Making Your Mind Up - A Referendum Soundtrack

Making Your Mind Up - A Referendum Soundtrack

With a difficult decision ahead for the British voting public on Thursday, we trawled through Euro-history to bring you a top ten of Eurovision tracks to help you in Making your Mind Up.

Liverpudlian Sonia came nail-bitingly close to winning in 1993 with an upbeat Wham-esque song about staying with the one you know, rather than taking a risk into the unknown.

Sample lyric: Better the Devil You know than the devil you don't.

Sonia nails it with the sad realisation that the EU might all be a bit crap - but at least it's a known entity - unlike the potential crapstorm we'd be flying into if we all voted to leave. This is one for the Vote Remain camp.

The song that launched Céline Dion's career is a searing power ballad.

Sample lyric: La joie d'etre libre, vous qui cherchez une autre vie...ne partez pas sans moi. (The joy of being free, you who are looking for another life...don't leave without me).

Clearly, this is the Nordics and Poland, looking at us, telling us not to leave without taking them with us. As well as predicting a collapse of the EU in the event of a Brexit, Céline is representing Switzerland, that classic non-EU country. Firmly a Vote Leave paeon.

Sample lyric: In or out, there is never a doubt, just who's pulling the strings. I'm all tied up in you, but where's it leading me to?

Definitely a cynical wavering voter. In real life of course, Sandie's very much pro-EU but she's definitely on the fence (without any shoes) with her 1966 song.

Spain's leading Flamenco singer powered out a belter in Azerbaijan in 2012, with the soaring ballad Quedaté Conmigo.

Sample lyric (translated): Forgive me for every tear. I know that I'm not worthy of them, but the one thing I know now is that I can't live without you near me. Stay with me, don't go.

A strong plea here from the Spanish for the UK to stay in the EU. Definitely in the Vote Remain camp.

In a performance that wouldn't look out of place at a Vote Leave rally, boy-girl group Scooch flew the flag vivaciously for the UK - and ended up second from bottom.

Sample lyric: London to Berlin, all the way from Paris to Tallinn. Helsinki onto Prague, don't matter where we are.

Despite name checking half a dozen European cities, this is a Union Jack-waving, innuendo-laden, Carry on Cruising type of song that couldn't get more pro-British if it tried. Firmly Vote Leave.

Italy's 1990 entry (and eventual winner) was an ode to what would be 1992 Maastricht treaty - and the formation of the European Union itself. (You couldn't make it up).

Sample lyric: We're uniting more and more, give me your hand and you'll see you're flying. Europe is not far away...Together, unite, unite, Europe.

Couldn't get more Vote Remain. Have a listen though, it's goosebump rendering in its sincerity (though Toto's hair dye ran by the end of the transmission, onto his cream suit, showing that like all good sincerity - it's ultimately all fake).

Sample lyric: You're not alone we're in this together, all that you want, is right here forever.

Already accused of subliminal messaging, the UK's entry this year is a clear Vote Remain anthem.

Spain was swept up in 2002 with the story of a young smalltown girl, Rosa Lopéz, and her rise to fame in the Spanish reality show Operacíon Triunfo. That year's Eurovision was at the time Spain's most watched television event ever.

Sample lyric (with translation): Europe's living a celebration. Todos juntos vamos a cantar. (All together we're going to sing). Europe's living a celebration. Nuestro sueño una realidad. (Our dream a reality).

Spain, massively in favour of the European dream. However, watching it may put the frighteners up us Brits - if being in Europe means jumping up and down with bouncy, wide-eyed Spaniards - and push us into Voting Leave.

Germany's only win is a UK chart-topping gentle and sincere ballad for peace.

Sample lyric: A little lovin', a little givin', to build a dream for the world we live in. A little patience and understandin', for our tomorrow, a little peace.

The foundations of the EU (and of Eurovision) are deeply embedded in the remnants of a war-torn continent in the 1950s. Germany reminds us of this in their song of peace. Vote Remain (for sentimental reasons).

In the same year that Britain joined the European common market, Cliff Richard sang "Power to all Our Friends".

Sample lyric: Power to all our friends...to the people we want to be, oh yeah, baby, power to you and me.

A mixed message here from Cliff. He's happy to give power to our friends - cleverly predicting the 15-55% of our laws that now come from Brussels regulations - but he still wants power for you and me. In fact, he's cleverly surmised that by virtue of the fact we are holding a referendum and may possibly leave the UK, this is evidence that we already have "control" - that we do have the right to say "no" to aspects of Europe that we don't like - and that ultimately, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty still exists and that no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Clever old Cliff. Leave it to him to make the salient argument that irrespective of Thursday's vote, the UK Parliament ultimately remains sovereign and so this question of "taking back control" is a complete red herring.

And with that, as far as Eurovision is concerned - the Remain Vote has it. Whether Camp Leave, Camp Remain or just Camp as Eurovision - don't forget to vote on Thursday!

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