Wouter Hardy has revealed that both the English and French language versions of “Tout l’univers” were in the running to compete at Eurovision 2021.
Speaking to Eurostory, Wouter Hardy the songwriter behind the 2019 winner “Arcade” revealed that Switzerland actively reached out for him to be involved in the search for their 2021 entry. Wouter revealed that Switzerland was the first country to approach him to write another song for Eurovision:
I brought Nina Sampermans, a Flemish songwriter I work with a lot, and then we went there. I had my doubts: am I going to do the Eurovision again? But I liked “RĂ©pondez-moi” and Gjon’s voice so much that I thought: we’ll see, let’s go , writing never hurts.Â
Within the first day of the Dutch songwriter being at the Swiss songwriting camp the entry that Gjon’s Tears will perform this year was created:
“Tout l’univers” was created in the first three hours when it was still in English. We actually finished almost the entire track. I added some strings and built a kind of production around it. Then Gjon came in. I played it and he was so moved. He said, “When did you make this?” I said, “We made this, this morning.” He said, “No, you can’t.” I said, “Yes, we have written that now, here.” He said, “Wow, I want to work on this.”
In total three songs were written by Wouter and his team during the songwriting camp for Gjon’s Tears. In the first round of the selection, the song was competing in both its English and French language versions where it was chosen to go through to the second round.
The second round of the selection process featured a live performance of the song:
For the second round, Gjon sang it live, on-screen. A professional jury watched and listened again and then I got a call from Gjon. I was in my studio because I knew the results would come that day. He looked very sad on FaceTime and said, “I’m so sad, I’m so sorry.” I thought shit, we don’t have it. But then he screamed, “We’ve got the song!”
Following the selection of the song a number of months were spent perfecting the song ahead of its official presentation at the start of March.
Who is Gjon’s Tears?
Gjon Muharremaj (better known as Gjon’s Tears) was born on 29th June 1998 in Fribourg, Switzerland, and is of Kosovar-Albanian descent. His singing career took off when he was just 12 years old when he placed third in Albania’s Got Talent after his grandfather had entered him in the contest. He then went on to reach the semi-finals of Switzerland’s Got Talent in 2012, and in 2019 also reached the semi-finals of The Voice France.
Image Source: SRF / Oscar Alessio | Source: Eurostory
Switzerland hosted the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 a contest that they won. Lys Assia won the first contest with the song “Refrain”, it wasn’t until 1988 that Switzerland would win the contest again. At the contest in Dublin, it was Celine Dion with “Ne partez pas sans moi” who beat the United Kingdom to victory by just 1 point. In 2019 Luca Hänni brought Switzerland their best result at the Eurovision Song Contest in 26 years. The singer performed “She Got Me” and finished 4th in the Grand Final.