Greece has been making good use of its extensive diaspora lately through a series of internal selections: 2019 saw Greek-Canadian Katerine Duska represent the country at Eurovision; in 2020/2021 it was Greek-Dutch Stefania Liberakakis and now we have Greek-Norwegian Amanda Tenfjord.

There was a fair amount of hype as soon as the artist announcement was made due to Tenfjord’s previous work. When the song was finally released earlier this month this hype intensified, but I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the song that would eventually become Sweden’s entry, “Hold Me Closer” by Cornelia Jakobs. “Die Together” certainly has a similar vibe, starting slow with a gradual build to a soaring chorus. Whereas Jakobs sings about a relationship that never will be, Tenfjord goes much further and darker, contemplating death as a way to stop a relationship from falling apart. The lyrics are obsessive to the point of being outright disturbing at times. I’m not sure that’s what the songwriters intended, as there’s a fair bit of disconnect between this and Tenfjord’s dreamy voice and (apparent) delivery.

When Greece submit a fairly mainstream song they tend to qualify for the final, so I think it’s more than likely that we’ll see Tenfjord come Saturday evening. This is a strong entry with jury and televote appeal, but I suspect we’ll have multiple songs which perform more strongly in both categories, meaning that this should be able at least to repeat the result of last year’s Greek entry (10th) and probably improve on it by a few places, assuming that the staging and performance is up to scratch.