Eaea

"Eaea" is a song by Spanish singer Blanca Paloma, written and composed by herself, José Pablo Polo, and Álvaro Tato. It was released on 20 December 2022. After winning the Benidorm Fest 2023, it in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, finishing in the 17th place.

Composition
"Eaea" was written and composed by Blanca Paloma, José Pablo Polo, and Álvaro Tato. It is described as a song to "honour" the singer's roots, as a "celebration of female ancestors' power and strength" and as "representing a chant" to Blanca Paloma's late grandmother Carmen, who had inspired much of her music and introduced her to flamenco. The single's artwork features a photograph of Blanca Paloma's grandmother, and her five backing vocalists and dancers at the Eurovision performance also act as a "representation to the power and strength of her female ancestors".

The song along with its dancing performance is described as "nurturing" of traditional Spanish sounds and "drawing on" traditional flamenco styles; as "all flamenco handclaps, syncopated beats and Arabic vocals lines, underscored with a pulsating synth line; and as fusion with international elements, as a reflection to Blanca Paloma's "trademark style of mixing the traditional with the avant-garde and modern pop.""

Benidorm Fest 2023
Benidorm Fest 2023 was second edition of the Benidorm Fest, the song festival organised by Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) to select its song and performer for the of the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition consisted of two semi-finals and one final. In total, eighteen candidate songs competed divided between the two semifinals, with nine competing in each one. In each semifinal, the four songs with the most votes among the professional juries (50%), the demographic panel (25%) and the televote (25%), went directly to the final. During the final, the eight qualified songs performed again, with the same voting system as in the semi-finals. "Eaea" competed in the second semi-final, proceeding to win it with 167 points.

"Eaea" would earn a combined total of 169 points in the final, winning by a margin of 24 points, becoming the for Eurovision.

Eurovision
On 13 May 2023, the Eurovision Song Contest grand final was hosted at the Liverpool Arena in Liverpool hosted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on behalf of the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC). As a member of the "Big Five", Spain had automatically qualified to compete in the final. Blanca Paloma performed "Eaea" eighth on the evening. At the end of the voting, the song placed seventeenth with 100 points based on a televote-jury combination, gaining 5 points for the twenty-sixth and last place with the televote and 95 points for the ninth place with the jury. This was an underperformance according to expectations and bookmaker predictions, and the result was labeled a "failure" by different media and part of the public opinion in Spain.

Reception
While it progressed to the final stage of the national Benidorm Fest 2023, "Eaea" was considered a favorite to win across numerous Eurovision fan polls, including ones on Wiwibloggs and ESCUnited. "Eaea" was competing for the triumph of the Festival with the other great favorite by the public, the song "Quiero Arder" by the Canarian singer Agoney.

The song was viewed as one of the "most musically intriguing entries" at the 2023 Eurovision, in an article of British broadcaster BBC by music critique Mark Savage, who added ahead of the contest that "a lot will ride on how Paloma's melismatic vocal performance can be recreated live" and predicted a top-three position for the song.