United Kingdom: James Newman & “My Last Breath” Selected At The End of January

James Newman and the song “My Last Breath” were chosen to represent the United Kingdom at Eurovision 2020 at the end of January.

Alistair Norbury President, repertoire & marketing at BMG UK has revealed that the UK’s Eurovision 2020 entry was selected at the end of January. Speaking in Music Week, Mr Norbury explained that the final version of the song was presented to him and music publisher Lisa Cullington and Jamie Nelson to review on January 20th. At this point the song was then recommended to the BBC for Eurovision 2020.

The UK’s selection process for Eurovision 2020 involved songwriting camps for the contest held both in the United Kingdom but also in the United States. After a few songwriting camps, James and the co-writers of “My Last Breath” headed to Scotland and created the song.

Mr Norbury commented:

We approach this year’s contest with confidence, but also humility. We are all too aware that we follow in the footsteps of others who also tried their hardest.

There are no guarantees in pop music. The most important thing is to deliver an entry of which the whole country can be proud and try and lift ourselves off the bottom of the scorecard.

I can honestly say we have ended up with one of the best songs I’ve ever worked on.

Furthermore on a press reveal evening earlier this week the President of BMG outlined his aims for Eurovision going forward:

Our aim is to move from the right-hand side of the scoreboard to the left.

The BBC dropped its national selection “Eurovision: You Decide” this year in favour of teaming up with the music label BMG to select the British entrant for Rotterdam.

Rylan Clark-Neal and Scott Mills will be commentating the two semi-finals in Rotterdam and Graham Norton commentating the Grand Final in May.

Source: Music Week