As previously reported, the UK’s BBC is providing a bumper night of alternative Eurovision coverage on Saturday 16 May. One of the highlights is set to be Eurovision: Come Together.
Fans have already received some teasers about what the Graham Norton hosted one-hour special will entail.
Now, on the eve of the broadcast, BBC has confirmed that there will be a public voting element. However, the British people won’t be voting for their favourite 2020 act. Instead, they are being asked to vote for their favourite Eurovision song of all the time.
A shortlist has been drawn up by a panel of “experts and superfans”. These include Eurovision commentators Ken Bruce, Rylan Clark-Neal and Scott Mills, former UK Eurovision acts SuRie (2018) and Nicki French (2001). “Uber fans” TV host Mel Giedroyc and Radio 1’s Adele Roberts also had a say. As did our own William and Lucy.
BBC favourite Eurovision songs shortlist
Here are the selected songs, in alphabetical order:
- Dancing Lasha Tumbai – Verka Serduchka (Ukraine) – 2007
- Diva – Dana International (Israel) – 1998
- Euphoria – Loreen (Sweden) – 2012
- Fairytale – Alexander Rybak (Norway) – 2009
- Fuego – Eleni Foureira (Cyprus) – 2018
- Heroes – Måns Zelmerlöw (Sweden) – 2015
- Love Shine A Light – Katrina & The Waves (UK) – 1997
- Making Your Mind Up – Bucks Fizz (UK) – 1981
- Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu – Domenico Modugno (Italy) – 1958
- Ooh…Aah…Just A Little Bit – Gina G (UK) – 1996
- Poupée de cire, poupée de son – France Gall (Luxembourg) – 1965
- Rhythm Inside – Loïc Nottet (Belgium) – 2015
- Rise Like A Phoenix – Conchita Wurst (Austria) – 2014
- Satellite – Lena (Germany) – 2010
- Save Your Kisses for Me – Brotherhood of Man (UK) – 1976
- Soldi – Mahmood (Italy) – 2019
- Sound of Silence – Dami Im (Australia) – 2016
- Toy – Netta (Israel) – 2018
- Waterloo – Abba (Sweden) – 1974
The vote will take place via the BBC website. Voting will open once all performances have aired on BBC One — given that it’s a one hour show, we presume this will be in the form of snippets. Voting will close during the programme and will be announced before the end-credits roll.
‘Eurovision: Come Together’ programme details
The programme will include a Graham Norton interview with James Newman, the UK’s 2020 singer.
It will also see hundreds of Eurovision fans and some former Eurovision faces recreating Eurovision classics from their homes. The press release giddily informs us that the UK’s 1993 singer Sonia takes on the Epic Sax Guy solo, originally done by Moldova’s Sunstroke Project in 2010.
Eurovision: Come Together airs from 6.25pm local time, Saturday 16 May on BBC One.
What do you think of the BBC list? Do you agree with the choices? Who will you vote for? Let us know in the comments.
Happy to see Loïc Nottet in the list, iconic performance !
I don´t like the entries they selected…some of them had horrible live performances. :/
I love the boldness to shortlist songs that didn’t even win. Rhythm Inside by Logic Noittet I’ve been humming for years. Loved his face turns and stage presence that night.
Also Gina G, shoutout shes from my city of Brisbane 🙂
Go Sweden! Waterloo, Euphoria and Heroes are fantastic entries.
Abba and Loreen is best
What a nice list!
It’s a great list, and so pleased to see HRH Gina G included, she was a favourite of mine for many a year. Looking forward to the show.
Most of you straight to complaining and totally overlooking the fact this last is tailored to a British audience and just about the past couple of years. All things considered this could have been a lot worse and is actually a good line up of songs. 19 songs in an hour & half with a voting element? I wonder how they’ll fit it all in.
Aww here come the whiners to moan!
Rhythm Inside -Loic Nottet !
Oh yes, my favourite 🙂
Stop with Poupée de cire ! There are other songs in French…
How is Amar pelos Dois not there? What a shame UK… What a shame…
Cos its sh!te
VERY surprised to see Rhythm Inside, but VERY happy! It was my 2015 winner!
Replace Dancing Lasha Tumbai, Makkng Your Mind Up & Toy with Calm After the Storm, City Lights & Only Teardrops then we have an amazing shortlist, I do wish BBC included more entries but I’m looking forward to their big Eurovision night tomorrow!
Considering Making Your Mind Up was a UK winner which a generation of people know and also the name of the UK song selection show, why did you ever think it would be omitted from the list?!?
Although Rise Like a Phoenix was a strong winner in 2014 (it could easily have been the title track to a James Bond film) I’m pleased to see someone has singled out Calm After The Storm because, for me, that song along with Euphoria and Only Teardrops, that you’ve also singled out, would be my top 3 Eurovision songs of the last decade.
Obviously Waterloo is going to win from the available choices but it’s Euphoria for me.
Only Teardrops ranks as one of the most forgettable and harmless Eurovision winners ever, just like Arcade.
City Lights was only a good studio song. The live version needed much improvement and should not have ended up in fourth place.
Can’t take any list that doesn’t include Salvador seriously. I mean, it literally achieved the most points ever.
That’s because 2017 was a really, really bad year tbh. Don’t get me wrong, Salvador was great, but in other years he wouldn’t have won, at least not with that many points.
The list is bit Uk-centred but it is a British programme…
Decent list, if pretty standard. They can’t please everyone of course. Just sick of bloody Verka this and Verka that. Go away!
Oh that it have a good old moan again about the UK & BBC , for god sake grow up, people are sooooo nasty about the UK its beyond a joke now and has racial overtones!
If you want to see an interesting shortlist, let’s have a look at the all time winners top 20 of Belgian public. It was revealed on RTBF last night and that was a quite good top 20 (but very predictable). The top 3 was: 1-Waterloo by ABBA (no surprise). 2- Rise like à phoenix by Conchita Wurst and 3- Fairytale by Alexander Rybak. Céline Dion came 4th and Sandra Kim 5th (I think it’s quite honest from the belgian public). The rest of the top is nice too! 01. Abba – Waterloo 02. Conchita Wurst – Rise like a Phoenix… Read more »
Not a big difference from the shortlisted songs in BBC’s Come Together really…
Well, there are songs that will always appear in that kind of top so yeah… but I find the one from RTBF more interesting because 1- it’s a result from public and not 10 poor journalists. 2- doing a top 20 from all songs since 1956 is impossible. A lot of songs on BBC’s shortlist don’t seem really legit.
The best according to the BBC = kitch, camp and bad quality (with very honourable exceptions, such as Loic, Mahmood, France Gall and Demi).
4 entries from UK lol
So boring and predictable list
There’s a very good line up here. I don’t get why people are complaining, since quite a lot of the songs are serious songs (not novelty).
Secret Garden, Lordi, Sergey Lazarev (2016), Helena Paparizou, Serbia & Montenegro (2004)
Oh my god triple yes for Secret Garden <3
Shock horror! Eurovision fans aren’t happy with selection of Eurovision songs! Seriously guys!!!??
This is a very decent shortlist the BBC have given us!! Picking just one of them is a tough ask.
Best BRitish entry was imo: where are you now from Amaani 1997. Not here. Lots of other songs that are good not here, some lousy songs I find… I know it’s a matter of taste, but this list does not seem ta have any connection with reality.
What about IL VOLO ? Sergey Lazarev? Polina Gagarina? Salvador Sobral? All of them televote winners. This list is a joke!
I have to agree. Even more when Russia or Italy don’t tend to do that well with UK televote normally and Il Volo and Sergey did great.
Also add Keiino. They were loved by Brits and big televoting winners as well
This list should just be ignored. It is not easy to make an all-time list, but any list that includes Verka Serduchka over the likes of Salvador Sobral cannot be taken seriously. Clearly they wanted to include a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but in the end – it is just a complete mess.
I’ll probably get a lot of hate for this but…people didn’t vote for Verka because of the song. People gave it votes because the stage performance was really weird. And then they wonder why Eurovision has the reputation it does from non-Europeans.
Anyway, Verka shouldn’t be here because this is a best SONG list and it wasn’t the song that got it votes.
Heroes?! Really bbc?!
Heroes got 12 points from UK, remains the last big hit from ESC in the country, was played regularly in nightclubs & various shows and Måns hosted their national final twice plus resides in UK with his British girlfriend, it makes clear sense why BBC shortlisted Heroes!
He just won’t go away!!!
That dire song “Heroes” didn’t deserve to win that year, it was all staged.
Euphoria. Yawn. What happened to the 1970s?
Great point. Vicky from Luxembourg with the song Come What May is one of the most underrated songs of all time. This is an all time classic. It certainly blows most of the other entries on the list. One question though about the show. I’m sure that it was originally supposed to be on for two hours. Then it was dropped to 90 minutes and now 60 minutes.
It starts at 6:25pm and finishes at 8pm.
I’m so tired of the UK in Eurovision. They think they’re still in the 20th century … musically and physically
What has this list got to do with the UK at Eurovision? Most of the songs are serious entries that have done well, so what’s the big deal?
Three great entries from Sweden!
No Lordi? Tasteless to not have one of the most iconic Eurovision winners. Netta is not iconic.
I totally agree. Never even understood why she was in the final. Lordi is awesome!
Lordi should have been for sure. Iconic next level. Brits loved it and gave 12 points.
But no need to dismiss Netta. In 5 or 7 years we looked back and we’ll see which acts are really remembered by general audience. We can’t say it now
I would add Ne partez pas sans moi de Céline Dion
Song was never released as a single in UK sadly and most locals don’t even know the song Celine won Eurovision with! Life is… weird.
That’s a pretty odd list. How does Rhythm Inside get onto the list, coming fourth and there is not one Irish winner from their record seven wins? They sing in English! No comprehension issues. The BBC show has a Irish presenter…..
and I am not even Irish!!
Because Rhythm Inside is one of the best ESC entries ever!
It’s in there to appeal to the younger audience and to give the list a more contemporary feel. I can see the logic. But it shouldn’t be at the expense of a country that has won seven times. I like the song. But it came fourth…there’s a reason for that. It was not universally popular.
No.
Johny Logan the Eurovision king out of the list. Joke!
SuRie is on the panel. She was part of his creative team and was a backing singer during his performance.
None of the 90s Irish winners are that memorable tbh, neither had charted in Top 20 as well, I am surprised Johnny Logan isn’t there!
Who picked Netta over Duncan?
This
Netta did better than Duncan in the British televote.
The Common Linnets did super well with Uk televoting and that’s the last Esc song to be top 10 in the UK chart
Frankly i dislike both of their ESC tracks, Netta has another fun single though. Duncan is just boring and pretentious
Good song. Shame he could not sing his song
This is actually a great shortlist! I was scared that acts like Scooch were going to be on there