Count your blessings, Ireland!

We want to congratulate the Irish for finally, for the first time in ages, sending an entry that doesn’t involve heavy use of Swedish songwriters and without a bodhrán in sight. Hallelujah, we thought that day would never come!

We never got the need for hiring Scandinavians to make something Irish sounding; it simply makes no sense whatsoever. Especially not when they have managed just fine on own homegrown talent in the past, winning the Eurovision Song Contest no less than seven times. Not even the Swedes can beat that, not just yet anyways.

That’s why this year’s entry Playing With Numbers, by and with young and talented Molly Sterling is a triumph in itself. Perhaps not in a winning potential kind of way, we can easily see this get lost among a million other ballads, busy dance routines and artists far more attention seeking with less clothes and smaller talent. But nevertheless this is probably one of the best songs you’ll hear in Vienna. Its qualities lie in all aspects from the beautifully composed melody and the well-crafted lyrics not sounding like something a non native English speaker still in elementary school has written to the solid performance by a proper artist. It’s classy, it’s sophisticated and it’s the kind of entry every country can be proud of, should they be lucky enough to escape everything from well-baked pizzas to tacky gipsy weddings.

So we thank the Irish for drawing our attention to what’s supposed to be the focal point of this contest. A good song. Real music. Artists that can actually carry a tune. Playing With Numbers is not particularly modern or groundbreaking, but it’s the sort of song that never loses its relevance or goes out of style. We wish we could say it will be abundantly rewarded, but the Eurovision world can be a cruel and unforgiving place, filled with people who would rather cast their vote for men in hamster wheels, women with beards or whatever gimmick that will become the talk of the town this time around.

And lets face it, with only three designated minutes it’s not always enough to show up with a good album track and hope for the best. Yes, ESC is a song competition, but it’s also an entertainment show. So unless Molly plans on having a hot bloke popping out of her grand piano, a figure skater on stage or perhaps singing the last chorus jumping on a trampoline we fear she won’t get the attention and votes she deserves. But at least she’ll regain the dignity on behalf of a former Eurovision giant, and we suppose that’s not at all a bad outcome.