IRELAND

The Irish Final was held on February 27th in a special "Late, Late Show" recorded in Dublin hosted by Ryan Tubridy. The winner was chosen by 5 regional juries (50%) and televoting (50%). After some very close voting, the winning song was "Playing with Numbers" and the singer is Molly Sterling.

After the debacle of last year's Eurosong final, and the fall out and virtually overshadowing the songs and performances, RTE decided to do away with the mentor-led selection process. This said, they ended up with an almost exact same selection process and show, just without the mentors involved. Phil Coulter, Linda Martin, Mairead Farrell and Panti Bliss. were on the panel which gave their opinions on the songs but had no voting power.

The song is a heartfelt lyrical ballad about relationships in the singer-songwriter vein. Molly sits and the piano backed by 3 other musicians and 2 female backing singers. The song starts off small and quiet but builds nicely to the first chorus. However from here on in nothing much happens - it gets a bit samey.

Needless to say nothing much is known about the singer as she is 16 and still at school. Her main accolade was winning. From doing some research about her she is apparently self taught on the piano and her skills brought her to 2nd place in the " All Ireland School's Talent Search". She has a very interesting voice. She seems to flip easily between her chest voice and head voice but also sound a bit like Shakira when she really pushes it. Some might see this as making her sound intriguing, others may find all the different sounds very off-putting.

First of all, the "Late, Late Show" studio is in no way comparable to the stage in Vienna so the Irish team could literally do anything. The set up as is works - no dancers please! -  but just needs better spacing out. They will also needs tome visual clues on the backdrop to make it stand out. The main problem is the orchestration of the song. It either needs to go small again after the first chorus to go big again in the chorus or it needs build after each and every chorus and verse to a big finish. The last 20 seconds needs to builds and the ending needs to be made much more deliberate.

In some ways this is a very Irish song, but a very modern Irish song. It is certainly very contemporary and grown up (even if she is only 16) and is at least a song that should be taken seriously and could easily be heard on many an Irish radio station. Molly is right at the start of her career and this may well be a great  starting platform for her and her music. However this is not a Eurovision song. It's not even a anti-Eurovision song. Although I could possibly understand a number of jury members liking it's subject and structure I doubt it has the immediacy for the general public to go out and vote for it. looking at Semi 2, the second half is already looking quite strong and something from the top half will have to be very special to qualify - and this isn't it.

ARTIST - Molly Sterling

SONG - Playing with numbers

MUSIC -  Molly Sterling, Greg French

LYRICS - Molly Sterling, Greg French