Off the record

Schmaltzy pop is out and a Union Jack-bedecked Andrew Lloyd Webber is in, composing a song to be performed by the winner of Your Country Needs You, the reality TV contest filling the Strictly Come Dancing slot on BBC1. As if Lord Lloyd Webber wasn't heavyweight enough, the American songwriter Diane Warren is his collaborator.
Warren may not be a household name but if you've ever turned to a power ballad on karaoke night, chances are she wrote it. If I Could Turn Back Time (a hit for Cher), Unbreak My Heart (Toni Braxton) and I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing (Aerosmith), were all hers.

The song for Eurovision has now been written but not yet revealed. Given the combined track records of its composers, it ought to end up number one in every country on earth until the end of time — and the pair have certainly been talking it up. "We've got a real chance of writing something that will stand the test of time," said Lloyd Webber on the last show. "What we came up with was easy, inspired and very magical," Warren told me, revealing that it was mostly completed in an afternoon.

But this is Eurovision, and normal rules of songwriting do not apply. Lloyd Webber seems to be in denial of the fact that, for the past 10 years, you could have thrown a harmonica at the queue in a rural sub-post office, entered whoever it hit and done no worse than the UK's sorry list of competitors.

Last year, Andy Abraham was joint last. His predecessors, Scooch, were second last, and in 2003 Jemini managed nul points. Warren was blissfully unaware of all this, admitting that she has never seen Eurovision, never heard our past flops or even the winning songs of recent years. "All I came in to do was write a great song with Andrew Lloyd Webber, and that's what we achieved."

It may turn out to be a great song by any sensible criteria. But Eurovision is a land of Finnish metal monsters and Israeli transsexuals. Pitting the work of Lloyd Webber and Warren against the inevitable lunatics who will share the Moscow stage in May is like entering an Aston Martin in a stock car race.

Why are we trying so hard? There are three Brits among today's top 10 singles in host nation Russia. Next month the Grammy Academy in the US will pick its Record of the Year from an entirely British shortlist. Our music is officially among the best, week in, week out, across the world. We have nothing to prove.

Last year, the Irish entered a rubber turkey called Dustin, taking the contest about as seriously as we ought to. At least our prospective candidates still fighting it out in the TV contest have relatively little to lose — they include dim twins Francine and Nicola, Eighties throwbacks Emperors of Soul, walking waxwork Mark, and the only one with a semblance of star quality, Jade.

The list of past British winners — Lulu's Boom-Bang-A-Bang, Sandie Shaw's Puppet On A String, Bucks Fizz's Making Your Mind Up — indicates where we should be aiming: throwaway catchiness that's a delight if it does well, and no tragedy if it doesn't.

By involving songwriters with gravitas in a competition that is fundamentally a very silly evening's entertainment indeed, we're setting ourselves up to look even stupider than usual.
The final of Eurovision: Your Country Needs You is on BBC1 on 31 January at 6.30pm.

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