Tim: Finland took the unusual (but not unheard of) step this year of having one artist presenting three songs for the public to choose from. The singer is Saara, who UK readers may remember as runner up in the 2016 series of The X Factor; others may recognise her from previous Eurovision selection competitions, Finland’s The Voice 2012, and considerable success in China, apparently. The winner was a pretty good dancepop number; this here is a really rather excellent ballad.
Tim: Annoyingly I’ve no idea what it looked like live, as for some reason the winning performance is the only one online, but if the sound of it is anything to go by it was likely fairly impressive – if nothing else, that’s a hell of a chorus.
Tom: That is a BRILLIANT chorus. I think this is the first reject where I’ve actually been startled by how good the chorus is.
Tim: I particularly like that the chorus goes on for twice as long as it needs to, and as a result makes up the considerable majority of the song. When you add in the middle eight (with that outstanding vocal note coming out of it), there’s only really a few seconds that the verses might ruin as an inferior part.
Tom: In a contest where most of the audience will have only heard the song once, having a good, catchy, and repeated chorus is a bonus. The verses — well, yep, they were over quickly, just in case they made it worse.
Tim: And they don’t, at all, because they’re very good as well.
Tom: Plus, what an end-and-return from the middle eight!
Tim: All in all, an excellent track, and it’d have been a very worthy Eurovision contender.