The songs got their first airing on RTÉ Radio One's Mooney show yesterday. All five will be aired again today on the Ray D'Arcy show on Today FM. Ray presented the 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2008 Irish national finals.
The first song that will take the stage in studio 4 tonight will be Does Heaven need much more. Leanne Moore will sing the song which was written by John Waters and Tommy Moran, who wrote the 2007 Irish entry They can't stop the Spring.
Leanne won the 2008 edition of popular Irish talent show, You're A Star.
The song is of a different style to the 2007 Irish entry. It's an upbeat track with a very prominent backing track. The panel on the RTÉ show yesterday had mixed feelings on the song. One panelist slated the song saying that it was all he hated about Eurovision songs. Paul G Sheridan was more generous giving it 7 out of 10.
Panel score: 20/50
The second song up tonight will be River of silence, sung by Lee Bradshaw. Lee came fourth in last year's national final. This year he's back with a pop-rock song penned by the famous Siegel/Meinunger Eurovision team with a Spanish flavouring from Jose Santana. The panel were worried that Lee would succumb to nerve just as in last year's final when they said he was overcome by stagefright.
Panel score: 28/50
The third song will be Mikey Graham's Baby, nothing's wrong. Mikey is a member of famous Irish boyband Boyzone. He co-wrote the song with two other Dubliners. The song will be the shortest in tomorrow night's competition at just over 2 and a half minutes. There's a sax solo reminiscent of Ireland's 1980 winner What's another year. The panel thought Mikey could have used the extra 30 seconds allowed under EBU rules to flesh out the song. They said it seemed to end before it had fully begun.
Panel score: 25/50
Monika Ivkic will sing Fashion Queen tonight. The name of the song would seem to suggest a schalger anthem, but thankfully it's not quite that. The panel dicussed the suitability of Ireland being represented in the Eurovision Song Contest by a team of non-nationals. The panel described it as a nice, happy-go-lucky, bouncy number with a 40s flavour.
Panel score: 33/50
The final song on tonight's show will be It's for you and will be sung by former Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh. Niall Mooney and Jonas Gladnikoff who were half the songwriting team for Et cetera last year are back as half of the songwriting team behind this song. The song is a building ballad with a well crafted crescendo. The song got a round of applause from the panel. The song received the most support of any of the 5 songs.
Panel score: 39/50
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