Morten Thomassen from Norway decided to write about some of his memories of Eurovision and the Norwegian Eurovision selection. ESC Covers again will publish it after google translating it from Norwegian to English.

After our superior victory in 2009, it was off to Oslo, or to be completely geographically correct, Bærum for this year’s international final.

After the construction of Telenor Arena, the Oslo area had a hall that could really host large events and was thus perfectly suited for this event.

Alexander Rybak’s great success had really given Norwegian songwriters and artists blood on their teeth and when the final took place on 6 February, the list of participants was one of the most celebrity-heavy we had ever seen in a Norwegian final for many years.

With so many good artists and songs, it was perhaps not so surprising that “the wrong song won”, at least when you look at who had the most success after the Norwegian final, Bjørn Johan Muri’s song “Yes Man” had to via Siste The chance to get his final place was then probably a bit of a revenge for him to become the song that had the greatest success on the hit lists afterwards.

Admittedly, Didrik Solli-Tangen and his song “My Hearts Is Yours” did not have the same success either on the charts or in the international final, but for me personally it has a very special meaning.

I was actually present the day after the Norwegian final when it was drawn which semi-final each country would participate in and it turned out that just when this happened my father died, someone I was informed about right after this was finished, I knew that he was possibly going towards his last, but still such messages are of the tough kind when you get them.

For this reason, I always come back to the title “My Heart Is Yours” when I think about what my father meant to me and things like that always have a slightly bigger place in one’s own heart.

Otherwise, I remember the 2010 season as a bit of a journey and that journey was basically so tiring that I don’t really want Norway to win as being from the host country always means a lot extra job.

I was responsible for getting hold of as many ticket packages as possible for ESC fans from all over the world and I basically managed it, but when I had been to the ticket office and collected tickets to a value of over NOK 3 million I didn’t feel very high in my hat when I carried them through the center of Oslo, luckily I had a safe at work so that they were safe there until they were to be distributed and believe me I actually spent a whole day distributing these to them different countries.

A slightly more fun thing I was involved in was being a judge in a competition organized by one of the sponsors, Telenor, where you could submit videos of yourself performing previous ESC songs, here the first prize was to sit in the green room during the final, the second prize was to be present at the second semi-final in the same place, and then one would think that there was a third prize as well.

Well, the jury decided not to award it, so suddenly I was offered to sit in the green room during the first semi-final and it was a special experience, perhaps one of the most special I’ve had and you got your own accreditation for this.

When the broadcast started, I and the three others I was allowed to bring with me sat rather alone there, but as the individual participants had finished they came relieved and happy into the green room and there they were met with great and resounding applause from the others who sat there and the pleasant atmosphere was present until it was revealed which ten countries had won a place in the final.

Then you could cut into the atmosphere with a knife and as expected you got ten scenes of jubilation from the countries that made it to the final and you were left with 7 disappointed delegations and it probably made the most impression that Thea from Malta cried her brave tears in despair that the final place missed.

Otherwise, from the 2010 season, you are a little proud that you got one of the other sponsors Norwegian to make T-shirts that everyone in the MGP club who had bought a ticket got a copy of and it looked like this:

Now 2010 was a special Eurovision for me with so many memories. I share many with Morten. First I was one of the 3 people he took to the green room. It was great but also sad as all 4 counties around us – MALTA, LATVIA, FINLAND and SLOVAKIA failed to qualify.

Then I also helped out with the handing of the MY HEART IS YOURS t-shirts and I got one as well and it is the picture you see here. It has a special place in my Eurovision collection and I love the DIDRIK song.

Featured image – Wikipedia