"Though nothing's been officially confirmed yet, news reaches us from NME's Eastern European division that Lithuania is currently in the midst of a musical crisis involving this year's Eurovision Song Contest entrant and… The La's.
As is customary for most, if not all, Eurovision-participating countries (I don't know, I keep well away from this stuff usually), Lithuania is in the process of choosing its song and performer for the competition via a public TV vote. What makes this year's competition noteworthy is the song by Deivis – a catchy little number called 'Lietuva'. Impressively, the tune scored maximum points in the quarter final heats earlier this month, making it the hot-favourite to go on and be the country's official entry.
Even better than that, though, is that it appears to have been stolen hook, line and sinker from The La's 'There She Goes'. Weirdly, nobody seemed to notice this until it had been performed in front of millions of people on TV. From what we can tell from these news reports (both written in Lithuanian), after 'Leituva' was performed, various viewers alerted Eurovision organisers that the song was just a tiny bit similar to 'There She Goes'. Annoyingly, most of the subsequent reports seem to credit Sixpence None The Richer with the song (in actual fact they butchered it), rather than elusive La's mainman Lee Mavers. It seems an investigation into the similarities is being carried out by some Eurovision suits, and Deivis is waiting to find out if he's been kicked out of the competition or not.
All of which is loads more entertaining than getting Andrew Lloyd Webber involved (as we have here in the UK) has been. Have a listen to 'Lietuva' for yourself. I quite like it actually. It's even got a key change before the end. Didn't think of that, did ya Mavers?"
Steve Lillywhite, Mike Hedges & John Leckie.
