Time to poke fun at the Eurovision for the first time this year. Let's be somewhat diplomatic and look at a few entries from my native country. We have actually won the contest a number of times, and to be fair we've had some okay songs, but by the Great Pixie, we have had some garbage in there too! Not surprisingly, those are the ones I'll be concentrating on here.
The first one I come across is this shower of wank--- sorry, performers, from the 1982 competition. Looks like they either think they're the Nolans (plus one VERY gay guy!) or Bucks Fizz minus one of the girls, but lord knows they are totally awful. This is a song that typifies and demonstrates the kind of turds the Eurovision used to churn out for us to vote for, or not, and probably for all I know still does. Their song is called “Here today, gone tomorrow”, and they were. Needless to say, they did not win... Oh the shame of being Irish!
1982 --- Ireland --- “Here today, gone tomorrow” by the Duskeys
Of course, if you go right back to 1974 it's even more cringe-making, with Tina Andrews, and a sub-sub-sub-sub-Europop cabaret number called, imaginatively, “Cross your heart”. Oh dear! Even the Brotherhood of Man would have been embarrassed singing this. Probably. Come on, any song where the writer gives up and throws in a host of “la-la-la-las” can't be good...
1974 --- Ireland --- “Cross your heart” by Tina Andrews
Now, this one just sounds like every sugary ballad ever written. From 2001, some guy called Gary O'Shaughnessy, who probably never worked again.
2001 --- Ireland --- “Without your love” by Gary O'Shaughnessy
Now, ample warning. I am so, so sorry to have to do this to you guys, but no look at Ireland's worst Eurovision entries could possibly leave these eff-star-star-kay-ers out, the twins who have single-handedly set back every musical advance Ireland made over the last forty years, and have reduced us to an image of dancing effing leprechauns. Oh god, I can't even speak their name! You know who I mean...
2011 --- Ireland --- “Lipstick” by Jedward (somebody shoot me in the head!)
Gaah! I feel all queasy now! Better go lie down and listen to some Slayer or something, get my mind off that trash. Anyway, that's my own country done, and done well, so let no-one accuse me of favouritism or of slagging off anyone else's native land. As mentioned, Ireland, like probably most countries lampooned here, has had some great Eurovision entries, among them Johnny Logan's double winners “What's another year” (1980) and “Hold me now” (1987), Dana's “All kinds of everything” (1970) and Charlie McGettigan and Paul Harrington's “Rock 'n' roll kids” (1994) --- all of which, incidentally, won the contest, but here in Eurovision Hell we're not concerned with such songs. Only the worst of the worst make it in here, and Ireland, land of my birth, has had some seriously bad entries!