Malta 2025: Miriana Conte - SERVING

Måneskin had to remove a swearword from their song.
But was it an Italian swearword or did it sound like a swearword in English? Like students in the Netherlands think it's hilarious when they need to learn cut - cut - cut which sounds like Dutch word for cunt. I wonder where this will end if you are going to do this. Or is it only a problem now because they think they did it on purpose?
 
Last edited:
But was it Italian swearword or did it sound like a swearword in English?
It was an Italian swearword.

I’d imagine if they had a lyric that specifically, deliberately, unambiguously and repeatedly sounded like the strongest possible swearword in another language then they’d presumably have had to change that too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GNL
But was it an Italian swearword or did it sound like a swearword in English? Like students in the Netherlands think it's hilarious when they need to learn cut - cut - cut which sounds like Dutch word for cunt. I wonder where this will end if you are going to do this. Or is it only a problem now because they think they did it on purpose?
In this scenario, the rest of the song would be in Dutch apart from the random English word ‘cut’.
 
It was an Italian swearword.

I’d imagine if they had a lyric that specifically, deliberately, unambiguously and repeatedly sounded like the strongest possible swearword in another language then they’d presumably have had to change that too.
Yeah I do get that. I got there when I thought about it a little longer. There won't be a need to do that for a song with a Dutch word.

I was kind of confused because we have that so often that English lyrics in songs sounds like certain other words in Dutch and we usually think that's funny. And perhaps we care less about using swearwords.
 
There's a long history of words that sound dirty in other languages being in the contest (see Severina - Moja štikla), but in this case it was so obviously unambiguously an excuse to just say the word cunt (when does anyone ever say they're "serving singing"?) that they were clearly on a hiding to nothing.

At least make your lyrics make sense in context, or have a bit more Maltese in (a language they haven't used once in an entry in over fifty years, bar a sentence in 2000!) if you're going to try going down that route.
 
But yes, they really may as well just change it to serving stunt. The performance might be enough to get it through that second semi.
 
It's a shame :(
I seem to remember the EBU having no qualms about "Zorra" last year although it could be used as an insult in a context different from the song's.
 
Well, she's got about 10 days' notice really... I'm sure it won't be too much work to decide on and rerecord a word in that time.
 
"I was serving" in Maltese is "sirvin’ kont". I think she should change it to this and end the controversy by avoiding clarifications as to what she was serving.
 
Even in a worse case scenario I’m sure they’d just give them an extension.
 
Albania in 2012 sent a song featuring actual sounds of geese being tortured, and in 2019 Portugal cruelly sent a 3 minute sound recording of Judy Finnigan trying to empty the dishwasher, but yes, EBU, by all means pick on an innocent Maltese lass who just wants to serve singing in her native tongue.

I don't even know what the issue is - I can't hear any rude words AT ALL and I think it's a lot of hand wringing for some alleged homophone you REALLY have to reach to even pretend you can hear.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom