Croatia 2019: All you need to know about Roko and his entry “The Dream”
For the first time since 2010, Croatia once again organised its traditional national selection format “Dora”in order to determine the Croatian Eurovision 2019 entry. The language restriction was abolished for the very first time in history and songs in other languages than Croatian were also allowed to compete. Among 16 contetants Roko with the song “The Dream” was the national final winner and will be flying the Croatian flag at the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv.
A few words about Roko
Roko Blažević was born on March 10, 2001 in the city of Split and was raised in a family of musicians as both of his parents were singers. He began dealing with music at the age of 7 having piano lessons. H came to fame in the ex Yugoslavian countries after participating in the Serbian reality show Pinkove Zvezdice in 2017, in which he won the first place. After that achievement he returned to his country where he took part in the talent show Zvijezde in 2018, finishing in the 2nd place. In the specific show, Roko had as his mentor Jacques Houdek, represented the country at Eurovision 2017 with his entry My friend which finished 13th. Meanwhile the Croatian media came up with the nickname “the croatian Michael Bublé” for him.
The entry “The Dream”
In this year’s national final of Dora 2019 the language restriction was abolished for the very first time in history and songs in other languages than Croatian were also allowed to compete. Therefore we saw Roko’s song in English. “The Dream” win the natinonal final. “The Dream“, which is composed by Eurovision 2017 representative Jacques Houdek, Andrea Čubrić and American song writter Charlie Mason. Charlie was behind the lyrics of the ESC 2014 winning entry, Rise Like a Phoenix, performed by Conchita Wurst.
Here are the full lurics of the Croatian entry:
I have a dream
A dream as beautiful as it is extreme
I know it’s not as crazy as it may seem
So I don’t ever wanna give up on this dream
Open your heart
And you’ll arrive at where the dream has to start
To pull a world together out of the parts
And turn this war into a hopeful work of art
We have lived the darkest night
Waiting for the dayNow the time for us is right
To arise and say
I dream of love
You dream of love
Angels of God
We all dream of love
We all dream of love
To the world you don’t owe
Anything (to bring)
You are only human when
You’re able to love
Like a hero
Like a hero
Both yours and mine
Love is a hero
Love is a hero
Roko will perform “The Dream” in the second half of the 2nd semi final on 16 May. Take a look below to the national final performance of the song:
The Eurovision Story So Far
Croatia debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1993 with the group Put and their entry Don’t ever cry. The Balkan country’s best results in the competition were scroed in 1996 (Maja Blagdan) and 1999 (Doris Dragovic), when it achieved a 4th placing in the Grand Final.
In 2018 Croatia selected internally Franka Batelic to represent the country in Lisbon with her song Crazy. Despite her dynamic performance she failed to qualify to the Grand Final.
