Lithuania

Love Sasha Son

"For just one moment, we all wanna be just as happy as one can be..."

The reintroduction of juries in Eurovision as a response to the increasing variance between televote and back-up results has led to endless speculation about the influence they will have on the overall result. The consensus seems to be that the input of the five-member national committees in the final will only have a moderate effect, and it doesn't alter the fact that those countries qualifying from the semi-finals still have to pretty much on televoting alone. This does present a scenario where (theoretically) semi winners could plummet to the lower reaches of the scoreboard and more lowly qualifiers fare much better, but the likelihood is not all that high since televoting will prevail in the combined scores. Anything that struggles to qualify with the public's support may find it just as hard to get anywhere in the final. On the other hand, if they qualify as the jury wildcard, they may do better than expected. We may none of us be any the wiser until after the event, but the Lithuanian entry for Moscow, Sasha Son's Love, may prefer to get the wildcard and take its chances than be promoted by the televoters in, say, 9th place.

One of what you might expect to be the more obvious nominees for the jury prize in the 2nd semi-final should it be overlooked by the audience, Love is a tough one to call. It is well-placed towards the end of the semi as the only ballad in a string of almost ten more or less uptempo numbers, and will certainly stand out between the Greek entry on before it and the Moldovan romp taking to the stage directly after it. Assuming the juries are the same as those employed for the final - a big assumption at this point; they could be the OGAE love-ins of 2008 all over again - the song is likely to impress them wherever it comes in the run, but wedged between This Is Our Night and Hora Din Moldova its class is sure to shine through. Whether it captures the audience in the same way depends to a degree on how the Lithuanians stage it: man-at-piano worked well for Norway's Jostein Hasselgård in 2003, and the simpler Mr Son keeps it the better it is likely to work. And if that's the case, Love ought to qualify on merit instead of needing to be rescued by the juries.

Either way, Lithuania deserves to be in the final with this song, and it will be Eurovision's loss if Love is scorned by the viewers and then slips through the safety net, too. Beautifully orchestrated and arranged, with some great vocals by composer, lyricist and soloist Sasha, it is one of the country's best entries, and one of few generally to have made such a successful transition from the original version. You've got to hand it to anyone who can fit the title of a song into its chorus 17 times and still make it sound like poetry; Pasiklydęs Žmogus certainly couldn't have, and neither does the Russian version that's materialised. Not that Love needs to pander to the audience through its choice of words: it is one of the most striking compositions of the year, which hopefully either the viewers or the juries will recognise. It might be too much to ask for both, but the Lithuanian entry succeeding would be a true indication of the success of Eurovision's new format, and a triumph for the contest.