This Saturday Croatia will find out who will represent them in Eurovision 2023 and our editor Marco had the chance to talk with Meri Andraković about her participation in Dora 2023. The winner of Dora will be selected 50% by the jury and 50 by the public. You can check out our interview with Meri below.

Hello Meri Andraković and thank you for taking your time for ESCBubble! First of all, how was your reaction when you heard you will be at Dora 2023?
First I must thank you for inviting me and say hello to everyone! Well, at first I was surprised and excited, but I had good feeling about this song and somewhere deep inside I knew this song could be a big thing for my career, it is just because I had some feelings for this song that were very strong and powerful.

What made you decide to enter Dora and what are your expectations from the contest?
Well, just like I said, we just knew we had the good song. We recorded “Bye Bye Blonde” a week before the competition for Dora 2023 ended, and the reason why we decided to go with “Bye Bye Blonde” is because Boris Đurđević (the autor of the music) and song writer Valerija Đurđević, including me, thought this song is powerful enough to be on a competition like Dora – competition for Eurovision 2023. Well, I just want to leave my soul and heart on the stage, on live performance. And, of course, I want everything to go as we planned: the coreography, scenography…

Your song is called “Bye Bye Blonde”, what can you tell us about it, what’s the message behind it?
This song has deeper message, deeper than changing colour of my hair. Lyrics and the music for the song describes my life path: I started with my career as a 15 old girl, and now I am 22. So, there goes that interesting thing: changeing color of my hair, from blonde to dark brown (which is my natural hair color). But, that is only the art motive for my true change, I grew up in much stronger woman, there were many things that changed me and many things that had big influence on that change. It’s a song about letting go your past, be thankful for the person you were back then, and about letting your true self out.

How will the staging be at Dora 2023? What can we expect from your performance?
I must keep that as a little secret… But, all I can promise is that my live performance will follow my song in every aspect: lyrics, rhytm and whole feminine energy.

Which of the other contestants are you excited to see on Dora this year? And who do you consider to be your biggest competitor?
I’m excited to see all of my colleagues and meet ones I don’t know in person, those are really best and the most beautiful things and memories that goes with a competition like this. I’, very excited to see my friend Đana Smajo, because we met as little girls when we were in finals of the Croatian singing show for children – RTL Zvjezdice. I look at all of the participants of Dora contest more like colleagues then competitors. Like me, they also have songs that managed to reach to such a big competition.

And any other plans for 2023? Can we expect new music from Meri Andraković?
There are sure some plans. First, to graduate in acting and puppetry at Academy for Arts and Culture in Osijek and then to continue working on the new album as I planned. Be sure to expect concerts and, along with the concerts, maybe some plays where you can see me as an actress (except as a singer).

In the end, I want to thank you for your time and please, if you have a message for your fans and our readers here on ESCBubble?
Thank you for your interest. To everyone who will read this and who have or have not heard “Bye bye blonde”, I want to thank you for the huge support that I receive every day and I want to say that I will do my best to justify audience’s expectations at the live performance. And until then, listen to “Bye bye blonde” and continue to be such a wonderful support. Because of you all I love to do this job and because of you the stage is my second life – both in terms of acting and singing. Greetings from Meri!

You can listen to Meri Andraković’s 2023 Dora entry right here:

[democracy id=”173″]