the final scoreboard. Most people, including me, forgot this song and started to wait for another Hungarian success entry, which so far hasn't come.

When random number generator draw me this song I of course had to listen to it again. I had a vague memory of the song being better than it's result and I was right. The song is a fabulous piano ballad starting from nowhere and rising to the great hights with a gorgeous orchestral arrangement that makes the live version way better than the recorded one. Csaba Szigeti does a great job interpreting the song and using every nuances from whisper to shout to making every word count.

My only complaint to the song is that the three minute maximum length (dictated by the Eurovision rules) cuts the song short just when I was waiting for something new to happen. I would have wished the song to settle down a bit and finish with the same whisper like quality it started with.

My points 4/5.