Sometimes it happens that a song written decades ago suddenly re-enters the charts and becomes a massive hit. Sometimes it happens again, and sometimes—for the first time with such overwhelming success (like the case with “Trololo”).
After Eurovision 2021, this fate befell the song Beggin’, originally released in 1967 by the American band The Four Seasons. That’s 54 years ago!
However, I first heard and knew this song from a later 1974 version by the Dutch band Shocking Blue, also known in the USSR for their hit “Shizgara” (actually the song was titled “Venus,” but since most people in the USSR didn’t know English well, they referred to the song by the phrase they thought they heard in the chorus, “Shizgara,” which was actually “she’s got it”).
But back to Beggin’. I really like the version of the song performed by Shocking Blue, and I like the original 1967 version significantly less. So why now, and what does Eurovision have to do with it? The reason is that in spring 2021, the Italian band Måneskin won Eurovision with a completely different song, of course. But the band’s journey started on the Italian version of “X Factor,” where they performed their variation of Beggin’ during one of their appearances. Although this song was never released as a single, after their Eurovision victory, everyone started looking up this “Måneskin.” That’s when their performance from “X Factor” resurfaced, and unexpectedly, this song began climbing the charts again—perhaps even overshadowing their Eurovision-winning track. This is one of those cases where Eurovision really helped the winner. The band’s fame skyrocketed, and it turned out they had quite a few good songs in their repertoire.
Måneskin’s performance of Beggin’ is very emotional and captivating, stylistically much closer to Shocking Blue’s rendition than to the original by The Four Seasons. In short, the song has earned a spot in my playlist alongside the Dutch version.
There are currently two video versions of the song: an official music video made by Måneskin after their cover unexpectedly gained popularity, and a recording of their performance on “X Factor.” I honestly can’t decide which one I like more. I’ll share both.
Let’s start chronologically, with the live performance:
And here’s the official music video:
