Opet Sevku Okupio Brega

The Gazette can add to its weekly quota of Tijana Dapčević-inspired plays on words, following the report in Večernji list at the weekend that Severina's much-anticipated entry to Dora 2006 is - apparently - going to be arranged and produced by none other than... Goran Bregović.

According to Večernji list, Severina apparently recorded the song with Bregović while her manager was arranging a Belgrade run for her stage show Čekajući svog čovika, which she performed in Split last autumn.

Having internationally presented himself as a world music artist with his adaptations of Roma melodies, and established himself as a cinematic composer with scores for (among others) three Emir Kusturica movies and Patrice Chereau's La reine Margot, Brega was reunited with his Bijelo Dugme bandmates (in the spirit of retromanija - and Coca-Cola sponsorship) in June 2005 for three stadium concerts in Sarajevo, Zagreb and Belgrade.

Tijana quickly commemorated the reunion in her own retromaniac anthem, winning the Budva festival by singing 'Sve je isto samo Njega nema / Opet Dugme okupio Brega' over and over again. ('Everything's the same, but He's not here / Brega's put Dugme together again.)

Bregović at Eurovision? He wouldn't be the first dugmetaš to make the trip: ex-drummer Milić Vukašinović co-wrote Bosnia's entry in 1997 for Alma Čardžić. But a Bregović Eurovision project is sure to involve more publicity and more exoticism, both of which are winning strategies at present.

If Seve (and her songwriter Boris Novković) are selected for Dora, if they make it past their nineteen competitors, and if there's an ounce of truth in the Bregović report, let alone the copy-of-Ruslana one, the prospects begin to take on a 'perfect storm' quality. Especially because the Gazette will be in Dresden talking about essentialised folklore in the Eurovision Song Contest a month after Seve and Boris either win Eurovision for Croatia, or don't.

The only other question in the Gazette's mind is what might have become of Croatia's own entrepreneur of Eurovision exoticism, Tonči Huljić, who last year reportedly filled the Bregović role for (Serbia-)Montenegro's entrants No Name.

There are even less substantiated rumours circulating that Huljić might be involved with the next Severina album, but for now, it seems he's quite well-occupied.