Shum (song)

"Shum"
Go_A performing "Shum" in Rotterdam
Single by Go_A
Language	Ukrainian
English title	"Noise"
Released	22 January 2021 (2021-01-22)
Genre	Dark-techno folk
Length	3:58 (original version) 3:02 (radio edit) 2:53 (Eurovision version)
Label	Rocksoulana
Songwriter(s)	Taras Shevchenko Kateryna Pavlenko
Go_A singles chronology
"Solovey" (2020) "Shum" (2021) "Kalyna" (2022)
Music video
"Shum" on YouTube
"Shum"
Eurovision Song Contest 2021 entry
Country	Ukraine
Composer(s)	Taras Shevchenko Kateryna Pavlenko Ihor Didenchuk
Lyricist(s)	Kateryna Pavlenko
Finals performance
Semi-final result	2nd
Semi-final points	267
Final result	5th
Final points	364
Appearance chronology
◄ "Solovey" (2020)
"Stefania" (2022) ►

"Shum" (Ukrainian: Шум, transl. "Noise") is a 2021 song by Ukrainian folktronica group Go_A, made under the label Rocksoulana Music. It represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Rotterdam and won fifth place.^[1]

The lyrics of the song come from Ukrainian folk songs that people used in the "Shum" ritual, for example "A v nashoho shuma" («А в нашого шума»).^[2] The name of the ritual comes from Proto-Slavic words šumъ ("noise") or šuma ("forest").^[3]

Lead singer Kateryna Pavlenko grew up in Polyssia, Northern Ukraine, and the song is inspired by the folklore of that region. In "Shum" she used the traditional "white voice" singing technique.^[4]

Each version of the song has a music video.

For the original version, Go_A directed a video with Ivan Buianskyi and they recorded it with a smartphone.^[5] In the first three weeks, people watched it more than 1 million times.^[6]

For the Eurovision version, they recorded a new video in a forest near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.^[7][8]

"Shum" had to represent Ukraine in Eurovision Song Contest 2021. However, the song could not go to Eurovision, because the words were the same as folk songs and it was one minute too long (Eurovision rules say that songs must have original lyrics and can not be longer than 3 minutes).^[6]

Go_A did not want to change the original version, so they made made a new, shorter song, with different lyrics, and called it "the sequel". The new version has a happy energy and it is inspired by Vesnianky [en] spring dancing rituals.^[4]

"Shum" is the second song fully in Ukrainian at Eurovision (the first was "Solovey", by the same group, the year before).^[9]

"Shum" won fifth place, with 364 total points.^[1] The song was the second most-voted by the public, with 267 public vote points, behind Italy's "Zitti e buoni". It got a maximum of 12 points from five countries.^[10]