"Carry Me in Your Dreams" is a song by Albanian singer

Kejsi Tola Kejsi Tola (; born 3 May 1992) is an Albanian singer and songwriter. She represented Albania at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia, after winning the 47th edition of ''Festivali i Këngës''. Life and career Kejsi Tola was ...

, independently released as a single in 2008. It was written by Agim Doçi and composed by Edmond Zhulali. Musically, it is an

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the i ...

uptempo

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

and

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song, inspired by

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

and 1970s French pop. Its lyrics are a declaration of love by singing someone else's praise and also focuses on the longing between two separated people. "Carry Me in Your Dreams" represented in the

Eurovision Song Contest 2009 The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was the 54th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Moscow, Russia, following the country's victory at the with the song "Believe" by Dima Bilan. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (E ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, Russia, after Tola won the country's pre-selection competition,

Festivali i Këngës 47 Albania participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia, with the song " Carry Me in Your Dreams" performed by Kejsi Tola. Its selected entry was chosen through the national selection competition Festivali i Këngës organi ...

, with the Albanian-language version "Më merr në ëndërr". The country reached the 17th place in a field of 25, gaining a total of 48 points. During her

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-described show of the song, she was performing against slightly dark-coloured LED screens and was accompanied by three dancers and two

backing vocalist A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

Background and composition

In 2008, Kejsi Tola was announced as one of the twenty contestants selected to compete in the 47th edition of

Festivali i Këngës Festivali i Këngës (; ), also referred to as simply FiK, is an annual music competition in Albania organised by the national broadcaster Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH). Broadcast every year since its inauguration in 1962, it has also deter ...

, a competition to determine Albania's entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. Following the competition's rules, the lyrics of the participating entries had to be in the Albanian language. Tola took part with the song "Më merr në ëndërr", composed by Edmond Zhulali and written by Agim Doçi. For the purpose of the Tola's Eurovision Song Contest participation, the latter song was translated and remastered to "Carry Me in Your Dreams". "Më merr në ëndërr" had a duration time of more than four minutes and contained a

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

solo in its beginnings as well as several instrumental passages throughout the song. Due to Eurovision's performative requirements on songs length, the song was then shortened and transformed to a solo-described number. Musically, "Carry Me in Your Dreams" is an uptempo

and

song with "some text book schlager rhythms and key change". It was inspired by 1970s French pop and incorporates folk elements. Costa from ESCXtra noted a "psychedelic turbo-folk production". Its lyrics are a declaration of love by singing someone else's praise and also focuses on the longing between two separated people.

Release and promotion

"Carry Me in Your Dreams" was independently released as a single on 1 January 2008 for

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and

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

. The song was also included on the '' Eurovision Song Contest: Moscow 2009'' compilation album on CD issued by EMI. For promotional purposes, Tola made diverse live appearances on multiple occasions in April 2009 to perform the song, including in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

, Macedonia,

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and the

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, giving interviews and appearing on television shows. An accompanying

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devic ...

for the song premiered prior to the start of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 on 12 May 2009.

Critical reception

"Carry Me in Your Dreams" has received generally positive reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. In a later review for the song conducted by several ESCXtra staff members, the song's ethnic nature, instrumentation and lyrics, as well as Tola's vocal delivery were praised. Angelos of the same website labelled it as "catchy, fun and memorable" and found the song to be among the "few" songs that worked "well" in English after having been performed in Albanian. The website's Riccardo expressed praise towards the song's ethnic nature and the instrumental part near the end simultaneously calling it "mesmerising". Borislava, another editor, was similarly positive regarding the song's "Balkan" influence while as of Costa, the song "is often regarded as one of Albania's best entries".

At Eurovision

Festivali i Këngës

The national broadcaster of Albania,

Radio Televizioni Shqiptar Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (; en, "Albanian Radio and Television"; mostly called RTSH ) is an Albanian public broadcasting radio and television company. Founded in 1938, it operates several radio and television channels, over a domestic transmi ...

(RTSH), organised the 47th edition of Festivali i Këngës to determine the country's participant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. The former consisted of two semi-finals on 19 and 20 December, and the grand final on 21 December 2008. Tola was chosen to represent the country in the contest, after gathering the maximum votes, 126 points, from an expert jury.

Moscow

The 54th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest took place in

, Russia, and consisted of two semi-finals held on 12 and 14 May, and the grand final on 16 May 2009. According to the Eurovision rules at the time, each participating country, apart from the host country and the " Big Four", consisting of , , , and the , were required to qualify from one of the two semi-finals to compete for the grand final. However, the top ten countries from the respective semi-final progressed to the grand final. On 28 January 2008, it was announced that "Carry Me in Your Dreams" would be performed in the second semi-final of the contest. During the second semi-final, Albania performed 16th, following and preceding , and qualified for the grand final in seventh place with 73 points. At the grand final, the country performed 19th, following and preceding . Albania finished in the 17th place in a field of 25 with 48 total points, ranking 23rd by the jury's 26 points as well as 11th by the televote of 81 points. On stage, Tola performed against slightly dark LED screens whose colors were predominately a mixture of red, orange, yellow and white. The singer was accompanied by three male dancers and two female

s during her

-described performance of the song. She wore a short white and pink tulle dress and her backing vocalists long white dresses. Two of the dancers were dressed all in a black costume while the other wore a green glittery costume, covering his body and face. The glittery costume of the dancer was often compared to the fictional character of

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book '' Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in the ...

Track listing

*Digital download #"Carry Me in Your Dreams"3:07

Release history

References

{{authority control 2008 songs 2008 singles English-language Albanian songs Eurovision songs of Albania Eurovision songs of 2009 Folktronica songs