The third and final song for Saara Aalto for this year’s Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK18), titled “Queens” was released on Thursday, 22nd of February. The release was originally scheduled for midnight on Friday, but was advanced due to the British tabloid The Sun leaking the song on Thursday afternoon.
A sequel to Saara’s “No fear” – a song of love, light and positivity
“Queens” is a song which was written in January 2017 while Saara stayed in London. She went to the studio with three men she did not know at all – they were Tom Aspaul, Farley Arvidsson and Charlie Walshe. Aspaul has written songs to Kylie Minogue and Matt Terry. The song has been arranged and produced by Arto Ruotsala, who is also familiar to the UMK audience as a producer of Alva‘s “Arrows” in 2017.
“I suddenly remembered the melody, I had written two years ago for my UMK16 song “No fear”. The outline was kind of Egyptian and I thought that the melody is strange”, Saara remembers. It turned out the songwriting team liked her strange melody and was ready to make it into a cool song.
Before the release of the song, Saara has listed women who are her queens and who have made a huge impression on her and inspired her to write the song, such as Oprah Winfrey, Dana International (winner of ESC 1998), Tove Jansson (Finnish artist and author, creator of the Moomins), Princess Diana, Melanie C and Saara’s girlfriend Meri.
Saara sees that the song describes people, who want to get rid of old, non-functioning structures, create new rules and build a world where love, light and positivity are in the center of everything. It seems that the new world has been realized in Saara’s life as well. And what else could better suit to Eurovision than thoughts like this!
In the music video, Saara sports as a kind of modern and sexier version of Marie Antoinette. The different styles and customes suit well to the very theatrical song.
Which of the three songs will win the battle?
UMK18 will be held next week, on 3rd of March. Throughout the two weeks, “Monsters” has clearly dominated the charts and polls. The song got a lot of visibility because of it being the first to be released. It’s a strong dancepop tune, so we would not be surprised to see it winning. We also do not believe in conspiracy theories depicted in the media, but think it has been thought as a fair game between the three songs by Yle and Saara’s record company.
At the moment, “Queens” seems slightly more popular than “Domino”, but the remaining week will show if there is a change in the popularity of the songs. The most exciting moment will be to see the live performances, which will be as close as possible to the stage show in Lisbon. And the live performances is definitely one of Saara’s biggest strengths, as there won’t be any backing screens on the Eurovision stage this year. Finland is currently one of the top countries in betting odds, so the question is, could the country ever lose with monsters?
More videos: Follow Saara Aalto on her road to UMK18 and Eurovision – watch more videos behind the scenes on Yle Areena.
Listen to “Queens” on Spotify: