Culture

The UK’s entry for Eurovision 2020 has just been announced and fans are divided

Eurovision

The music video for the UK’s Eurovision entry has ‘split’ opinion (Twitter/@bbceurovision)

The UK’s entry for the 2020 Eurovision song contest has now been unveiled – but will it be enough to secure the elusive douze points?

Representing the UK on the Rotterdam stage will be “My Last Breath”, a stirring ballad by Ed Sheeran’s songwriting partner, James Newman.

The English singer-songwriter previously won a Brit Award for British Single of the Year with “Waiting All Night”, performed by Rudimental. He also wrote “Blame” by Calvin Harris and “Love Me Like You” by Little Mix.

Newman’s Eurovision song premiered on BBC Radio 1 and 2 on Thursday morning, and shortly afterwards the BBC tweeted a clip of the music video showing a shirtless lumberjack-like man wandering through a snowy forest accompanied by a wolf.

The lyrics about “life lines” and “deep sea divers” provide absolutely no context to the mystery man or why he is now doing splits in the snow, but that’s just fine.

Fortunately the song’s creators have confirmed him to be Dutch athlete Wim ‘The IceMan’ Hoff, who is famous for creating the ‘Wim Hoff Method’ of breathing.

Newman’s “beautifully raw vocals” are said to echo Hoff’s extreme journey of adversary through the mountains of Sněžka on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland.

The pair first met at one of Hoff’s breathing workshops, which sparked a friendship and eventually a Eurovision collaboration.

“This year, we went to Appin in the west Highlands, where we swam in a freezing loch and went hiking,” Newman said. “We were literally climbing mountains in search of a song, reaching peaks and saying there’s a Eurovision winner up here somewhere! We just had to find it.”

He added that he loves “the simplicity and universal message of the song”, and feels honoured that it will be representing the UK in Rotterdam in May.

It debuted to mixed reaction online – but only time will tell whether it will pass muster with international voters.

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