Why is Tommy Cash at Eurovision (or, an unnecessary lyrical analysis of Espresso Macchiato)?
mi amore, mi amore
You knew that Tommy Cash was from Estonia, right? If you’re reading this, there’s a majority chance that you were aware of his European origins, as opposed to his American output (and notoriety).
Eurovision has had its fair share of provocateurs and system breakers throughout its near 69 year run. Iceland’s Silvía Night in 2006 for example, putting on a gaudy showgirl outfit, throwing backstage and on-camera tantrums, and declaring herself the winner before failing to qualify for the Saturday final. We can trace these sorts of lovingly apathetic, winkingly cheeky entries back to the mid 70’s and early 80’s, with Telex’s 1980 entry for Belgium (fittingly titled ‘Euro-Vision’) coming to mind. It’s a very quick and very low-key electronic number, and it culminates with the lead singer Michel Moers expelling handfuls of gold glitter from the pockets of his slacks. It came 17th out of 19th to the behest of the band, as they were hoping to come dead last.
Eurovision invites apathy for lots of reasons. The aching sincerity of its spirit and the cloying messages of unity that actually contain very little interest in authentic diversity and unification, it’s a very dead horse that people cannot stop beating. Eurovision is cringe-worthy, Eurovision is seriously unserious, yes yes. It’s not a platform for REAL musicians, no no.
So, why would anyone with any sort of actual career enter the contest when they could be doing literally anything else?
To dismantle it from the inside out, probably.
So, who is Tommy Cash? Should we take him seriously? Why is half of his song in Italian in spite of the fact that he’s this year’s representative for Estonia?
I’ve been familiar with Cash’s work for a few years now. When fellow Eastern-eccentrics Little Big entered the contest for Russia in 2020, Tommy already had his fingerprints all over their discography. He’d also appeared on records by Charli XCX, 100 Gecs, Oliver Tree (ew) and other pop eccentrics. He’s not the sort of artist that I gravitate towards, as I tend to keep an appropriate amount of distance between myself and musicians who cultivate elaborate, provocative, and alienating personas.
He’s the kind of guy that shows up dressed as a unhoused person to Milan Fashion Week. He’s the kind of guy that takes up the moniker of ‘Kanye East’. He’s the kind of guy to show absolute contempt at the announcement of his win at this year’s Estonian national final, Eesti Laul. He’s the kind of guy that you need to take with an entire fucking factories worth of salt.
His output has been prolific since he began releasing music in the early 2010s. He’s not here to boost his career. He’s already insanely popular in his native Estonia, beating the runners up at Eesti Laul by over 40,000 votes. He’s got over a million monthly Spotify listeners. I think the actual music is a side-hustle to whatever the primary grind is.
Let’s talk about Espresso Macchiato, his song for Eurovision 2025. Not the performance, not the video, but the actual song. Almost styled like an Italian Chanson, we hear a heavily treated vocal from Tommy cry out.
Mi amore!
Mi amore!
Espresso macchiato, macchiato, macchiato
Por favore
Por favore
Espresso macchiato corneo
The subwoofers kick in, the tempo speeds up, and the deeply moving sentiment of those pivotal lines is repeated one more time before a double bass (and an unearned puff of a trumpet) takes us to the verse.
If you liked that introduction, you’re going to bloody love the first verse of this thing. In a whistle-stop tour of Duolingo’s beginner Italian course, Tommy introduces himself and his habits. We also learn in this verse that he is the purveyor of an Italian ristorante.
Ciao bella, I'm Tommaso
Addicted to tobacco
Me like mi coffee very importante
No time to talk, mi scusi
My days are very busy
And I just own this little ristorante
Alright, so he’s playing a character. He’s an overworked and over-caffeinated restauranter with not even enough time in the day to learn more than 12 Italian words. He refers to his establishment as a ‘little’ ristorante. Is it a cafe? What’s on the menu? I’m hooked! I’m along for the ride.
So far, we’ve learnt a couple of key facts: Tommaso enjoys tobacco and coffee, and he’s a business owner. That’s about all we understand, though. According to a cursory Google search, Tallin is around 1697 miles away from Rome. Where is this song set? Are we still in Estonia, or is this an expat’s journey? As both Estonia and Italy are in the European Union, this would not be a massive stretch in logic.
Life may give you lemons
When dancing with the demons
No stresso, no stresso
No need to be depresso
The restaurant is an opportunity, then. It’s a bright spark in an otherwise dark period. Dancing with the demons suggests that Tommaso is a man of sin and that he likes to play on the border of good and evil. This would add up for Tommy Cash the performance artist, who I am considering a separate entity to Tommaso the overburndered Italian resturant owner. It seems that both personas share that excitement for provocation, though.
We get another two rounds of the chorus, which begins in that Italian Chanson sort of fashion that I mentioned earlier before steamrolling back into the subwoofers. There’s a funky keyboard lick and some doubled-up backing vocals (ah hah, ah hah), and then we get the second and final verse.
Me like to fly privati
With 24 carati
Also, mi casa very grandioso
Mi money, numeroso
I work around the clocko
That's why I'm sweating like a mafioso
This verse is very much in keeping with rap tradition. It’s a list of conventional flexes to demonstrate that Tommaso is a very important and very rich man. He likes private jets and gold, and he has a very big house, but his money is earned. He’s worked around the clocko for it. A cursory scan of other Tommy Cash lyrical content will tell you that this is in keeping with his usual topic choices. The only thing that’s missing is any mention of pussy, drugs, or simaltenous enjoyment of pussy and drugs. I’m imagining that this is because of Eurovision’s family-friendly guise, but he could have easily slipped in some form of innuendo (lord knows that the contest is stuffed full of it this year). Maybe that’s the separation between Tommaso and Tommy. Tommaso simply has no time for untz untzing on those hoes, because he’s too busy running an entire fucking resturant.
Anyway, we get a couple more blasts of the chorus before the end of the song, including a final refrain of the melody with ‘la la la’s’ instead of the lyrics. The song is then over, and you can proceed to continue with your day and listen to something more interesting (may I suggest the actual Italian entry for this year’s Eurovision?).
I’ll repeat my question from the title. Why is he here? What’s his goal, and why is this the song he chose to enter? Why now and not 5 years ago?
His mate Joost Klein might have something to do with it. Or his other mate, Käärijä. It might even have something to do with his mates in Little Big (are you sensing a pattern here yet?).
If you’re reading this, I imagine you know who all of those people are and why I’ve mentioned them. If you don’t, I’ll quickly elaborate. Joost Klein was the representative for the Netherlands in the 2024 edition of the contest (he was disqualified from the contest a couple of days before the grand final), Käärijä was the representative for Finland in 2023 (who ended up coming second to Sweden’s Loreen), and Little Big were set to represent Russia in the cancelled 2020 edition. What these acts have in common (bar Tommy himself) is the fact that they were all slated to either do well at the contest or even win the whole thing. For a variety of reasons, none of those artists ended up winning (justice for Joost).
There’s been an increasing number of acts in the contest that have lived and built their careers on the internet, whether that is YouTube, TikTok, or other platforms. The artists I have referenced in the previous paragraph all share a juvenile, punky spirit. Their music (or video art) is often explicit, full of references to memes, and has an emphasis on silliness, but the main thing that connects them all is an internet-age brand of irony. The irony is what separates them from other artists in the contest, who often explore sincerity, nationalism or nothing at all. Sugary sweet music, powerful and conventional balladry, these are traditional Eurovision staples. Slowly but surely, though, a new staple has emerged.
People often mislabel entries from the likes of Joost and Käärijä as joke entries, but I concur entirely. I’ve been exploring an entirely new category entirely, and I’ve named it the Eurovision Provocateurs.
Fans of the contest really enjoy the act of labelling and boxing in different sounds, which is a very human practice. Because of this labelling, I know what a Balkan Ballad is, or an ethno-bop (although I feel that this term is trite and outdated). A joke entry is a wildly misunderstood beast, though. A joke entry is often sent in as a way to either garner heavy televotes, or simply because the country sending the entry is determined to stick it to the system somehow (with varying results). A joke entry has to be funny, though.
A Eurovision Provocateur is not funny, though. It can be steeped in humour or absurdity, but it has not been sent with the intention of telling some sort of joke. Käärijä’s Cha Cha Cha is a strangely poignant piece of pop-metal about opening up and freeing yourself from convention, and Joost’s Europapa is a love letter to Klein’s dead father and the ideas of unity that he held dear.
Irelande Douze Points was just Ireland sending a puppet turkey to the contest because they were in a bit of a bad mood in regards to how poorly they’d done in the previous years since their last win. That’s a joke.
In keeping with my thesis, I don’t think Espresso Macchiato is funny, but I don’t think it holds much poignancy either. More than anything, I think Tommy saw what had happened to his friend Joost after he was disqualified from the contest, and he wanted a piece of the pie.
So, why is Tommy Cash in Eurovision?
Shits and giggles, probably. Maybe his participation will turn the contest upside down. Maybe he’ll pull a stunt that will purposefully get him disqualified during his time in Basel. Maybe he’ll win. Whatever he’s doing, though?
I really like it.
I think the song is catchy, I think the visuals are weird and disarming, and I think he’s pissing off swathes and swathes of Eurofans (which I love to see, cuz y’all are boring sometimes). Whatever the outcome, I hope he’ll be remembered as a shake-up that the contest could do with and not just a joke.