From political controversies to premature releases, Eurovision has seen its fair share of disqualified entries. Join us as we explore the most notable songs that never made it to the big stage! These fascinating stories showcase how even the smallest details can lead to a song's removal from the competition.
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00:00serving
00:00welcome to ms mojo and today we're counting down our picks for the eurovision songs that
00:10were banned from the contest whether for being released too early featuring colorful language
00:16or stirring up controversy with their lyrics
00:19number 10 nowhere denmark here's the first thing you need to know about songs submitted
00:29to the eurovision song contest they must be 100 original and unreleased before a set date
00:36but that's getting harder to enforce and less favorable in the digital age in 2012
00:42denmark's entry almost slipped through even though it had already been making the rounds
00:48songwriter tina lungard had posted it months earlier way before eurovision was even on
00:59her radar at first the danish broadcaster tried to let it slide but fans came armed with receipts
01:06not wanting the ebu to swoop in and ban it later denmark made the call themselves and disqualified
01:18at first
01:19number nine dare star germany in 1976 germany had a rough night at eurovision ending up near the
01:36bottom of the scoreboard with their second choice entry sing sang song
01:40it wasn't necessarily their most crowd-pleasing pick but it got bumped after dare star the original
01:52winner of their national contest was disqualified it won by about 20 000 votes but it turns out it had
02:00already been released by another singer
02:02since germany's part of the big five they couldn't just sit it out they needed a backup
02:13unfortunately sing sang song didn't exactly set the stage on fire germany placed 15th out of 18
02:21while viewers happily threw their kisses and votes at the united kingdom instead
02:25number eight c italy this one's a little different because seemingly the ones who took issue with the
02:41song were italy
02:42around the time of the contest the country was holding a referendum on divorce prohibition
03:01a vote yes would ban divorce and a vote no would keep it legal italian officials got nervous that a song
03:08literally called c meaning yes could sway voters and be used as propaganda
03:21so they heavily censored it across their media and even delayed broadcasting the event until after the
03:27referendum some say this hurt italy's chances but they still came in second after abba's waterloo
03:34oh and by the way almost 60 percent of voters said no to banning divorce
03:47number seven thymame cyprus as we've established every country undergoes its own selection process before
03:55submitting its song in 1988 cyprus picked thymame performed by yannis dimitriu
04:04the song crushed the competition winning 14 out of 16 votes from the cyprus broadcasting
04:14corporation seems like a solid choice right
04:24well there was just one teensy problem this wasn't the song's first rodeo fymame with dimitriu still
04:31attached had already made it through three out of four voting rounds in 1984
04:43and apparently that wasn't the only time it had
04:52number six imperia fyr macedonia we'd argue that step one to picking a strong eurovision song is choosing
05:00one that doesn't instantly irritate your own population
05:12macedonia seemingly went the other direction in 2013 with imperia now sure the ebu has rules against
05:20political content even though they don't always quite follow them but imperia hit a nerve back home
05:26the song was linked to skopje 2014 a highly controversial urban development plan that was
05:40accused of being wasteful nationalist and politically motivated so naturally when audiences got even a whiff
05:47of that alarm bells went off the song was swapped out for pred dasiras deni which missed out on a spot in
05:54the final
06:04number five yes nagger memysel denmark if you thought broadcasters were strict before buckle up
06:16in 1962 denmark had six songs in the running for their eurovision entry one of them was a swing style
06:27tune performed by 16 year old gita henning it was catchy maybe a little too catchy
06:43after attending rehearsals a producer was heard whistling the melody in the canteen and believe it or not
06:50that counted as a public performance
06:59the song was disqualified before poor gita even got her chance
07:03many believed it would have done better than vuge visa the song denmark ended up sending instead
07:09which finished joint 10th out of the 16 countries competing that year
07:13number four cunt malta one challenge of multilingual events like this is that a totally innocent word in
07:26one language might mean something different in another
07:37take malta's 2025 entry cunt which means to sing in maltese however thanks to a certain phrase
07:44popularized by rupaul's drag race starting with serving and ending with a word that sounds rather
07:50similar it caught the bbc's ire interestingly it wasn't even the most explicit sounding song that
07:59year with just a week's deadline malta's miriana conte changed the lyrics although her queen energy and
08:07positive message stayed the title is now serving and the cunt part is replaced with some ahs
08:14whatever it's called it still slays go off queen
08:23number three razom nas bahato ukraine eurovision loves to say it's all about love love peace peace
08:31and no politics whatsoever ukraine's 2005 entry said yeah about that
08:44hip-hop duo green jolly wrote razom nas bahato during the orange revolution a huge protest after
08:53a presidential election that was widely seen as fixed the song didn't just hint at it either it
08:59apparently even name-dropped the opposition leader victor yushchenko right in the lyrics razom nas bahato
09:07meaning together we are many became the unofficial anthem of the movement
09:19eurovision rules forced the duo to rewrite the song to make it a little less obvious
09:25still the title stayed and they even sang it in multiple languages during their performance
09:34so
09:43number two i will teach you belarus belarus really went two for two trying to sidestep the no politics rule
09:51in 2021. their first entry i will teach you got blasted for mocking anti-government protests
10:03people were so mad by this seemingly pro-political oppression stance that a petition to boot them from
10:09the contest racked up over a thousand signatures in half a day
10:21the ebu gave them a second chance to submit a new song but their follow-up
10:27song about hairs managed to break the rules too at that point the ebu just pulled the plug
10:34and disqualified them all together belarusian broadcaster btrc's boss ivan eastmont did not
10:41take it well he claimed the decision was quote politically motivated
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11:02phone make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications number one we don't want to put in
11:10georgia in 2009 eurovision was held in moscow remember that it's relevant georgia held a national
11:18selection like many countries often do and the group stefan and 3g won with their song we don't want to put in
11:32yeah you heard that right put in it didn't take a genius to connect the dots especially with the
11:38russo-georgian war just a year earlier
11:50the ebu stepped in and told georgia they had to either change the lyrics or pick a new song georgia
11:56refused to budge denying the political undertones of their song and accusing the ebu of caving to
12:03pressure from the host country in the end they decided to pull out of the contest altogether
12:08do you think any of these songs deserved do's point let us know in the comments
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