There's Eurovision and then there's Rock and Roll!

Being born in the 1960's, I grew up with certian major TV events throughout the year. In Sporting terms, we had the Grand National, The Cup final and the Boat Race. All were massive events in our household. At the time, the Cup final was the only match live on telly, so I loved it. I also loved the Grand National, winning ten bob (which my Dad placed) on Red Alligator in 1968. I can't recall why we loved the Boat Race, but we did. Then there were the 'events'. The ones that spring to mind was Miss World and The Eurovision Song contest. Miss World, in hindsight was a rather strange event. Young ladies on a stage in swimming costumes. They'd have a chat with the compare and express their ambitions, have families, save the world, become doctors, sleep with the Rolling Stones (I made the last one up). 

And then there was the Eurovision song contest. The whole family would watch togethe rand get terribly excited as the votes rolled in. My mum fancied herself as a great spotter of winners and was usually right. I usually favoured the song that came last, apart from the UK's entry. The first one I remember was when Sandy Shaw won with Puppet on a String in 1967. My sister Catherine was a bit of a fan. We were still in the Black and White era. Two years later, Lulu won, with Boom Bang a Bang. It was an awful song, but hey, it was Lulu and we won, so we loved it anyway. The follwing year, 1970, a new decade and much celebrations at ST Vincents School when Dana won for Ireland. All of my mates from Nationalist backgrounds decided this was a clear demonstration of Irish cultural superiority. In 1974, we had, for the first time, a truly global act launched by Eurovision. ABBA won with Waterloo. I thought ABBA were pretty good. It is a stonking song and the band was fronted by two rather attractive young ladies. 

What caused much hilarity with my sisters was that the two blokes looked like the guy on the front cover of "The Joy of Sex" (possibly the first sex manual widely published). I had nicked it and had a look through. I was at Finchley Catholic High School and realised my education had been somewhat lacking. For some reason, there was a myth that the Swedes were highly promiscuous and into all manner of naughtiness. Something I realised was not entirely true when I moved to Sweden to see my girlfriend in 1981. 

The thing about Waterloo was that it was the first non Anglo world song on Eurovision that was vaguely listenable. It had never really occurred to me that Johnny Foreigner, as we liked to think of them at the time, could make decent music. Abba dominated the charts for most of the 1970's. The next and final time I watched Eurovision, was for the Brotherhood of Man's win with Save All Your Kisses for Me. It was the worst of the UK's entries that I can recall. In 1977, I discovered Punk Rock and the concept of watching Eurovision seemed completely alien to me.  I've not really paid much attention to the whole thing since. 

I've never fully understood why the UK didn't put proper bands in. We did try Cliff Richards, with Congratulations in 1968, but he came second. Maybe that scared the likes of The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Who off. The only time we really tried was with Katrina and The Waves, in 1997, who had previously had a hit in 1995 with Walking on Sunshine. Needless to say, she won. Following Brexit, I started to wonder whether we'd still lose if we resurrected John Lennon and George Harrison and reformed the Beatles to put an entry in. I suspect that if we'd got Paul McCartney to do a song, it would be more Mull of Kintyre/The Frog Chorus than a banger like Jet or Live and Let Die.

Over recent years, The False Dots have considered putting our hat in the ring, for the fun of it. I've come to enjoy doing songs that are a tad more left field than we'd consider in our heyday. I was joking with Fil Ross, our bassplayer, who is Portuguese, that we could do a verse in Portuguese, at least that way we'd get a few votes! Having heard our entries on the radio over the last few years, I think we'd do a decent job. We'd get in a guest singer or two for the gig! There was a time, when even muttering such thoughts would have seen me unceremoniously slung out of the Rock and Roll fraternity, but now we are old and losing our marbles, such things may be joked about. It was suggested that we submit our latest single "We all love a party" as the entry. I am not sure that the Germans and Italians would get the references to the North London party culture of the 1970's though!

Why Eurovision tells us everything we need to know about the UK in 2021

 Did you watch the Eurovision song contest at the weekend. I have to confess that I didn't. I decided that an evening at Mill Hill Services club discussing football would be more fun. But I've not been able to escape it since. There has been nothing else talked about on the Radio. So I had a listen to a few of the songs and a few clips.  The UK got 'null points'. There has been a flurry of comments blaming this on everything from Geopolitical posturing to the fallout from Brexit. There have even been calls for us to leave the whole Eurovision family in high dudgeon. However the reason is far more mundane. It is this :-

The sad truth is that the reason that James Newman got 'null points' is exactly the same as why I would get 'null points' if I'd performed it. It wasn't a great song, James can't sing in tune live, he is not an oil painting and there was no joy in his delivery. I listened to the recorded version. As someone who runs a professional recording studio, I always hear when a voice has been heavily autotuned. It might work for a recording, where it can be patched up, but when you get up on stage there is no place to hide. I cannot think of an earthly reason why anyone would give a single vote for that performance. If I'd been asked, I'd have rated Mr Newmans chances of winning on a par with him scoring the winning goal for England at the next world cup.

So was there a big regional block voting conspiracy against us? Absolutely not. We simply put our hat in the ring with the wrong artist and the wrong song. There are stll plenty of countries in Europe who would vote for a UK song if it was any good. I doubt we'll ever win it again, even if we reformed the Beatles from the dead and put Amy Winehouse as the lead singer, but we'd get votes from all of the genuine music lovers who cared. 

Right now there are a lot of European peoples that are none to well disposed against us. Those in the Russian sphere of influence see us the enemy and those who are pro EU see us as a malign force. But there are plenty of independent minded nations who would be perfectly well disposed towards us, if we didn't insult them with such an awful offering. 

I have many European friends who have asked why we don't unleash the likes of Blur, Oasis, Celeste or Paul Weller on the contest. I've often wondered what the competition would make of a top notch performer with a killer pop song. I hear howls of  'That's not what Eurovision is all about!" but it's not about people who can't sing and are not exactly exciting to watch like James Newman. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against James. He is apparently a brilliant songwriter, so should be earning a shedload of money. He should have stuck to the day job.

So that is my view of the contest. But the reaction tells us everything about the UK today. Our collective heads are so up our collective backsides that we seem unable to see the wood from the trees. Rather than simply accept that we had an appalling entry, all of the whingeing about "Europeans don't like us" and "we should pull out" are quite sickening. Since when did the UK become bad losers who throw our toys out of the pram when we underperform and get what we deserve? When Finland knock us out of the World Cup or Ireland beat us in the Cricket World Cup will we throw our toys out of the pram and refuse to play anymore? I'm starting to think that we've collectively gone bonkers as a nation. We have had the highest death rate from Covid in Europe, but we are lecturing everyone else on how to manage pandemics. Sure our vaccine programme (run by the NHS which Boris would love to abolish) has been a success, but the companies that are making the vaccines are all multinationals. We were just a bit quicker on our feet buying up supplies. 

The sad truth is that Eurovision has demostrated that whilst the rest of Europe knows how to enjoy themselves and not take it all too seriously, we are becoming a bunch of self intitled curmudgeons, who refuse to accept basic truths. 

It's a shame because we have far and away the best music industry in the world. I know this for a fact because every day I see at least 20 people come through the studio who would have given a better performance. It seems that having a self entitled Prime Minister who is clearly not up to the job, but lives his life on a wave of bombastic bluster and failure has infected the rest of us. As I said, Eurovision is not my thing, but if we are going to enter, why don't we at least enter something that is either absolutely bloody amazing, ultra high camp or damn good fun and if we come last, have a damn good laugh about it. 

.