Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - family leave week: "Eurovangelists: Hark, The Icelandic Angels Sing!"

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Please enjoy this treat from Alex and Katie! It's Alex's recent guest appearance on the amazing 'Eurovangelists' podcast. You can also hear Katie on 'Eurovangelists', and hear all their episodes, at Maximum Fun's website: https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/eurovangelists/ Or by searching "Eurovangelists" in your podcast app.

Folks, it's Alex. I'm with Katie. This is our last planned week of family leave for the both of us, you know. And thank you so much for we're taping all of these intros beforehand because we'll be busy. But I'm assuming people have been very kind about our family news and stuff. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm just leaping to the conclusion. And you folks are nice. So I'm right. Ha ha. We're going to get some people trolling like being like very anti-baby being like, no, I actually. think I actually hate babies. Too small, too young. Too small, poop too much. Can't even vote. They're not voters. Who cares about them? They can't vote with their ballot or their dollars.

So who cares about the opinions of babies? They can't get alone. Yeah, people heard the credit scores episode of SIF. I got radicalized against babies. Right. They have no credit scores. They have no credit scores. To the system, they do not exist.

Well, and our special release for you today, it's a feed drop from a fellow Max Fun show. And I'm the guest on it. And we had an amazing time. And they were also very nice and said we could use the file and share it with you. So it is me guesting on the Eurovangelist podcast, which is a wonderful show about the Eurovision song contest and as you'll hear when I'm on it, I've never seen Eurovision or consumed it. And I love their podcast. It's like how I experience the fictional world of it, you know. It's a great show. I've actually been on their show as well. They're amazing.

And I'm actually someone who does consume Eurovision because I'm in Euro now. I live in Euro. and it's a great show and they do a great job on your evangelists of sort of highlighting these really wild stories about it. They do. Also, I had a siren briefly, but I'm just going to leave it in. You guys get the texture. That's just part of Eurovision. It's the band there. It's just a bunch of sirens and half-nude men in a cube.

It kind of seems that way. The one I was on, we talked about Icelandic musicians. I've been to Iceland, so it was very enriching for me. And also you can hear about my experiences in Iceland, but also there seemed to be less nude men and cubes from the Icelandic side. It's more like people in sweaters are kind of three tenors outfits, you know. I thought that maybe I think it was Iceland, but it could have been another of these countries. But I thought they recently did a Eurovision one where they're like dressed as a type of like forest spirit.

Oh, fantastic. Really recent one. Let me see what I'm going to, I'm going to fact check myself because like our president might be able to confuse Iceland with like Greenland and stuff, but I feel like I shouldn't. I should hold myself to a higher standard. And this your evangelist episode taped before any of that really. So you'll also just not hear about it. If that's good.

Because yeah, he can't keep them straight, even though pretty different. Yeah, let's see. But it's a great show. It's hosted by Jeremy Bent, Dimitri Pompei, and Oscar Montoya, and they're all gems. So it was a joy to be on it, and we hope you folks enjoy hearing me on it.

Yes. Yeah. Okay, so not Iceland, but Latvia, and they were these, they basically it's like this folk song, but it's kind of modernized. And it's, it's very cool.

It's they sort of, they grow tails at one point, I think with the magic of projection screens and they look like, I think it's a specific type of forest or wild spirit. It's super cool. I enjoyed it.

I like that kind of thing. I also, the things I keep learning about Eurovision from stuff like your evangelist or talking to you is, I feel like every artist, surprises me in their relationship or not relationship to my concept of the country. You know what I mean? Yes. Because every country is not a monolith, so there's a lot going on. But it would be easy to mix up,

whether that's Iceland or Latvia, because anything could be Iceland or Latvia at Eurovision. Anything at all? Yeah. There's a, I mean, but it is, I think like the flamboyance is what unites all of Eurovision, where it's just like being wacky. And, And that's awesome. I don't, I actually, my least favorite Eurovision acts are when they take themselves a little too seriously. And it's not,

there's not like a sort of ostentatious display where it's just like a nicely dressed person doing a nice ballad. It's like, get out of here with that. I want people to be, I want it to be half nude men in a rotating cube or a bunch of ladies who sprout tails and sing about like folk. magic and good luck.

Right. And then I'm like, what does that have to do with Austria? And then the commentators or your evangelist hosts are like, well, of course, it has several things to do with Austria. Right. And I'm like, great. I had no idea. Yeah, like there's an old Austrian folklore about half naked men in a rotating cube.

And you're like, oh, okay, this was actually foundational to Austria's history. The cube of lynx. The city has a cube. Yeah. I'm like, oh, okay, cool, cool, cool, great. Exactly. I think my Austrian accent is just the Andy Daley character, August Lint, who is German, but still. Augustus, no.

August Litt works at the Shmideberg pretzel factory in Dusseldorf. And he's very what you think. I see. My German accent is just based on the one character from Willy Wonka. Augustus. Augustus Gloop who gets glooped. Yeah. It's sort of like a, you know.

God, the last name, Gloop. You don't run across it outside of that story. Yeah. We should do a Wonka episode where we talk about whether this is like kind of a candy version of Paradise Lost. John Milton, Milton, Milton Hershey, A, A. Yeah. I'm doing conspiracy hands. Wonka is kind of like God, casting the children out from heaven.

There's something there. I'll probably use all of it. It's really fun. There must be something there. Yeah. And in case that doesn't segue properly, thank you so much for being with us for, you know, this whole sort of maternity leave, paternity leave time that we're each taking. It's sincerely extraordinarily grateful that we can do that while also continuing to be part of your life, you know?

Yeah. So that really makes you part of this whole thing. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. We must pause the creation of podcast to create new life, but then, you know, we'll resume the creation of podcasts as well. Yeah, then it'll all be happening. It's really cool.

Yeah. Yeah. And see you next week with more Sif. Great. We got connections on connections on connections. Dottie Frere, the singing angel of Christmas. And God bless simple cover albums from the 1980s. All that and more on this week's Christmas episode of Eurovangelists.

And welcome to Eurovangelists. I am Jeremy Bent. I'm Oscar Montoya. And I am Dimitri Pompeii. And ho, ho, have we got a special Eurovangelist episode. What you call me? Asker's Christmas. I'm just santing it up over here.

Oh, I mean, it's not untrue, but... Told on yourself. Well, we thought after last week, week's episode, we could use a little Christmas break over here at your evangelist. That'd be nice. That'd be nice. Let's end a difficult year on a positive note, please. And speaking of positive, we'd like to thank the listenership of your evangelist. For being our listeners, sure, but the response to last week's episode, which we were very concerned about releasing, has been met with a very positive response from all of you. And I really

want to thank all of you who reached out to us, even the people who didn't agree with us. I want to thank all of you for taking the time to share your opinion with us because the reaction overall has been very positive, both thanking us for the clear explanation of what's going on with the EBU and also voicing your support of continuing the show while declining to cover some parts of the contest this year that we don't want to voice our support for. It was overwhelmingly positive. And like, thank you so much for sticking with us. Yeah. And also, thank you so much for listening to the episode and being so great about processing

that information and letting us know. I think a big percentage of the people who didn't really see our point of view didn't really consume the contents that we had for them. So we appreciate each and every one of you. Yeah. A lot of the positive messages really went out of their way to point out stuff in the episode. They appreciate it, which, you know, I spend a lot of time on these episodes. So it's nice to know that our fans are listening.

to them and taking the time to really, you know, see where we're coming from on this. So thanks very much. But speaking of which we have an update to that episode, which is the country of Iceland has also decided they were on the bubble when we recorded the episode, but now they have officially decided to not participate in Eurovision 2025. So we'd like to dedicate this episode to the country of Iceland as it is very much about them, but to all of the countries that have decided to step down. This thankfully is a very fun, much less serious episode than last week.

I think we're all going to have a good time. Thank you to the new big five. Yeah. Also, as this is our Christmas episode, if you are craving more Euro-Evangelist Christmas, good news, there is more. Arnie Neacamp, friend of the show, one of the creators of Hello from the Magic Tavern,

Jackbox Games employee, all that. He has a new podcast called No Skip Christmas where he's trying to make the perfect Christmas playlist and guess whose opinion he asked for all three of us. So go check that podcast out. There's also a lot of great episodes with other Max Fun. hosts, lot to enjoy there. So anyway, last year around Christmas time, we did a, we did a Eurovision Christmas songs

episode with our good friend Giovanni, which was a lot of fun. But our listener, Sarah Bjork, alerted us to a very unusual Christmas music trend in Eurovision, which is Icelandic covers of Eurovision songs that replace the lyrics with Christmas. Well, I had to point out, Jeremy, these are not just Eurovision songs. It's very popular in Iceland to take a very famous pop song and then turn it into a Christmas song. But from our perspective, for our perspective, it has happened many times with Eurovision songs. And I would dare say that this phenomenon is secretly incredibly fascinating. And when you...

Yeah, because we don't have a precedent for that at all, do we? No, we don't. And so we had to bring an expert on all things secretly incredibly fascinating. We're joined on the podcast today by none other than Secret. incredibly fascinating is Alex Schmidt. Wayo! What an absolute sweetie with that transition. Don't give him credit for that.

He's so proud of that. He's so chucked. He put his chest up when he said that. Hey, listen. It's a good transition. If you didn't like the transition. Get out of the kitchen. Yeah.

It's completely wonderful to be here. I guess I just keep saying you guys make such a wonderful podcast. It's a treat. Well, we are never sad to hear it. It also remains the only way I have consumed. Eurovision ever. I just like to make it like a fictional universe that I learn about from this show. We're improvising everything about Eurovision. For all you know, you could be, it's like, wow, they put out a lot of songs on that show. It's impressive. Yeah, you do a tremendous show. And I just, I'm so loaded with pop culture. I haven't dove into Eurovision yet, except this way, which works for me perfectly.

It's interesting because we do have a mix of fans who, because of our show, get very into Eurovision and start watching national finals and, and, and, And obviously the grand final and stuff. And then we also have fans who are like, great. I think Eurovision's terrific. I experience it solely through your show. That's me. Yeah, that's me. I was about to ask you, Alex, what is your experience with the Eurovision song contest?

But I think you've given us a heads. Yeah. And the other fun thing is I have been to Iceland. And I loved it. It was absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Fantastic. It was like the first big vacation outside of the U.S.

by me and my now wife. And we had a wonderful time. Wow, how was it? It's a great country. Like, people are very friendly, and they're both, like, completely English fluent and also very Icelandic fluent and proud of Icelandic culture. And it even has its own species of horses that don't really leave the country. It's a really unique place culturally.

Now that's incredibly fascinating. Iceland has always been really interesting to me because it's, like, quite obvious from the Icelandic imports that we get in the U.S., like Bjork and Siguros and all these bands where you're like, Wow, they have a really strong music culture. Parabior. Herri Bork, of course. No relation to Sarah Bork.

Yeah. Or, I believe, the other Bjorch. But, like, I am from Rhode Island, which is the smallest by area U.S. States. It's not the smallest by population, but it's not that big either. Iceland has one third the people that Rhode Island has. Wow. But I don't think Rhode Island has quite the same cultural cachet as Iceland does. You know, I'm remiss to talk badly about one of the frozen chosen of New England, but you're probably right about it.

Watch yourself here, buddy. But yeah, I am always rooting for Iceland a little bit. It sort of in some ways does feel like the Rhode Island of Europe of like it's very small. It has its own internally celebrated culture. But I think sometimes it can seem a little impenetrable to outsiders because they have their own language. Yeah. And they're also. And if you like end up looking at a map, which I think I really first did on the play into Iceland because it had the little seatback thing.

But they're surrounded by a lot of either English speaking countries or Scandinavian countries where people tend to be fluent in English. And so they're like very tuned into what we're doing here. And then we kind of discover drips and drabs of what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Well, we're excited to talk about this phenomenon because not only does it involve a lot of great Eurovision artists from over the years. It also involves one of our all-time favorite Eurovision artists, Daddy Freyer, who is a practitioner of this phenomenon we're about to talk about, which I have labeled as secretly incredibly fascinating, which I think is maybe not fair for me to do.

Because Alex, you host a fantastic Max Fun podcast called Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with your wonderful co-host, Katie Golden, who could not be with us today. Coordinating across, I think 10 time zones was just one step too many. Thank you all for waking up. Yeah, she's in, I'm on the East Coast, and then she's in Italy. She's American, but she and her husband moved to Turin. Which would have been relevant to this episode, as we'll find very soon. But why don't you tell us a little bit about secretly incredibly fascinating for our fans who have not had the pleasure yet? Thank you.

It's a show where each episode we try to take one thing that people think is ordinary and have probably heard of and then get into the history and the science and the stories about why it's amazing. and Jeremy and Dimitra, you two very kindly guested on an episode about Euro's The Currency, which I've absolutely heard of. And then it turns out there's a lot more to it when I dig into the research and enjoy finding out about it. I actually had a blast talking about the Euro. So if any Eurovangelist fans are like, hmm, what episode might I start with? Well, we've got one ready made for you. So go check it out.

But I'll tell you this for a fact. There's no bad episode of SIF. They're all literally fantastic. I almost dare you to find the one. that sounds the least interesting to you and give it a shot because I bet you'll be like, oh, geez, you really got me interested in that thing. It works every single time, every single time. Oh, thank you all.

Yeah. And our listeners pick most of the topics, too, so that's a treat. Oh, that's fine. They kind of give us a dare, and then we try to do a magic trick of making it fun. We similarly have been dared by some of our listeners to do an episode about this or that, and I would say some of those are our best episodes. That's how we got the American Song Contest Marathon. So, you know.

Okay, maybe not that particular one. I was thinking, we did an episode. A listener of ours asked us to talk about competitors with disability. And so we did a whole disability in Eurovision episode, which I think is one of our best and most interesting episodes. I agree. It was really wild to find so many performers with different types of disabilities and sort of different eras of the content. It really had been happening since the beginning, which was very cool to find out.

As you know, the people know what they want to hear. So whether it works, it works here, it works on SIF. You know, we've got some great audiences in the Max Fun universe here. We certainly do. Yeah, we do. And you all also have such a knowledge base about the contest that I feel like when you dig into something new about it, then it also ties into five different things in an interesting way. Brother, that's 23 years of nonsense. We all know a lot about Eurovision.

Yeah, that's very true. single one of us. Well, I don't know that we would have been tapped into this without Sarah's message, but I got to say this was a really interesting topic to dive into. So let's take a look here. Now, we'll put it in the show notes, but there is an article in Icelandic, which thankfully is translated so that we savages could read it. But apparently there is a longstanding phenomenon.

Icelandic artists taking popular songs, not just Eurovision songs, as to me. you pointed out, but taking popular songs and just rewriting the lyrics to make them Christmas songs, which is like a fun idea. I mean, I have questions. Why Italian only? Why Christmas? And why? Well, they're not Italian only.

We'll get to that a little later. It's a lot of Italian, but not always Italian. And I think if you listen to a lot of these songs in their original version, there's a Christmasy element to it. And we'll talk about that as we listen to each song. song. But some of these have just like a Christmas foundation, whether they meant to have one or not, you know? Yeah, I have to say all of the songs in this episode, and maybe we're cherry picking, but I don't think we are. Like, all of the originals sound pretty Christmasy to me. And, you know,

the cover versions end up sounding even more Christmassy, but like, truthfully, the originals, I'm like, yeah, but I can hear why you'd listen to this and be like, you know what this should be about Christmas? I wish I could remember where I found it, because, back when I was a music major, before I was ceremoniously thrown out of the music department or resigned by Dignity intact, one day you'll hear about what happened there. I remember reading an article in college

about the elements of a Christmas song. Like, what are the music theory elements in terms of like construction and note choice and chord choice that make a Christmas song? And a lot of these songs have those elements in them. I wish I hadn't quit. I hadn't been separated from the music department so early so I could really break it down into that.

But you can hear it, even if you're not a music major, you know what a Christmas song sounds like. You've probably heard a song that's not a Christmas song and said to yourself, that kind of sounds like a Christmas song. Just imagine that and then being a singer-songwriter and taking it to the next step and turning it to a Christmas song. And that's what happened here. That's cool.

Coming into this, I have one theory that's cultural and not very musical, which is that Iceland is good at the Christmas thing of like taking the bare and horrible winter and trying to brighten it up, you know? It doesn't have to be necessarily Christmasy to do that. But especially when I went to Rikievich, there was a wonderful thing we discovered where, if you go to a high point, you see all the roofs of the buildings below you,

and they're all different colors. And one nickname for Rikievich is Rainbow Town. And we got a little fridge magnet of Rainbow Town, because they tend to do metal roofs, and then also metal roof, it's easy to make it any color. And so when you're at a high point in Iceland, you just see almost like a Christmas light pattern below you. Boy, I got to get out to.

So Reykjavik, that sounds like a blast. It's great. And eat the hot dogs. Okay, all right. You're speaking my language, I like. Yeah. So we're going to start with a San Remo song from 1988 by Marcella Bella called Dopo La Tempesta after the storm. If you are a fan of Italian music, you know Marcella.

She's been around for decades. In fact, we've talked about Marcella on the show before because most recently she can competed in Unovace per San Marino in 2004. Okay. And in San Remo last year, or I guess this year, San Rambo 2025 with her song, Pelle Diamante. All right. A real San Ramo pedigree here on Marcelli. Never made it to Eurovision. No, never made it to Eurovision, but made a lot of

attempts, especially in San Remo. Many Sun Ramo, which as we know is its own, is its own mountain to climb. Yeah, just getting to San Remo is a great accomplishment. I was going to say, being in Sun Ramo multiple times is like, well, that probably means you're a pretty well-established musician in Italy to be asked back that many times. I'm just loving the fictional lore about San Remo. Like, imagine if any of this was real.

It's so cool. It was really clear of us to come up with this fictional song contest, but then come up with a second fictional song contest that actually birthed the first one. We're sort of world-building experts out. Look, you know, I'm an Emmy-nominated writer, so I'm good at this thing. I'm good at this. But I like this song after the storm. This is a good song.

Absolutely. I will say a lot of the songs today are very ballady, and they result in very calming Christmas ballads, which I appreciate. What I appreciate about the way they transform this song is the original is a song that's all about a person who keeps going back to a guy or a romantic liaison of any gender. They go back to a person who's bad for them.

They just keep going back. It's like, I know you're bad for me, but I cannot stop coming back to you, which is not what we should be doing at the holidays. No. Well, meanwhile, the Icelandic song is a much more positive song about expectations and returns. Well, let's talk about the Icelandic version. We have a jlaka swatil, which means I'm so excited. And we have a version from 1989, just the year after, by Svala Björgvind's daughter. I just want to take a moment to talk about that first cover

and talk about the actual aesthetic of the album cover and how amazingly 80s and simple and wonderful it is. It's like the most 80s album cover I've ever seen. It's like a bunch of Christmas decorations. That's it. It really is like, okay. Yeah, there's something about, like, my family had the, I believe it's the Better in Homes and Gardens Christmas cookie cookbook from like 1988. And I want to say the cover is almost exactly the same, where it's just like, here's a white cloth that we have put a bunch of Christmas specifics on and took a picture overhead.

And you're like, that's good. That'll do. It works for me. This art walked so clip art could run, you know. Yes. They're really setting the stage. Yeah. It's got a sort of a magic eye sort of like...

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. An eye spy, remember those books? Eye spy sort of aesthetic, yeah. If you are a long-term Eurovision fan, you probably recognize Svala. She competed for Iceland in Eurovision 2017 with her ballad paper. It's a fine ballot. It didn't qualify. But she has a great voice, as demonstrated on this song as well.

Fantastic voice. She must have been like a child. She sounds like a baby. She was very young. I was going to say if she released this song in 1989 and then competed in Eurovision almost 30 years later, then she surely was young then. Yeah, a little bit of the Corolla legacy. It's like, I've this contest, I'm sticking with it forever.

But if you'd prefer an actual Eurovision grand final participant to sing this song, good news for you. We have a cover of this cover by Johanna Iceland's 2009 competitor who came in a song. second place with her song, is it true? But enjoy her cover. Yeah. Lachka swatty. I know I might be a little early.

Maybe I'm declaring too early. We'll see how the rest of this episode goes. Okay. She's cover of this song is in strong contention for my deuce bomb this episode. I will say it's pretty good. Look, if you're going to come in second to the. great Alexander Reebok. You got to have the pipes. And she absolutely has the pipes. Alexander Reebok.

Alexander Reebok. Just a great name. Yeah. It's just really good. Alex has no idea who that is. I made that up. That's not a real person. Alex. I made that up. I just imagined myself in like Sonic the Hedgehog's shoes. Yeah. Great. Yeah. That's closer than you think, honestly. Yeah. He came in first. Johanna came in second and third was David Nike. and

but yeah, I must hand it to these Icelandic folk. All of these covers, I think, are good Christmas songs. Like, I don't think they are doing this for no reason. I think like, oh, they actually heard a melody and thought, that would make a great Christmas song and they were right.

The challenge of taking a song about a toxic relationship and turning it into like the endless, like, excitement for the holiday season, that's a real, that takes real writing skill. Like, you have a, of transformed what the song is about. You've transformed its melody into something that makes people excited instead of something

that makes them want to, you know, drown in bourbon and regret the time they're going to make another sexual mistake, which is another very Christmassy thing. Why got to be sexual to have? Could just be a regular mistake. It's an Italian song, okay? It's a sexual mistake. Well observed. Yeah, also just the arrangement choice in the last one of voice and piano and nothing else.

It's very MTV's unplugged. It's very like, oh, now we're serious and emotional, like, automatically. Just a good move. Yeah. But also it's like we've heard a million Christmas albums where it's like, let's keep this one simple, right? Just a little piano, a little voice. And you're like, I feel like that that's a common silent night choice.

Our most dirge-like Christmas song. Also speaking about the piano, we got to give a shout out to Mr. Piano man who's playing that piano because he looks kind of just a regular guy. and then there's a close-up of his hands, and Homeboy's got a hand tattoo. And you're like, okay, nice. A little bit more to Iceland than you think. I know.

It's an exceptionally cool country and not in the pun way. These people are very good. They're very legit. You know, everything about Iceland is just awesome. Well, we enjoy these very much. We're going to take a quick break to work off some of this excitement. We'll be right back with more covers of Eurovision-adjacent songs. We'll see you in just a minute.

Welcome back to your evangelists, everybody. We are here with the fantastic Alex Schmidt talking about Icelandic Christmas covers of non-Christmas songs. This is a very specific category, but the fact is it was easy to find this many examples because they've done it many times. I will say good luck coming up with an episode title for this one, Jeremy. You're on your own for that one. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It's truthfully one of the harder parts of this job.

Once the title's long enough, you can just plug in a bunch of extra Christmas onomatopoeia on the front. Like, Hark and Haza! You can just really stretch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's break the character limit for episode titles. Hark, the Icelandic Angels sing. Iceland's Christmas covers of pop songs. Bam!

Colon, let them ring. Yes! Yeah. I think we did it. We only need six or seven more subtitles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're really good there. Semi-colon, the bridge that unites Italy and Iceland.

This is getting pretty good. Open parentheses, Sweden sometimes two. Close parentheses. Fans, send in your own subtitle for this episode. We'll have to put it in the show notes because it's already too long. Well, we're headed back to San Remo, 1984 this time with a group called Collage, and their song Quanto Tiamo.

which I believe translates to how much I love you. Nailed it, man. Good job. This is another San Remo edition. This band is not nearly as popular as Marcella, but they are actually, I believe, still playing their songs to this day. They were big in the 70s and the 80s, but they're still working to this day.

But you're absolutely right. This is a song about a person who is expressing their true feelings to their true love. It's like, you mean so much to me. Our love is so excellent. I miss you. I love you. And honestly, they say the name of the song like five or six times over and over again because, you know, it's just that powerful. That's how much. That's how much. I really love this song so much. This is such a great song. And it's like, oh, this is Christmasy, even this original version.

There's something about the arrangement that's so Christmasy. Yeah, they're great. Also, their aesthetic is cool as hell. Yeah, I will say this. We have a YouTube. playlist for this episode, and I urge you to watch these YouTube performances, because especially the 80s Sun Remo performances, you are really going to enjoy, I think. It is the 80s aesthetic, but this song especially reminds me of those 80s Denmark songs that I like so much. Yeah. This is the kind of stuff that, like, Fero Flam based their entire career on. This is exactly my shit. Yeah, you're right. How you like this, Alex, we're building up the Danish zone

I know like if that was a country that would be so interesting that's a pastry Hans Christian Anderson wishes he could come up with this kind of story telling all right yeah and the clip of these guys are really fun they reminded me of sort of many

Garfunkels but an Italian effect you know it's great it's a classic oops all garfunkels situation They did remind me of, yeah, different versions of tacos, the artist that sings putting on the writs. Oh, yes.

Except they were putting the bows of Holly. I believe taco is Danish. If I'm not mistaken. Let me look that up before I blow it. If not, we'll retcon it, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll put out a single issue that explains the origin. The Christmas Christmas.

cover of this one is loaded with Eurovision talent here. Taco is Dutch. Ah, damn it. So close. For now. But the Christmas cover of this song was performed originally by an Icelandic people. I'm so sorry. I'm doing my best here.

I'm doing my best. First artist, Eulver Christensen, who performed in 1991 as one half of Stefan and Afei with their song, Nina, 15th place. Okay, not bad. Another artist who contributed to the Christmas cover here is Bjorkin Haldorson, who represented Iceland in 1995 with his song, Nuna, or now, also 15th place. So this is the 15th place cover. I wish that was true.

But the next guy did not contribute at all to Eurovision that I believe that his name is Kour Oltel Dunskola, did not perform in Eurovision. But these three guys came to. together to do a Christmas cover of this song called Swona-Eru-Yulin, or this is Christmas. Ah. Doing my research for this episode, because we have two Icelandic songs that use Yolen in the title of their song, so I was like, this must be an important word in Icelandic. Let me look up this word.

Turns out Yolen means Christmas, which makes sense if you remove the inn, which apparently is sort of the article but like the Christmas and you just get Yol and you're like oh I know that word Yule Ull Brunner Their holiday is based around the actor Yule Bremen

Christmas Eve had shaving Watching of Magnificent Seven and King and I Yeah but you're like Oh right Icelandic is based on super old Of course, like, their word for Christmas is just Yule. And you're like, right, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, it feels right.

I also like that there's an article attached to it. Like, it's the Christmas, like the Ohio State University or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can just say yole, but apparently yowlin is more common. It's like, the Christmas. And you're like, hey, your word for it is older than ours. You get to say it however. You get this one, guy.

We'll defer to you. You tell me what the holiday is, my friend. Also fun fact that we learned about Bjorkvin Halderson, Svala, of the previous cover, is his daughter. That's right. Oh. It's a family affair. You know, her full name does translate to Swala. Bjorkvin's daughter.

Bjorkvin's daughter, exactly. And you're like, okay, checks out. It's literally a family affair. Yeah, that is the last naming convention in Iceland that it's like, people I think generally go by their first names in, in Iceland, because there are far more. unique first names than there are last names. It's nice to see a Eurovision parent and child duo. Yeah, that's fun. But it's nice to see that that has.

It doesn't happen a lot, but it happens. And generally, I like seeing it every time. You know what that tells me is Christmas at Bjorkwood's house, probably a real good time. Honestly, going by this song, yes. Which version do they sing? Good question. Because as great as this song is in which they're talking about amazing. Icelandic traditions and the festive things they do during this season.

I think the best way to celebrate with this song is to do exactly what our Christmas singing angel, Daddy Frere did, and do a super group with Icelandic singers doing this song. Yeah. If you want to see like, oh, I bet Iceland is a cool country. Our buddy Daddy Freyer, who we are all huge fans of, did a cover of this on Icelandic TV in 2018 before he was a known artist before he competed in Eurovision. So he's on television with four other Icelandic singers covering this cover, and they seem like they are having a blast out there.

One of them, I believe, is Bjorquen. I think that's correct, yeah. And one of them is a guy we're going to talk. about a little later. And it's just, honestly, you know, I'm sorry to Johanna. I've changed my mind. This is my dues plow. This is my deuce plow. The Doddy Frere supergroup cover of This is Christmas is my 12 points of this episode. What a great performance. I'm glad to hear. I could tell it had supergroup energy without knowing anything. Yeah, right? Like the scale and the trading of the, I was like, I feel like the next guy is going to be an even more exciting person somehow. Yeah. I will say it's like,

I don't know these guys, other than Daddy, I don't know these guys. But then, like, that second singer comes in, you're like, oh, this guy's quite good. You're like, I bet this third guy's going to be real killer. And he pops in and you're like, wow, they're all good. We're having a blast out here. Definitely putting this one on my Eurovision playlist forever. My Eurovision Christmas playlist. Yeah, this feels like a good one to add.

Y'all would know better. I feel like Iceland would be conducive to supergroups for Eurovision just because almost everybody lives in one part of the island. Yeah. Like, everybody's in the southwest there in that peninsula. Alex, you have literally given us the perfect transition to the next song. Okay. Okay. Here we go.

All right. Take us there, Dimitri. Take us there. Before we get to the Icelandic supergroup, we have to talk about the original song. Well, obvious. So, take yourself to the heady days of 1987. Italy's song at Eurovision is a duet between two very late 80s guys. They certainly are.

Um, Borto Tozi and Raff. with their song People of the Sea or Jante de Mare. Now this performance, if you are craving some great 80s Eurovision, I urge you to tune into this one. These men, their clothes are colored the same way as that 90s cup that we all drank out of.

The solo jazz? Yes, exactly. They're wearing the solo jazz color. Yeah, and the like the gel lights behind them, you're like, okay, yeah, I see where they got this. Yeah. This song, it came in 30s. Like, this is a good song, especially for 1987.

But I'm so distracted by the outfits. I think that's what happened. I think Johnny Logan won because no one could focus on anything else with these outfits. Yeah, and they can't dress like solo cups because they're a duo, right? Oh, fantastic for it. Thank you. Thank you very much. They've invalidated himself immediately.

You guys know, you know both these guys. You know songs from both these guys. Oh, do I? We're talking about famous covers. And these are not Christmas Cup. But Umberto is most famous for being the artist behind the original version of the song Gloria, later covered by Laura Branagan. Wow, I do know that song.

That's a great song. But guess what? Do you know Laura Brannigan's song Self-Control? Okay, okay. Also, that is a cover of Rav's original song, Self-Control. I've got a couple regular Laura Brannigan boys over here. Laura Brannigan is the Grinch and she's stealing songs. The Grinch?

Oh my. She's stealing the presents under the tree of Raff and Alberto. That's the name of this episode. Laura Brannigan is the Grinch. Yeah, that's at the end of the title of the speaking title or Laura Brannigan is the Grinch. She is breaking into their studio and stealing their songs. I assume that both Umberto and Raff have enjoyed a brist. royalty collection off of Laura Brennigan's success.

The Grinch made it up to Hooville at the end, okay? Well, sure. Once Laura Brannigan's heart grew three sizes, then she was able to. No, no, no. It was the paycheck that grew three sizes. Interesting how when those paychecks grow, everyone comes around on Christmas. Yeah, everybody would be singing those carols. Oh, my gosh.

I like the idea that Laura Brandigan is two Italian guys in a long coat. like trying to get into a movie just doing that Gloria dance specifically these two Italian men I mean it's not a plot line that wouldn't be out of place in an 80s at a 1987 movie

like Ralph listen to me we've got these great songs we just have to pretend to be a woman ha two women no Mbberto no one one

Somebody write this movie, please. I know what I'm doing over the holiday break. There you go. There you go. But to Alex's supergroup transition. Now, stick with me here. Okay, all right. In 2011, at Iceland's national final song of a Kevin,

there was an artist whose name was Sony. And this is actually a very sad story that I'd like to cover in a future edition of the podcast. But there was a very talented singer named Sony. and he had entered Song of Keptin with his song After Hame. Very beautiful song about, you know, hey, you don't know how much time you have left. Say what you want to say of the people that you love and appreciate life while you got it. That appeared to be a little on the nose because unfortunately, Sunny,

before he got to perform the song, passed away before he could compete in Song of Kepen. Was this a Black Star situation like Bowie where he knew he had limited time left and he wrote something really profound? I don't know. Actually, I legitimately don't know. It seemed to take his family by surprise. Unless he knew something that he wasn't sharing, I don't know. That's tragic. But there are a bunch of guys who were competing in Song of Kepin, who were literally Sony's friends.

And they said, we would like to drop our songs out of the competition and perform Sony's song. Wow. So I want to say it's five or six guys come together and they do after Hame or coming home as a band called Sony's Friends. to say the things I want to say You're telling me this country doesn't sound good This sounds like the nicest place This country's amazing And what makes this even more dramatic

Is that they had to face off in the national final Against Iceland's greatest performer at the time Johanna Who had come in second place Two years before it was a expect to just wipe the floor with everyone at song of the captain. But they beat her. And she was absolutely fine with it. She's like, yeah, this is the one that needs to go to Eurovision. No, this is a better, a better representation of Iceland. That's beautiful,

actually. Yeah, it's really nice. It's a great story that I'd love to dive into later. But one of Sony's friends, which is one of the members of the supergroup is a fellow named Goner Oliveson, who covered Genti Damare with his song, Come Home for Christmas. He turned Genti Tamari into a Christmas song. Or come do unyolin from 2002. If you enjoyed our mention of Daddy Freyer, as many of our fans are, fans of his,

you'd be happy to know that one of the things that tipped us off to this whole phenomenon is Daddy does many covers of these types of covers, including Come to Unyolen. So we also have a Dottie Freyer version of this song. This is everything I love about Eurovision and Iceland all in one package. It's just everything about this is so sweet and wonderful.

And this puts me in the holiday spirit. Yeah, this is a very nice song. I think truthfully, both versions of this, I think, are fun and got a great sound. Yeah, what's not to enjoy? Yeah, I also, my, my, like, relatively outsider perception of Eurovision is that it's all relatively bombastic, right? And there's, like, a big production on the stage. And so watching anybody from it do, like, bedroom pop, like this Dottie Prayer thing, where it's just him. very cozily doing it is a really nice change of pace.

It's nice to get that texture, you know. One of the things that I think a lot of Eurovision fans love about Dottie is Dottie is a real, like, student of the contest and loves to do what he calls Eurodadi, where he will do these sets where he will cover like six or seven Eurovision songs in a row in his style. Cool. It's really cool to see him just sort of like toying on his sense and coming up with these frequently really cool arrangements, these sort of minimalist versions of Eurovision songs and you're like, it's just very endearing, but you're also like, I think this just might be

Icelandic, you know? Yeah. Also, the name Eurodadi has a powerful energy. Truly. I'm really pulled over by this. We worked really hard to come up with that one in the writer's room. Yeah, yeah. We got really excited about that.

Yeah, the original pitch was Euro Papa and we decided, well, no. Save that. We'll save that. Hang on to that. We'll use it later. But when I have to put on the stilts to film those Eurodottie. covers for our YouTube channels. Boy, it's tough to play.

What gets me is that like, you're doing still to end, you're on my shoulders? Like, I should be on your shoulders. It makes no sense. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Have we learned nothing from Laura Brandigan about stacking people? For reference, Daddy Freyer is, I believe, 610. What? Yeah, he's enormous.

Big, big fella. That's why when you see him in that supergroup, he's like a full head taller than everyone else on stage. Because his height, I didn't realize he's that tall. He also reminds me of a soccer player's look, like a very artistic version of Erling Holland on Manchester City. But I didn't realize he's way taller than Erling Holland. He's a frost giant. Let's be real.

Seriously. He's come down from the mountains because he was like, no, they're, all I wanted to do was play music and they got bored with me. Yeah, he's vulnerable to fire. So he's got to be quite careful in Reykjavig. but oh man this phenomenon extends beyond the boundaries of Italy as we know from our own

Oscar Montoya Sweden invented music it's true and a group called One More Time and their song Den Vilda from Sweden in 1996 got that same treatment but let's take a listen first I think this one is cheating.

Oh, okay. All right, let's hear it. The song translates to The Wild One, and I'm just going to read a couple lyrics from the Wild One. The Winter is lowering its veil and tucking into the houses. The fire in the tavern warms us. the food and the jugs. There he dances with the wild one. They are dancing like whirlpools in a waterfall, filled with pride and willpower, dancing like whirls in a waterfall. That is winter, man. That is winter as fuck. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty wintry. But I don't know.

You have to say, like, you hear the tune and you're like, well, it wouldn't make a good Christmas. It would because it's halfway there already. We're mostly the way there, yeah. The snowflakes are falling. The stars are sparkling against the ice like clear crystals. Come on, man. Well, here's what I'll say for Ivor, who is the Icelandic artist who recorded this cover. Her cover came out 12 years after the Swedish original. So it's not like some of these 80s covers of the Italian songs where it's coming out like the year after the original.

She sort of went back into the catalog and said, hey, this would make a good Christmas song kind of dusted it off a little bit. And you know what? She's lucky because the song is awesome. It's very good. The Christmas version is called Dance Wind. It's saddu vinders. It wasn't christmasy enough.

Listen to some of these lyrics. The cold comes round Christmas and cold dark shadows. The children snuggle in cover by a candle by the window. Wind, yes, dance wind. When winter and cold give me a new vigor. Yes, wind. dance wind roam around on a cold Christmas night. Seems kind of bossy.

What if the wind doesn't want to dance? Yeah, this song is told from the perspective of a very harsh Icelandic dance instructor. Yeah, like Ivan Drago's trainer, but for an Icelandic dance. You know what we need now? Because you know who I think would appreciate the lyrics of the song, the Swedish. So we need a Swedish cover of the Icelandic version of. Sweden's Den Vilda and then somebody in Iceland can cover the Swedish version of the Icelandic version of the Swedish. It keeps moving. It's a boomerang around Scandinavia. I would I would equate

it to a dancing wind around. Oh, okay. You know what? Don't tell the wind what to do, Jeremy. Okay, I will. You're not being extremely bussy. I want one of you to be in front of one of those TV weather maps and like pointing to where the cold fronts are. We've got a wind dance coming in from Sweden. It's making its way to Iceland. And the map is just like, you know, like they do the steps of the chacha. It's just like a map on it. Yeah, that's like dance diagrams from the 50s. Oh, boy.

What I like about the, we had mentioned the Frost Giants earlier. That's true. Avor actually did music for the new God of War game. Wow. So I will say I have certainly heard their music. Yes, you have. Also did music for Game of Thrones. But, you know, we try to forget about that now.

Wow, okay. Dimitri for save Game of Thrones. Do we hate Game of Thrones? Let's save that for the Boko. Yeah, I was going to say, that's a Boko chat. Well, we've got one more Christmas pairing, but we are going to take a quick break, maybe to warm ourselves by the fire here

before we get into that last one. We'll see you in just a minute. Dance wind. Leave it alone, Dimitri. Welcome back to your evangelists, everybody. we are here with the fantastic Alex Schmidt. We're talking Icelandic Christmas covers of Italian songs, of Swedish songs, Eurovision adjacent songs.

Yeah, Mary Yolen, everybody. Yeah, Mary Yolen, everybody. To all our Icelandic listeners, of which I know there are some, I've seen the map of our downloads, and there's got to be at least a couple. They write to us with some frequency. That's true. Alex, you said Mary Yolen, and I was like, who is that? Oh, you've never met Mary Olin?

She does all our social media. Who is she? Big fan of her. She's great. Alex, we're going to play my favorite game on your evangelist, and it's called Pronounce This Name. Oh, yeah. So in 1988, Sweden was represented by a very famous Swedish singer who had done some

musical theater in the play chess. He was very, very famous across Sweden and was kind of internationally as well. I mean, the voice is fantastic. I want you to look at this man's name and I want you to pronounce it as best you can. Yeah. Well, Tommy. Oh, let me, let's spell it out first, of course. You did it.

Jeff A plus. Great job, buddy. You're halfway there. How did you do that? That's crazy. Okay. Step one, you did great. Now, I want you to pronounce K.

O-U-Laut R-B-E-R-G. Yeah, I, so I, my last name is German. I took German one-on-one and remember almost nothing, but Um-Lauts just lapsed me into a German mindset, like a Jason-Born activation. So I'm thinking like, Korberg? What did it were, Alex?

I fell for that trap. Our dear friend Daniel Radford fell for that trap. We've all fallen for that trap. The answer is Williams. Tommy Williams. That would make more sense. We have received extensive pronunciation notes about the last name of this individual. And we're still going to get wrong.

So, sorry, Sue. But Alex, this man's name is Tommy Schobey. No, come on. That is his name. No, Alex, respect our lore. Okay. We worked really hard on this part. We fought a lot about how to pronounce this character's name in the writer's room.

And this is what we landed on. I still think Williams is the best. You know what? We're not doing it again. We're not doing it again. Okay. Well, Old Tommy and his song Stadius, aka City of Lights, was performed in 1988 in 1988 in Dublin, where it finished 12th place.

I love this song. He was sick that night. I always had to qualify with that detail. He had a throat infection, and the Melfest version of the song is awesome. This is one of Sweden's most beloved songs. This is true, actually, in Sweden, when it's closing time at a bar, they won't play Stadius, and that will be the signal we're closing down for the night. He's the semi-sonic of Sweden.

Exactly, exactly. It's not pronounced like semi-ssonic. Yeah. It's not going to close, dude. No way. Well, we have the Melfast version in our YouTube playlist so you can enjoy the power of this Swedish ballad. But we also have a version by Iceland's own Friedrich Omar, who performed for Iceland in 2008 as a member of Euro band with the song,

This Is My Life, coming in 14th place, not too shabby. That one is a constant at the Euroclub. It's not one of my favorites, but put enough drinks in me or put enough eggnog in me and I'll dance around to this. All right, fair enough. And they covered this as a song called Vetronaut, which means winter night. Although, honestly, you could keep City of Light, and it would still be a Christmas song. Basically, right?

So City of Light, Stadius is looking forward to the future when problems are behind us and peace is on Earth. That's a Christmas song. That's a Christmas song. That's a Christmas song. Yeah. I guess all of this is also very Northern Hemisphere-centric, right? Because it's hot and long days in the Southern Hemisphere of Christmas. And none of this is relatable, probably.

Well, I guess what's interesting is, like you said, Alex, a lot of these Icelandic covers are more about it being like cold and wintery and snow and less like baby Jesus stuff, which I think for Americans is like, yeah, it's a Christmas song. They're talking about baby in a manger, you know, and that kind of stuff. Right. Yeah, you're hard getting some angels and stuff. But they're just like, no, this is sunset is at 2 p.m. and this is Christmas to us. Well, technically they're celebrating Yolent. And so you've got to keep. The Yolen Yolin, Yolin, you know what I mean? They are celebrating Mary. Our social media manager? Much like Stadius, veteran is, I'm here. I'm looking to spend a winter night with that with the people I love.

I'm looking forward to Christmas. I'm looking forward to the stillness of winter. And just taking time to focus on the things that matter, you know? They're basically the same song. It's really incredible how. close he tied them together. The message of both does lend itself to what we want the holidays to be, that time of reflection, quiet, peace, you know, with our families and our friends. And both these songs accomplish that. I wonder when an Icelandic artist is covering one of these Italian

or Swedish songs or whatever to make it a Christmas song, that whether they're considering the original lyrics, or do they just take the music in our like blank slate, you know? It's a good question, honestly. Yeah. I get the sense that they're putting at least a little effort into updating the lyrics either way. I'm glad it's not just exactly the same lyrics and then they shoehorned Santa like in the middle. They actually tried and I appreciate that. I love you so much Santa. They're finding a way to make it about them, about their culture, but using a great melody. And we have to say all five of the songs we've talked about today have a great sort of Christmas-y feel to them. Yeah, if you took this playlist and just made it so it's not the same tunes all back-to-back, it would be a solid playlist for

your Christmas hanging out. Yeah, totally. However long, it'd be great. Yeah. Any other fun facts, Dimitri? No, that's it. You covered them all. Okay, great.

Well, Alex, thank you so much for joining us to talk about these Christmas tunes. We'll have a whole playlist of these songs on Spotify, but also you can throw on, if you want a little 80s retro, you can throw on the YouTube playlist at your holiday party might be kind of fun. Please watch it. Please watch these performances. Man, especially these 80s Sun-Ramom performances. You really got to see them.

Alex, anything other than your fantastic podcast secretly incredibly fascinating? You'd care to plug? No, just really glad to be here. And on maximum fun and everything, too, because it's been great to, like, be fans of shows like your guys and then connect more and stuff. I was going to say. It's just feeling very happy. Yeah.

Some of our favorite guests on the network are hosts, shows that we also really enjoy. It's we're glad to finally have you on. We've had Dr. Ella Hubber from Let's Learn Everything on the show three, four times. Dave Holmes of Traveled Waters has been in the next. the show. Danielle Radford of tights and fights. We've had so many hosts of shows that we were already fans of on the show to talk Eurovision, and it's always a good time. But you know, Alex, I can't let this slide because you, you're not promoting yourself the way I want you to be promoted, okay? Not only. To be you said, dance, wind. Dance wins. Holy cow. Get the heck back out there,

win. Do a twirling, yelid, y'lilin, y'lilin, y'lid. Not only is SIF, secretly incredibly fascinating a great show. Alex does amazing. work on Instagram and TikTok, adding more secretly, incredibly fascinating things to the internet. Everything you are doing on those platforms is great. And you're running a great discord for the listeners of your show that is just such a beautiful environment for people who love SIF. Oh, thanks. Listen to the show, watch Alex's stuff on TikTok and Instagram, and join the SIF Discord. Because I can't get enough of this show and it's people and its fans and its subjects. everything you're doing is awesome.

Maitre, thank you. And our Discord makes our show better, too. It's a really wonderful cycle with that too. Because, yeah, people really, they come up with topics, they vote on them, and also just like lift each other's spirits. It's great. And I'll also say, if you are a backer of our show or Alex's show, just like us putting out our, but enough about Eurovision monthly show, you also get access to many bonus episodes

of SIF. So if you're a backer, don't sleep on that. There's a wealth of episodes awaiting you. Thank you. And I guess I should say we do, because we do an extra story for every week's episode, but then also we make a completely bizarre TV recap podcast as well called the inspectors inspectors. Yes.

Because there was a show called The Inspectors produced and funded by the U.S. Postal Service. Dimitri knows someone involved in it as well. So he knows lower backstory there. But the Postal Service tried to make a TV crime drama that's teen infotainment. That's about postal crimes, right? Yeah. Incredible. I'm sorry, I have to do it again.

People, if you're a Max Funbacker, the inspectors and inspectors is the best Boko on the network. It is by far the best Boko. Listening to Alex and Katie react to this truly terrible TV show is my favorite piece of Boko on the network. It's a terrible show, and the way you suffer through it with such joy makes my day ever.

I can't wait for the next episode of the Inspectors, It's so good. That's very kind and fair warning to people. It is more erotic than you. Wow. The TV show, not us. And if I could, if I could make one last, as it has been an episode of fun connections, if I could make one last connection between the inspectors and our own Dimitri Pompeii,

both have won an Emmy. Technically, technically the inspectors has won two daytime Emmys for their It's true. I was only nominated. I couldn't take it home like the inspectors. Well, you know. One day, maybe you'll be up to that level of that level of quality to be. I used to work in the Postal Service.

I don't know if you know that. I used to be a lobby. The band? Yes. I used to lobby for the band. We used to get a lot of bills passed. They're the reason why the Patriot Act passed. The band, the Postal Service may not happen.

Some lobbyists couldn't even get more than one album out of those guys. Well, Alex, once again, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and holiday season. You all too. This also is like getting me into the spirit. I love it. Yeah, I hope this has been a nice, uh, cozy episode for everyone. We will be taking Christmas off. Sorry, everybody, but you will not be without the Eurovangelis on Christmas. We have a very special episode, a gift for you to unwrap next week. And I shall just leave it at that. But check your feed on Christmas Day if you need a break from your family. We'll have a little treat for you in the

stocking. And then the week afterwards, we will be back in January talking about our first two national finals of 2026. We're talking Montenegro's Montesong and Albania's Ficc Festival Iquengis, which produced one of our favorite songs of last year. So they will almost certainly be performing at that. We're going to talk all about it. Have a great holiday, everybody. We'll see you next year. been Eurovangelis, your guide to the Eurovision Song Contest. Your host have been myself, Jeremy Bent, Oshkerman Toa, Dimitri, Pompeii, with special guest Alex Schmidt. Our theme was arranged and recorded by Cody McCory and Fay Fatham, and the Eurovangelist logo was designed by Tom DeJay.

Production support for this show was provided by the maximum fun network, in particular Stacey and Laura Swisher, we call her the Swish. The show was edited by myself with audio mixing help, courtesy of the sound wizard himself, Shane O'Connell. You can find us on social media as at Eurovangelis on Instagram or at Eurovangelis.com on blue sky or send us an email at your evangelist at gmail.com. Also follow the Eurovangelist account on Spotify and on YouTube and check out our playlist of Eurovision hits, competitors in years of Eurovision finals, and companion playlist to every single episode, including this one. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.