Portugal in Eurovision
Portugal made their debut in Eurovision in 1964. It wouldn’t be until 2017, 53 years later that Portugal got their first win with Salvador Sorbal’s ‘Amar pelos dois’. Unfortunately they have struggled since finishing last in 2018 and not qualifying in 2019.
2021 Entry: The Black Mamba - 'Love Is on My Side'
Semi-final: The Black Mamba will compete in semi-final 2 in 12th position in the running order
My Eurovision Scoreboard fan ranking: 37th out of 39 entries
Odds to win ranking: 25th out of 39 entries
Odds to qualify ranking: 13th out of 17 entries
(rankings as of 11 April 2021)
About the artist
The Black Mamba are a Portuguese band who formed in 2010 where they performed in bars and clubs doing cover songs of other artists.
In 2012 they released their first original album and have since released a further two studio albums together. They have also toured Portugal, London, Philadelphia, Luanda, Madrid, Seville, and Brazil. The Black Mamba describe their music and soul, blues, funk and a little bit of rock’n roll.
The band entered Portugal’s Eurovision national selection show ‘Festival da Canção 2021’. The lead singer Pedro Tatanka was initially selected to enter the competition as a song writer. When he decided on the English song 'Love Is on My Side’, he thought it was best he performed it with his band The Black Mamba. By singing an English song he hoped to give the band more exposure outside of Portugal.
In the final the band scored 20 points together with Carolina but with the group received more public votes and they won on count back.
About the song
'Love Is on My Side' is Portugal's first ever English only song at Eurovision.
The song is written by the lead singer Pedro Tatanka. The song is inspired by a story about when The Black Mamba were touring in Amsterdam they met an old lady who shared her life story. The old lady, initially from Bulgaria, travelled to the Netherlands when she was younger with dreams and ambition, but everything went wrong in her life. She became addicted to drugs and then resorted to prostitution. No matter how bad her life turned our the lady believes that she had love on her side to keep her going. Pedro was so touched by her story he wrote the song.
Aussievision podcast Portugal episode
We will soon be featuring an episode on Portugal as part of our country review and rank series.
Subscribe to listen via: https://linktr.ee/aussievisionnet