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Jendrik Sigwart at a photo opportunity at the Hamburg Outer Alster
Photo: Christian Charisius / picture alliance / dpa
"Hilarious!" Burst out Jendrik when the video for his song "I Don't Feel Hate" was shown to the media public for the first time.
"I love the song," says the 26-year-old and thinks it's "so funny, ey" that he can present it here, at a virtual press conference, with the NDR microphone in hand and the logo of the Eurovision Song Contest Background.
It had been known for around two weeks that Jendrik Sigwart, who only calls himself by his first name as a singer, would represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) - and thus also the story that Jendrik is a real self-made candidate.
The musical performer from Hamburg had applied for the ESC himself, unlike most of the other of the around 150 candidates this year, most of whom were addressed by the broadcasting company responsible for Germany, the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).
But because he could not find the application e-mail address, Jendrik says, he published clips on TikTok under the motto "I want to go to the ESC" that showed the making-of of a self-produced music video.
In the basement of a Protestant church in Hamburg-Volksdorf, he set up an improvised film studio that was converted into a laundromat with the help of machines bought on Ebay.
An Instagram visitor made contact with the NDR, who actually shortlisted Jendrik.
On the one hand, they are proud of their international songwriting camps, with which they believe they can make industrial contributions year after year.
But then you are obviously very happy to be able to show here for once that even the small fee payer with the big dream can have a chance.
Icon: enlarge Photo: NDR
The video, which will have its premiere at 5:50 p.m. in the first program of the ARD (a repetition will follow shortly before the »Tagesschau«), is actually very entertaining in its exuberant way. Six diverse people with specific hatred experiences sit gloomy in the laundromat, until Jendrik being pushed in on a sofa by a woman in a middle finger costume and singing his song on the ukulele.
"I don't feel hate, I just feel sorry", it says in the chorus with exuberant happiness, in the background there is a whistle: "So you can wiggle with your middle finger, it'll never wiggle back at you".
In the video, the middle finger figure naturally wiggles around.
The good-humored ukulele parts are contrasted with breaks, sometimes with a hint of rock, sometimes with a stuffed trumpet, sometimes as an explicit "tap break" to which Jendrik steps.
Message: "Don't react to hate with hate"
It's a song that sticks in the ear after a run, which is not a bad prerequisite for a competition like the Eurovision Song Contest.
But doesn't the title seem too light in its cheerfulness?
Jendrik believes that he will succeed in getting his message across, which reads: "Don't react to hatred with hatred".
He also wrote the song as a kind of instruction to himself, so as not to respond with hatred to sayings like “Jendrik, you are a little fagot”, but rather like: “You know, I'm teaching you now that that's wrong is. "For Thomas Schreiber, the outgoing head of entertainment at NDR, it is" the right song at the moment, "because the hatred has changed something on social networks.
Where: "Respect is timeless."
For Alexandra Wolfslast, the head of the German ESC delegation, the happy sound in which the message is to be conveyed fits in with the times in a different way: "We long for a zest for life," she says.
Schreiber, who is responsible for the ESC, would find a place among the top ten at the competition in Rotterdam great.
Jendrik himself says: »The goal is first place«, but first and foremost there are fun and joy, and he would not be disappointed even with a last place.
A healthy attitude, no matter how the Song Contest will actually be held this year.
Three scenarios are still under discussion, from a show with as many performers as possible and a small audience in the hall to a completely virtual show in which only the moderator comes from Rotterdam and the songs from the countries are played.
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Jendrik Sigwart
Photo: Christian Charisius / picture alliance / dpa
But the worst-case scenario will not materialize this year.
The musical production seems a bit cheap and the songwriting isn't too sophisticated.
But the title is catchy - and then there's Jendrik himself, whose euphoria is credible and contagious.
The blond man can be trusted to win over television viewers all over Europe.
And Germany has had good experiences at the ESC with a song written by the singer himself: Michael Schulte came fourth with his autobiographical song "You Let Me Walk Alone" in 2018.
By the way, Jendrik names Taylor Swift as a musical role model - meeting the US singer and songwriter is the dream that is still open on his list, now that he will be at the ESC.
The closest equivalent to "I Don't Feel Hate" in Taylor Swift's work is probably "Shake It Off" - right up to the message "Haters gonna hate".
For many Swift fans this is not the favorite song, maybe it is too eye-catching.
But still: It was one of their most commercially successful singles.
A good omen?
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