Gimme gimme gimme a Dua Lipa UK Eurovision entry... written by Abba!
‘You can’t be worse than last’
THE UK may have scored them ‘nul points’ when Waterloo won Eurovision in 1974.
But the stars of Abba don’t seem to hold a grudge.
Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson said they’d consider writing a track for the UK to enter into the contest – but only if it was performed by a ‘really good’ artist, such as Dua Lipa.
It comes after the UK finished last in Eurovision in May, when James Newman failed to score a single point with his song Embers. No entry from the UK has made it into the top 10 since Jade Ewen in 2009. And the country has not won the contest since 1997 when Katrina and the Waves performed Love Shine a Light.
Benny, 74, and Bjorn, 76 - together with Agnetha Faltskog, 71, and AnniFrid Lyngstad, 75 – know a little about hits with dozens of Top 40 singles. Yesterday they released Voyage, their first album in almost 40 years.
Talking about the ingredients for Eurovision success, Benny told BBC Breakfast: ‘Picking an act is one thing, writing a song is different. So you need both a great song and a good act.’
Asked if he would consider writing a song for the UK, he said: ‘Oh, a UK entry? I don’t know.’ However, he added: ‘But what’s the risk? You can’t be worse than last.’ Bjorn added: ‘But it needs to be a really good act to write for, yeah’, before Benny suggested ‘Dua Lipa’, to which his bandmate agreed.
Miss Lipa’s music management company is to help pick the UK’s next entry. She has previously said: ‘I’m a proud Brit whilst also being a proud Kosovan … I’m happy to lend my manager to the cause… I’ll be cheering them on.’ The 66th edition of Eurovision is to be held in Turin next May.