It's been bugging me all day, but it's finally clicked. 'Edelweiss', from The Sound Of Music. That's what I'm reminded of by the string section in our Eurovision entry, 'It's My Time'. (Not 'My Time', which the BBC's Your Country Needs You website had all over it on Saturday.) It's only a passing resemblance though; I'm not alleging plagiarism.

Unusually, over 24 hours after the song was revealed, I haven't yet heard any plagiarism allegations from Eurovision fans about the tune, so there's hope yet. Diane Warren must have seen Geraldine McQueen though. I wasn't far off the mark with my comment yesterday that the title reminded me of Martine McCutcheon's 'Perfect Moment'. It's the same subject matter and the word 'moment' does appear in the lyric. It's very easy to imagine Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis and even Leon Jackson having a Christmas number one with it, had it been their own 'winner's song'. There's a fine line between originality and parody, which this song straddles with some uncertainty, but I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. You can't get near to winning Eurovision without a positive and uplifting lyric, so it ticks all the boxes to have one like this, with an oft-repeated title and a stirring tune with a modulation in the middle. It's exactly what I hoped for from ALW and exactly what I feared at the same time. He's been listening to what has succeeded in recent years and written a Eurovision by numbers big ballad, that sounds like it could have been in Les Mis (which he didn't write, but you get the point). Job done.

Here's the faultless, compelling, vocally perfect version of the song which might have brought us a top 15 placing in Moscow. Sadly Mark's parents aren't blind enough or poor enough and he didn't wear a spangly frock to pull in the dizzy queen vote, so he won't be going to Moscow, and we won't have the most confidence in the UK's vocals since Jessica Garlick in Tallinn. It's a crying shame.



Chart anorak corner: There has only been one top 75 hit called 'It's My Time' in the history of the UK charts since 1952. It was a #39 hit for the Everly Brothers in May 1968.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, YourCountryNeedsYou

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