Italy’s song is not bad at all; I don’t think it has a great chance of winning, but since Italy is one of the countries that automatically makes the finals, it’ll definitely be in the running. All that being said, this review is mostly a vehicle for giving Italy grief for its recent 14 year absence from the competition. It is not a vehicle for pointing out the allegorical nature of the singer being under water, like many European economies, because A) Greece did a much better job of that and B) it’s a little too on the nose.

Check out the original music video for “L’essenziale” by Marco Mengoni here. For more videos from Overthinking It, including our coverage of Eurovision 2013, subscribe to our YouTube channel.