Well quite a lot actually, given that we are in the midst of national final season and songs are now coming in faster than we can keep up! Firstly, an oversight in that the German entry was chosen weeks ago and we forgot all about it. Sorry! (the person responsible has been escorted from the building). Anyway, after several weeks worth of Unser Star For Baku dominating German screens, this chap, Roman Lob, was finally chosen with a winsome little ditty called Standing Still. Now this sounds to us very much like a zillion and one other male pop-rock tracks – not that there’s anything wrong with that, apart from the fact that it may well be overlooked on the night – but what does interest us is the fact that it was penned by our very own Jamie Cullum. And while it’s great to see a prominent UK musician taking an interest in Eurovision one is left to wonder why he should write a song for Germany and not the UK. Granted, a lot of swapsies do go on across Europe when it comes to songwriters but it all seems a little curious to us, as if perhaps he did offer his services to le Royaume-Uni and was turned down. We do hope not, because it wouldn’t be the first time that a talented act has offered to represent the UK, only to be rejected in favour of, well, something that comes last and is derided by the entire continent. Anyway, here’s what the song sounds like:
Speaking of big five people, Italy have finally decided on a song after San Remo music festival winner Nina Zilli was chosen as their representative last month – and would you believe it, after much deliberation they have decided to go with the song she performed in the first place (what took ’em so long to figure that one out then?). Not that we’re complaining because Per Sempre, as it’s called, is slightly fabulous – as Eurovision ballads go it is a tad old school (you could imagine some random country singing this in about 1995) but Nina is ace and the song has a sort of Bond theme quality to it which gives it the edge over all those other run of the mill ballads. As long as she keeps it in Italian we are hedging our bets for another top ten finish this year:
And finally in this little round up we have fellow Big Fiver Spain, who have also gone down the power ballad route with the lovely Pastora Soler singing – nay belting – Quedate Conmingo (aka Stay With Me). And it’s power-ballad-tastic, doncha know:
So that’s that then. Italy, France, Spain and Germany have all unleashed their songs, so just the UK to go (looks at watch while making impatient foot tapping gesture…..)
Continuing our quest to get interviews with as many of this year’s participants as possible, we present Spanish representative Soraya. Lady – come on and shake us….
Eurovision Blog 