"Piccole Storie", one of the most popular Italian websites, has done a wonderful job of covering Albania's surprising representation at Eurovision 2025.
... why is the song of Albania a true masterpiece never seen before?!, asks "Piccole Storie" at the beginning of this essay; as presentable as it is emotional, as true as it is original, laconic and fundamentally aesthetic, poetic to the point of singing intoxication, benevolent and correctly based on aesthetic arguments.
This feeling that comes from the Italian soul, like a thread of light, permeates this creative and interpretive explosion, this courageous approach of Shkodran artists, to make history, to remain in the memory of Eurovision as one of the brightest flashes of song and the most thunderous shakings of the word.
There are songs that are heard, says "Piccole Storie".
And then there are songs that are no longer heard with the ear, but with the soul. That do not follow the rhythm, but create it, like an ancient pulse that comes from the earth and goes towards the sky, to call souls from eternity, incarnating them with the dream of living in peace and marveling at creation.
"Zjerm" is not a song. It's a revelation.
It is a path through sound, a journey through hope, a rite that emerges from the wound and returns to the light.
In a world where song is often an empty sound, this is breath. It is depth calling to depth, a nameless longing that burns quietly between speech and silence.
Albania has not brought a participation in Eurovision. It has brought a legacy. A blessed oil that does not cry for itself, but for everything that is fading in man.
"Heart" is what remains when the music stops... and feelings have nowhere to hide.
There are songs that are heard, Piccole Storie continues...
And then there are songs that come to life. That come in like an ancient whisper and reawaken something you've forgotten. "Zjerm" is one of them.
It is the gift that Albania has brought to Eurovision 2025 this year, but it would be reductive to call it simply "a song".
It is an electronic prayer, a sacred dance, a dialogue between hope and reality, staged by the Italian-Albanian duo Shkodra Elektronike, Beatriçe Gjergji and Kolë Laca.
Born in Shkodra, in northern Albania, a city where languages, religions, rituals and silences have coexisted for centuries, today they live in Italy, but they carry within them the voice of the mountains, rivers, and memory. And that voice, in the song “Zjerm,” becomes a scream that makes no noise, but sets the heart on fire.
Beatrice dreams. Kola notices.
The song opens with a vision.
A vision coming from Beatrice, bright, pure, almost childlike in its stubbornness.
It only takes a minute. Just one.
A fragment of time in which the world can finally breathe.
"Imagine for a minute...
Without soldiers
No orphans
No bottles in the ocean
Where the oil smells of lilacs
And speech is free.
Kindness has no name.
"Freedom is taught in schools."
That minute imagined by Beatrice is everything the world is missing: it is the dream of someone who knows they don't live in the right place, but who still chooses to dance, to sing, to believe.
And here, she sings:
"Create in me a pure heart"
"In my night, I send you light"
"Please, have mercy"
And here a powerful phrase appears, full of symbols:
"Amen, mercy"
A verse that unites two beliefs, two worlds, two pains.
"Aman", an Arabic word, used in Sufi songs, in laments, in soft cries.
"Miserere", sacred Latin, Christian prayer, prayer of forgiveness.
Two religions meet in a single universal calling, which transcends borders and becomes humanity.
It's not a plea for mercy for yourself. It's a prayer for the whole world.
But immediately after that, Kola takes the floor.
And he does so with the wounded voice of someone who has stopped dreaming.
"Fire falls on our tribal dances"
"Seven knives pierce the soul"
"People are falling like an avalanche"
"We no longer see the stars... we have trampled on them"
Coke is the other side of hope. It's disappointment.
It speaks of a world that no longer has poetry, that has forgotten the moon, that is hungry for power and blind to beauty.
The song is not anger: it is clear pain. It is a call not to forget reality.
And just when everything seems to be fading away...
Beatrice starts singing again.
"In my heart, good people
Nameless people
"They dance in the valley of the soul"
"Jarna ne' tu, my land...
Keep shining.
"Shine, shine"
The worm is not the one who destroys.
It is the fire that purifies, that illuminates, that saves.
It is the flame that remains alive when everything around it is extinguished.
It is the fragile strength of those who continue to dance, even on ruins.
"Heart" is Beatrice's minute.
Minutes that we all, deep down, desire.
The minute the world stops...
…and for a moment, really breathe.
With an unprecedented fusion of electronics and tradition, poetry and spirituality, Albania's song is not only the most powerful of this Eurovision: it is an experience.
A meditation on music.
An act of love for what humanity has lost.
A silent but unstoppable invitation:
Dream again.
Burn with the beauty within.
And even when they tell you it's useless... dance...
In a scene that often requires brightness to hide emptiness, “Zjerm” doesn’t shine to dazzle. It shines to remember.
It is the song that rises from the earth like a silent prayer and descends from heaven like an answer that requires no words.
It's that moment when we stop chasing the spectacle... and listen to the soul breathe.
You don't burn in this fire.
In this fire you become human.
And dances.
Even on the ruins.
Even when everything is extinguished.
Because "Heart" is not the end of a song.
It is the beginning of a prayer that never ends.
It's that Beatrice moment – That if we all lived it together… …we would save the world.
edition
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