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Tali originally entered Luxembourg Song Contest with a different song

May 6, 2024

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The song that never was: Tali originally entered Luxembourg's selection with a different song.

It has been confirmed that Luxembourg’s Eurovision 2024 representative Tali initially entered the Grand Dutchy’s national final with a different song. Online newspaper Virgule report that Tali had originally teamed up with Jimmy Martin, who represented Luxembourg at Eurovision 1993 as one half of Modern Times along with Simone Weis.

In an interview with German-language Luxembourgish newspaper Luxemburger Wort, Jimmy Martin explains how he was almost part of Luxembourg’s return to the Eurovision Song Contest, and how his collaboration with Tali came about.

“Well, when it was announced that Luxembourg would be participating in the ESC again, I inquired and said I would like to write a candidate song. I then started writing songs in Berlin with my colleagues, who had already produced Lena, and I looked for a singer in Luxembourg. Friends had already told me about Tali a long time ago, we took a look, found her good and contacted her. Tali was all fired up, we wrote a song for her and when she came to Luxembourg from New York, we recorded it with her and it was mixed in Berlin. But what we didn’t do – and it was a big mistake – was sign a contract with her…

… In November, Tali informed me that she had been selected for the final. I was of course delighted. A few weeks later, I received a message from her asking if she could call me. She then told me that she was removing our song and now had another one. I was of course stunned and we ended up with nothing.”

Jimmy goes on to express his sadness that there are no Luxembourgish composers or songwriters this year, and that the Luxembourgish language doesn’t feature anywhere in the country’s Eurovision entry this year, as he had previously hoped to add some into his song for Tali.

” …I find two things unfortunate. Firstly, that there be no Luxembourgish in the song. In our song, which was actually in English, I wanted to at least do a chorus in Luxembourgish, like 31 years ago, when I performed with Modern Times. Many of my international musician friends praised Tali’s song for being in the local language. But this is not true, the national language in Luxembourg is not French. It’s a bit like a punch in the neck…

…The second point is that no Luxembourger participated in the writing of the song. I wonder why, after 31 years of hiatus from Eurovision, we didn’t try to keep a little Luxembourgish. It was originally a composition competition and no Luxembourg songwriter took part. It’s as if the national team only had foreigners.”

23 year old Tali Golergant won the right to represent Luxembourg at Eurovision 2024 after winning the country’s first ever national final, the Luxembourg Song Contest, back in January. She will be closing the first semi final on Tuesday 7th May with “Fighter“.

What are your thoughts on Tali’s Eurovision 2024 song “Fighter”? Are you interested to hear the song she worked on with Jimmy Martin? Let us know in the comments below!

Photo credit: RTL / Luxembourg Song Contest

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