The benefit of being a Brit in my annual Countdown is that I get to save my home nation for last, alphabetically. Not that I’m blindly patriotic at Eurovision, you understand: in fact, I rarely find that much to cheer about in the home entry, so this year is a welcome change. The pressure had mounted on the BBC after years in the doldrums to give us a national final and a say once more in our entry. Supporters of a national selection seemed to me to fail to remember what had happened the last time we did: even Bonnie & Molly’s lowly placings seemed aspirational compared to a double dose of dead lasts when last the public selected the singer (Josh) or the artist and song combined (Andy Abraham). My expectations weren’t high, put it that way. In the end the BBC did a good job, pulling 6 songs together, of which I liked 5 (one would-be Better Man in need of a much better song next time). Performed live this one became my winner. Joe Woolford and Jake Shakeshaft (and that joke’s tired already) are two affable boys with a genuine chemistry who bring energy and enthusiasm to their song, which I rate as our strongest in almost 20 years.
It’s lightly anthemic, and cheers me right up when I hear it. I’m finding the lyrics a bit curious, mind: it’s played as a matey, chummy story, but it feels written as more of a love song, with statements like coming alive when with one another and being the answer sought. The words take an odder turn with lines like being the truth you’ve been looking for, and an exclamation that “they don’t need to know” more suggestive of a clandestine relationship.
Of course there’s a reading that the boys are just singing simultaneously to a pair of off-screen partners but with points where they turn towards one another to direct those lines it does at times feel incongruent to a simple bromance. But that aside, this is an uplifting song that for once as a UK entry doesn’t feel a million miles away from what’s currently in the charts. But – there’s another but: like this as I do I’m struggling to see, against the other entries, how this is going to feature consistently in the juries’ top tens, or to be the one (or one of two or three) that makes you go “that’s what I’m calling up to vote for”.
I can’t see anyone disliking it enough to put it bottom of the pile but it does feel like it’s in that middling zone that just gets overlooked in the voting and accidentally ends up at the foot of the scoreboard. I hope the staging has enough impact to bring this alive on the screen (I’m thinking something impressive with the lighting along the lines of Finland’s Softengine in 2014 rather than sticking needless dancers alongside them, for instance), with a nice latish-but-not-last starting slot.
I am a bit worried about it though. It would be a crying shame if the BBC’s efforts (and they really have been trying since the Engelbert and Tyler years) were to not pay off again. We really need a decent result to engage the British public and potential talent in a Contest which continues to modernise as we continue to mock it.
My marks: douze points!
Monty x