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Photographer:\/\/BBC<\/p>\nThe UK\u2019s new Eurovision entry was released today: a song called \u201cEins, Zwei, Drei\u201d by Sam Battle, who goes by the moniker Look Mum No Computer. It will not be to everyone\u2019s taste. It\u2019s loud, it\u2019s shouty, and, perhaps most controversial of all, its chorus \u2013 as you may have already been able to discern \u2013 is in German. Its lyrics, ostensibly, are about how bored Brits love going on European holidays. Its message however, seems to convey something different: we love you, Europe, and we\u2019re very, very sorry. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not surprising that a new mode \u2013 of both style and sentiment \u2013 is being tried. The UK\u2019s Eurovision track record has been abysmal of late, most notably James Newman, the first competitor to take part in the Eurovision Song Competition after the Brexit Referendum in 2020, who came away in last place and with a big fat zero to his name. Although politics are not supposed to affect voting in the competition, by denying the poor blighter any points, another was clearly being made.<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s entrants have fared little better since. Yes, there was the anomaly of octave-hopping Sam Ryder with \u201cSpaceman\u201d in 2022, pipped to the top spot only by Ukraine, but it was followed by Mae Muller\u2019s \u201cInstead I Wrote a Song\u201d, which came second from bottom, then Olly Alexander\u2019s \u201cDizzy\u201d in 2024, which came 18th, and, last year, Remember Monday\u2019s \u201cWhat The Hell Just Happened?\u201d which dipped to 19th. They weren\u2019t necessarily amazing entries, but nor were they really all that bad. Even though five years had passed since Britain\u2019s fateful decision, it seemed that \u2013 as far as Europe\u2019s popular music enthusiasts were concerned \u2013 all was very much not forgiven. <\/p>\n
Photographer:\/\/BBC<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s next Eurovision hope, Look Mum No Computer<\/p>\n
\u201cEins, Zwei, Drei\u201d, then, is certainly something of a surprise. Even disregarding for a moment the German-language chorus \u2013 arguably explained by this year\u2019s competition taking place in Vienna \u2013 it doesn\u2019t sound like a classic UK Eurovision song. Instead, it\u2019s a kitschy, synthy Euro-banger in the vein of, say, Baby Lasagna\u2019s \u201cRim Tim Tagi Dim\u201d (Croatia\u2019s 2024 entry) or \u201cCha Cha Cha\u201d by K\u00e4\u00e4rji (Finland, 2023) and is very clearly going for arena-friendly volume over emotive finesse. It\u2019s not something that the UK has even vaguely attempted since fake flight crew Scooch and their song \u201cFlying the Flag\u201d in 2007 (perhaps understandably: it finished 22nd). <\/p>\n
Even more surprising is the subtext. The video starts with Battle in a hum-drum mock office, dipping a Digestive biscuit into a mug of baked beans. Above him, glimpsed for a nanosecond, is a portrait of Henry VIII: not the most quintessential subject for corporate artwork, but Henry did make the decision to further his personal agenda by separating himself and his country from the Catholic Church in Rome. Just saying. It ends with him \u2013 Battle, not Henry \u2013 flying out beyond the White Cliffs of Dover in a winged Mini Cooper to a chant of \u201cI\u2019m coming back to life\u201d. What can it all mean. <\/p>\n
It seems inevitable that this apparently submissive position won\u2019t go down well in all quarters. For those clinging to the ever-more shredded notion of empire, it might seem too conciliatory, too hang-dog. But Britain has never been entirely convincing when puffing out its chest in the hope of projecting something along the lines of \u201ceverybody hates us and we don\u2019t care\u201d. We\u2019re a small, vulnerable island nation in need of better friends, and we desperately do. <\/p>\n
But, you know what? \u201cEins, Zwei, Drei\u201d has got a certain something. It\u2019s relentless, it\u2019s energetic and it\u2019s actually, in a weird way, kind of charming: again, not qualities we\u2019ve espoused as a nation of late. Will Look Mum No Computer nudge the Eurovision results in an unexpected direction? We\u2019ll have to find out in May. But when it comes to public voting, lord knows we\u2019ve been surprised before. <\/p>\n
The Eurovision Song Contest final takes place on 16 May and can be viewed live on BBC One and iPlayer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK\u2019s new Eurovision entry was released today: a song called \u201cEins, Zwei, Drei\u201d by Sam Battle, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,40950,233629,1331,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,1330,233628,233630,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-808168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-content-type-reviews","11":"tag-contentid-c2b4dfbe-9f09-42bb-b8c1-49ec8403902a","12":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european","16":"tag-european-union","17":"tag-great-britain","18":"tag-locale-gb","19":"tag-shorttitle-is-the-uks-eurovision-entry-a-not-so-subtle-apology-for-brexit","20":"tag-subsection-tv","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116183001202276140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}