Rim Tim Tagi Dim

Marko Purišić, who performs as Baby Lasagna, wrote Rim Tim Tagi Dim alone in his bedroom. By his account the spark was a job on a cruise ship that he had been offered and turned down. The bigger theme was the steady departure of young Croatians who leave the country in search of better work abroad. He called the song a humorous, light-hearted way into that subject: a young man from a village heads off for a better life, thrilled and anxious at once, and the title is the name of an invented folk dance from his home village. Purišić has said his own anxiety fed into it too. It was meant as filler for his debut album. When it started gaining streams, he entered it for Dora, Croatia's Eurovision selection, where it was first announced only as a reserve on 2 January 2024. A withdrawal the next day put it in the main line-up. The mix of techno, metal and pop won Dora and quickly became a betting favourite, helped by a dance that spread on TikTok, with Croatian members of the European Parliament and the US ambassador joining in. A line about a meowing cat even led him to visit a cat show in Zagreb. At Eurovision 2024 in Malmö it finished second with 547 points, Croatia's best result ever, and topped the Croatian chart. A joke song about emigration turned out to describe the experience of a whole generation, which is exactly why so many people in Croatia took it to heart.