Introduction
I gotta say that I really enjoyed watching the Polish national selection. Even better that the Polish spoken in the national selection into English in real time. It was kind of funny hearing a woman voice translating for both the men and women speaking in Polish. But hey, beggars cannot be choosers.
Poland's 🇵🇱 History in Eurovision
Entry year / number of ESC participations: Poland first appeared in ESC in 1994 and has participated in 26 contests.
Number of ESC wins: 0
Highest placement (aside from winning year(s)): 2nd place in 1994 (Dublin, Ireland) with Edyta Górniak's To nie ja! (It wasn't me)
The country has had an interesting relationship with the contest by mostly finishing in middle or low positions. Since the the country's entry in 1994, Poland finished in the top ten in 3 out of its 26 appearances. However, with introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, Poland has qualified 8 out of 18 times.
My favorite Polish entry to date:
Since I am a relatively newcomer to ESC, I have not heard ALL (or even a large number) of Poland's entries. I think my favorite song/performance so far is Ochman's River. In ESC 2022 (Turin, Italy) River landed in 12th place (105 public votes and 46 jury votes), which is a decent position IMO. I will admit that I was a bit surprised with the "low" amount of jury votes that the performance received. To be honest, I would have assumed that the number of public and jury votes were switched. While this is a clip of the music video, I though Ochman did a better job in the live version. Actually, I maybe the low number of jury votes was due to the massive amount of cheesy effects he had in his performance.
The Songs & Performances
One paper, I thought Depi Evratesil had a nice mix of 12 performances. Out of 226 songs submitted to Telewizja Polska (TVP), 11 songs made it to the final. Wait, I think there were supposed to be 12 songs in the final, but for some reason they had 12. Perhaps, someone dropped out or was disqualified.
Overall, I really vibed to 5 of the 11 songs. While many of these songs would be considered unique, different and/or weird, I thought the vocals elevated beyond the level of uniqueness or weirdness. Also, the run of show was pretty streamlined. However, I thought the hostess that interviewed the performers seemed a bit out of it, but that probably was just her personality.
From the 100% televote national selection, Justyna Steczkowska's Gaja was choosen to represent Poland in this year's contest.
POland's ranking vs mine
Poland's results courtesy of Eurovision World (***).
I'll admit that within the first 30 sections of Justyna's performance, I was like WTF. However, the song definitely grew on me during the three minute performance. Her performance is three minutes of pure randomness. I LOVED all of it - the costumes, the vocals (more on that below), the screaming, the twirling, the acrobats, and the violin solo.
I'll hand to Justyna because she did an amazing job especailly as a 52-year old women. I do not think many in their 20s could do all of this. The one question I have regarding the performance: was it 100% live? Ok, I think she was singing live, but I think she might have had a lot of help from the pre-recorded backing track. For instance, I cannot see how she held all of those sustained notes while jumping and spinning around. Ok, it's not impossible to do this, but I would have expected some changes in her voice with all of the moving that she did during the performance. At the end of the day, I guess that's not a big problem because Eurovision has become a little loosey goosey with the use of pre-recorded backing vocals.
I'll say another thing, her vocals definitely have improved since her first appearance in Eurovision back in 1995 with her song Sama.
Controversies & Drama
Based on the comments from the ESC Twitter/X fandom, I do not recall seeing too much drama regarding Poland's selection. However, I did see a few comments saying things like the performance was too "satanic" and "pagan" for their liking, but those folks were in the minority.
How Will This Do at Eurovision?
Based on the songs that have been selected for ESC, I think this song and performance has great potential to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack (or even better).
Strengths:
✅ The song is very unique, energetic, and visually appealing.
✅ The vocals, even with the pre-recorded backing track, are strong, which might help out with the jury votes. On the other hand, the performance might be "too weird" for the jury. I guess the jury could go eitehr way considering that many of the songs in this year's contest are a bit "nontraditional".
✅ Since Justyna has been around the Eurovision game for a bit (she's tried to compete in ESC a couple of times since her appearance in 1995), she has some name recognition.
Weaknesses:
❌ For some, the performance might have TOO much going on making it look too chaotic.
❌ Some folks may not get the song right away. I have to admit it took me a couple of days to start liking the song in comparison to the other other songs going to ESC 2025.
❌Some of the camera angles seem a bit weird and distracting.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think this was a decent choice for Poland. Although this song was not my favorite song in the national selection, it was in my top two. Relative to the other songs selected for ESC 2025, it did take me a few days to really enjoy the song, but now I kinda love it. I wonder how this will do in the actual contest, because many of the majority of ESC viewers' (aka local fans) first time hearing the songs is during ESC week in May. So, I'm not sure the majority of the public will have "time" to appreciate the song/performance during ESC week.
Video of the National Final:
Polskich Kwalifikacji 2025 Playlist:
