"Look Away" is a 2019 single by

Darude Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen (; born July 17, 1975), better known by his stage name Darude (), is a Finnish DJ and record producer from Eura, Satakunta. His music is characterised by its progressive/uplifting style. He started making music in 1995 ...

and

Sebastian Rejman Sebastian Rejman (born 13 January 1978) is a Finnish singer, actor, and television host. He is the singer and guitarist of the band The Giant Leap. While Giant Leap has been on hiatus, Rejman founded a new band called Sebastian & The 4th Line Ban ...

. The song represented Finland in the

Eurovision Song Contest 2019 The Eurovision Song Contest 2019 was the 64th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Tel Aviv, Israel, following the country's victory at the 2018 contest with the song " Toy" by Netta. Organised by the European Broad ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

after winnning ''Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019'', Finland's national final for the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

. The song did not progress to the final, only earning 23 points in the first semi-final.

Background

The song, according to Sebastian Rejman, was meant to describe the disbelief about how many in the West "look away" at the millions of people in the world living in harsh conditions and poverty. The song was inspired during a trip to

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

while Rejman was suffering the flu. While stuck in his hotel room, he was shocked at the conditions outside of the hotel. He reported that it "looked like a sky fight movie after nuclear war." He then later reported that "it was quite a shock to me as a western person to go in Delhi in the city at night when people were sleeping on the streets and living on the streets."

Eurovision Song Contest

''Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019''

Yle Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...

announced that they had internally selected DJ

and singer

to represent Finland in Tel Aviv during a live streamed press conference on 29 January 2019, hosted by 2013 Finnish Eurovision entrant

Krista Siegfrids Kristin "Krista" Siegfrids (born 4 December 1985) is a Finnish pop singer. She represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 with her entry " Marry Me". Siegfrids' debut album, named '' Ding Dong!'', was released in May 2013. As a te ...

Mikko Silvennoinen Mikko Silvennoinen (14 May 1975 in Kiihtelysvaara) is a Finnish television host, journalist and producer. At 18, he started as a host of the music programme ''Jyrki''. He was one of the first well-known faces of the show. After hosting ''Jyrki'' f ...

and Christoffer Strandberg. It was also announced during the press conference that her song would be selected through ''2019'' with three songs competing. The three competing songs along with their promotional music videos were presented on 8, 15 and 22 February 2019, respectively, while the final took place on 2 March 2019 at the

Logomo Logomo is an old VR machine shop and a current cultural venue in Turku in close proximity to the Turku railway station. The building was opened in 2011 as a part of the Turku European Capital of Culture festivities. The building includes gall ...

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

. All three competing songs were performed by Darude and Sebastian Rejman and "Look Away" was selected as the winning song by a 50/50 combination of public votes and eight international jury groups from the United Kingdom, Norway, Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark and Israel. The viewers and the juries each had a total of 240 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points as follows: 8, 10 and 12 points. The viewer vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved through the following voting methods: telephone, SMS and online voting. For example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 240 points rounded to the nearest integer: 24 points. "Look Away" would dominate the both jury and the televote, winning by a wide margin with a total of 244 points.

At Eurovision

On 28 January 2019, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Finland was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 14 May 2019, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show. Once all the competing songs for the 2019 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the show's producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Finland performed in position 3. It did not qualify for the final.

Track listing

References

{{Authority control Eurovision songs of 2019 Eurovision songs of Finland Darude songs 2019 songs