#334 Eurovision Past & Present w/ Paul Jordan
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A lot of Americans only know Eurovision via Will Farrell's film, "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga," which capture some of Eurovision's over-the-top aspects, but the history of the annual event actually shines light on some of the biggest cultural, social and political developments in post-World War II European history. In this episode, Paul Jordan, aka Dr. Eurovision, joins Ben and special guest cohost/his wife Kelly Kolar for a conversation about Eurovision's origins, how it's been shaped by geopolitics, and, of course, who their favorites are in this year's contest, which airs live on May 17 at 3pm est.
Dr. Paul Jordan is an expert and media commentator on the Eurovision song contest and the author of The Modern Fairy Tale: Nation Branding, national identity and the Eurovision Song Contest in Estonia. From 2015 to 2018 he served on Eurovision's communication team. You can learn more about him at DrEurovision.com.
This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now. |
| 0:09.0 | This week on the show, we're talking about Eurovision. |
| 0:12.8 | The song contest that if you're an American, you probably know about from the Will Ferrell movie. |
| 0:19.7 | Yes, it is that crazy, but it's also really incredible for all |
| 0:25.1 | types of reasons that we talk about in the show. And for anybody wondering, why are we doing |
| 0:29.7 | an episode on this? Way do we get into it? The story of Eurovision reveals so many aspects of |
| 0:36.2 | Europe's economy and politics and all these big |
| 0:40.0 | moments in post-World War II European history. And if you know what, if you like Eurovision, |
| 0:45.1 | you're already going to like it even more. Whatever the case, the next round of the Eurovision |
| 0:49.9 | song contest is happening Saturday, May 17th at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. And there are a lot of |
| 0:57.0 | reasons to tune in, so we hope you check out the show and enjoy it. Before we get to the conversation, |
| 1:01.2 | as always thank you to patrons. You guys are amazing. Thanks for keeping the show going. And don't |
| 1:07.5 | forget, live road to now, Washington, D.C., May 29th. |
| 1:12.4 | RTMPPod.m.m.m.m.m.m.m. That's where you can get links to tickets and to everything else. |
| 1:18.9 | I hope you have a great week. Hope you had a great Mother's Day. And hope you enjoy this episode. |
| 1:25.1 | Thanks and take care. |
| 1:31.2 | Paul Jordan, welcome to the Road to now. Or should I say Dr. |
| 1:36.0 | Eurovision, welcome to the road to now. Thank you for having me. It's great to have you here. |
| 1:40.9 | We're going to talk to you about this amazing spectacle, this thing I think that is to so many people, so many different things, which is the Eurovision song contest. |
| 1:44.4 | Before we're going, we have a second person here in studio. |
| 1:47.8 | You've probably never heard her on the show before. |
| 1:49.8 | She sat in the room one time when we recorded one. |
... |
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