Luc Corbani
David Green
Blog Post 2
March 5th, 2023
Czechia’s Final Performance 2022
Introduction
We Are Domi's final performance of
their song "Lights Off" at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest was an
emotionally charged moment that captivated audiences worldwide with its
depressing lyrics regarding breakups. The song itself is a powerful statement
about love, loss, and the struggle to find meaning in a world that can be cruel
and unforgiving. They ended up placing 22nd with 38 points in the finals, which
isn’t the best standing but ended up being one of my personal favourites, hence
why I chose Czechia for this course. “Lights Off” is a song about the human
experience of grief and the struggle to find meaning and hope when faced with
loss. The song and overall performance artistically depict our difficult
confrontations with reality once our loved ones are gone: ultimately, our
worlds will never truly be the same. Indeed, We Are Domi depicts the feeling of
loss on both visual and aural levels: very subtle details which are difficult
to observe the first time viewing the performance can be seen throughout the
final performance that links back to this topic of loss or feeling lost. We
will be taking a look at the band that made this song and their background.
We’ll take a small glance to view if there’s anything in the performance that
relates to Czechia’s national identity. We’ll also go through the meaning of
the lyrics and if anything, happening on stage correlates to the meaning of
said lyrics. Finally, we’ll explore what’s happening throughout the performance
itself (i.e the staging, lighting, movement, props, and costumes).
The band
We are Domi’s current members are Dominika Haskova,
Casper Hatlestad, and Benjamin Rekstad. All three of them met and formed the
band in Leeds, United Kingdom in 2016. The lead vocalist Dominika Haskova,
guitarist Casper Hatlestad, and keyboardist Benjamin Rekstad met during their
studies at the Leeds College of Music. Upon finishing their studies, a
relocation to Prague for all three artists allowed them to stick together and
form the group We Are Domi we have today. They typically produce
electropop-styled music which is what we’ll see upon listening to “Lights Off”.
The band was announced as one of the seven acts competing to take the stage for
Eurovision in honour of Czechia. The winner (We Are Domi) had been determined
by an international jury vote which counted for 50% of the total vote, an
international public vote which considered another 25%, and finally votes from
the Czech public coming in at another 25%. Dominika which we’ll call Domi for
short is the only person to originate from Czechia. Although she is the lead
vocalist in the song, both Casper and Benjamin are musicians and songwriters
from Norway.
The
Misalignment of National Identity
All in all, the performance doesn’t have pretty
much any aspects that relate to Czechia’s national identity. Not only is the
song entirely sung in English, but everything shown throughout the song doesn’t
correlate to anything belonging solely to Czechia. As we’ve previously
mentioned, it’s a song about heartbreak, and dealing with loss. If we really
dig deep, an aspect that I haven’t mentioned in my first blog post which could
possibly correlate to Czechia’s national identity when it comes to Eurovision
is its extreme use of lights during performances. Indeed, in all of Czechia’s
recent performances in the competition, it has done a great job of lighting up
the stage and hyping up the crowd with its sometimes-excessive use of bright colours.
Lyrics
At first glance, the song sounds depressing. Not
only through the lyrics but by the means by which Domi’s emotions are conveyed
through her voice.
Right off the
bat, the first lyric makes us believe Domi is dealing with grief. Losing one’s soul
and forgetting her way correlates to feeling lost. Not knowing what to do or
how to feel after going through a miserable experience. Following that we
experience an admission of guilt, Dominika says there are no mistakes she has
not made. This lyric shows not only that this is most likely having to do with
a breakup since on average, but there are also more mistakes made in romantic
relationships rather than family ties. In my opinion, the last two lines of the
first paragraph are the most important. Domi expresses how lonely she feels on
the inside, that she feels trapped by her emotions, unable to escape what she’s
been through or get the thoughts out of her head. People viewing her from the
outside claim that she's changed only because she has to put on an act that
she’s changed for the better or… for the worst.
Following this paragraph, Domi’s
introduced to the idea of attempting to change. The word “change” is repeated 5
times within the first 3 lines. She shows that she’s tried her hardest to
change and move past the hard times but “there’s not a chance” therefore
resorting to “turning the lights off.” The third paragraph is not only the
chorus, which is repeated 3 times throughout the whole performance but a direct
message to the one that has made her lights go off. We are again presented with
repetition to put an emphasis on feeling lonely. She asks, “where are you now?”
multiple times. We don’t know who or what she’s directing herself to, but we
can imagine thanks to the previous lyrics that she’s talking about a previous
lover. In fact, the only line that doesn’t have anything to do with questioning
where this supposed lover is in the chorus acknowledges that it’s “sailing
around in her peripheral.” Giving us the impression that it’s most likely been
a harsh breakup rather than a mutual understanding since the person she
addresses herself to is nearby. Around the halfway point of the song Domi
decides to make a plan, enough time has passed for her to feel love for herself
once again, and she acknowledges her strengths and her weaknesses “I’m small
but mighty as I can”. In the end, she claims she’ll be invincible. Following
this, the second paragraph is repeated once more as well as the chorus. Before
listening to the chorus one final time, Domi sings a short three-line
paragraph. Domi is once again left without being able to control her feelings.
There’s a slight contrast with the lyrics at the beginning of the song because
she’s now far away from her significant other.
Performance
The performance begins zoomed in on a seemingly
very futuristic machine that takes up a lot of space. It also turns out that
this device is mostly unnecessary as we’ve already established that Benjamin is
a keyboardist as we see his fingers move across a keyboard and not a DJ set.
Most of the equipment on stage is actually used as futuristic props instead of
actually being useful for the song. As the camera pans out, we’re introduced to
two of our band performers, Dominika and Benjamin. On top of those two, we also
get a first glimpse at a seemingly ancient Greek statue entirely white. As
Dominika begins to sing, she stares directly into the camera for the only time
throughout the entire song as she moves her hands in a grasping-type manner and
stands tall once she sings out the word “grown” raising her hand high into the
air. She also puts on a seemingly anxious/uneasy facial expression which fits
perfectly with the lyrics. Once the camera is fully zoomed out, we’re
introduced to the entirety of the stage. We can see two Greek statues being
covered in black paint. This gives us an opposition between ancient high art
versus contemporary street art. As we’ll see even later in the performance the
statues will also have graffiti over them which reinforces this idea. These
concise details pair perfectly with the message of the song. If there is one
sentence to describe the overall performance it would be “out with the old, in
with the new.” Not only does this sentence perfectly describe what’s happening
on the stage with the statues being contemporized, but also with the meaning of
the lyrics, and the futuristic props used on set such as Benjamin’s grandiose
machines and Casper’s bow that he uses to play the guitar.
As we already know, the band has
members. Throughout the performance, Benjamin and Casper do not move. They stay
in their respective position up until the very end of the song which we’ll also
mention later. They do slightly dance and move their bodies from left to right,
up and down but they don’t move their legs until the very end. Whereas Dominika
is free to roam the entire stage, and she does so accordingly throughout the
performance. The dominant colours are black and white which is interesting
because black and white are usually correlated to old times. Black and white
television for example. That being said, we had just stated that in every
aspect of this performance, there is a futuristic counterpart. In my opinion,
that’s where the purple comes in. Purple can be seen everywhere in the
performance, not only is Dominika’s costume mostly purple. When the lights
explode, which is the most exciting part of the performance, the lighting is
almost entirely purple with a small exception of a little white here and there.
The background on the other end is mostly black throughout the performance
apart from the appearance of the ancient statues. When Dominika sings the final
“where are you now” from each chorus, the statues in the background seemingly
explode into pieces. This is no mistake of course, it symbolizes her trying to
move past, not needing to rely on her prior partner. You can also see a hammer
for a few frames right before the drop dies down. At 2:32 minutes into the
song, we see the first glimpse of the colour red. This colour is used in the
song to symbolize violence; indeed, it also happens to occur at the same moment
that the statues are smashed into bits further emphasizing the idea of
brutality.
At 1:38, the lights go off as the lead singer sings
"so turn the lights off". At 1:41, once the lights turn back Domi
says "where are you now that I've missed you" we can observe the
statues in the background wrapped in chains. This ties back to one of the first
lyrics of the song: "Changes hurt and I'm alone / But people say "My,
how you've grown.". The connection between the aural cue (the lyrics
"turn the lights off") and visual cues (i.e. the lights turning off,
the statues in chains) of their performance are used to symbolize how people
viewing her from the outside claim that she's changed, although on the inside
she feels the exact same way: trapped by her emotions. My personal favourite
moment of the performance happens at 2:22 when Dominika readies herself for the
highest note to hit so far pointing the microphone out to the audience
perfectly synchronized with the beat to make everyone feel embraced. But
perhaps the most powerful moment of the performance came at the end when the
band members themselves seemed to become overcome with emotion. As Dominika
sang the final lines of the song, her voice cracking with emotion, Casper and
Benjamin gathered around her, holding hands and swaying to the music. It was a
beautiful, cathartic moment that brought the themes of the song to life in a
way that few performances ever manage to achieve.
Conclusion
Lights off by We Are Domi is a beautifully written
and acted-out song and was portrayed magnificently on the Eurovision stage of
2022. Being one of the only electropop songs for that year, We Are Domi did a
fantastic job contrasting typical electronic music with heart-warming lyrics
which audiences around the world can relate to.
Sources:
- NDR. (n.d.). Eurovision. Retrieved
March 5, 2023, from
https://www.eurovision.de/videos/2022/Tschechische-Republik-We-Are-Domi-Lights-Off-Finale-2022,tschechien692.html.
- Google.
(n.d.). Google search. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from
https://www.google.com/search?q=lights%2Boff%2Bwe%2Bare%2Bdomi%2Blyrics&rlz=1C1ONGR_frFR1022FR1022&oq=lights%2Boff%2Bwe&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j46i512j0i10i22i30j0i22i30j69i61l2j69i60.2376j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
- Wikimedia
Foundation. (2023, February 20). We are Domi. Wikipedia. Retrieved
March 5, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Domi
- We are Domi. Eurovision Song Contest. (n.d.). Retrieved
March 5, 2023, from https://eurovision.tv/participant/we-are-domi-22
Word count
(excluding sources, first page, and titles): 1984
