IRELAND

The Irish entry was released on March 10th firstly with a play on RTE Radio 2FM then released online in the form of the official video. Back in December it was announced that Brendan Murray,  member of the boyband Hometown, had been internally selected and that his song would be chosen and revealed at a later date. He will be singing the song “Dying to try”.

The video is set at Bray, a seaside resort just south of Dublin. The atmosphere is quite bright but also looks quite cold and windy. Brendan is filmed walking and singing at different points along the beach, interspersed by the will they/won’t they story of two lovers. I could imagine some of the sweeping scenery shots making it into a background package bout would not have much connection with the lyrics of the song. As it was a pre-recorded selection it is hard to discuss singing and performance ability at this stage, although he looks a nice young lad and dressed in an apt way could be accessible to the younger viewership.

The song is a slow ballad but with a Viennese waltz lilt. The backing track is very sparse with a kind of ‘white noise’ backing to it, apart from that the main instruments you can hear are piano and drums. There are also some prominent backing singers in the second half of the performance. The song builds nicely – with even a key change as it enters the second minute. By the end the song comes back down again from its big build up. Brendan has a noticeably high voice which does stand out, although I wonder how much production has been done to the track to tone this down slightly or maybe this song was chosen because it tones down that screechiness.

Overall, I think this is a good selection. I had major reservations regarding the selection of Brendan and the seemingly over-bearing mentoring by Louis Walsh. But the song is not a bad one and if Brendan can sing this well live it could be a bit of a dark horse, or at least take votes away from similar songs.

On the plus side, semi 2 is very diverse and is not as ballad filled as semi 1. Therefore, watchers might see this as friendlier and more accessible Eurovision fayre and feel safe giving this votes. I also think slightly older jury members would love this. On the down side, Ireland really don’t have may ‘friends’ in the semi – not even the UK votes in this one. I’d love to see this go through but it might just miss out.

ARTIST - Brendan Murray

SONG - Dying to try

MUSIC - Jörgen Elofsson, James Newman

LYRICS - Jörgen Elofsson, James Newman