Remember Monday: Country trio to represent the UK at Eurovision Song Contest 2025

The UK’s Eurovision entry for 2025 will be the female country-pop trio Remember Monday, the BBC has announced.

The group, who previously reached the quarter-finals of The Voice, will head to Switzerland this May with a song called What The Hell Just Happened?

Calling themselves “pop girlies with a little bit of yeehaw”, the band was formed by school friends Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steel in 2013.

In a press release, they said: “We’re going to be the first girlband to represent the UK since 1999, which feels like such a crazy honour. We’re going to bring loads of fun, energy and hopefully do something that you won’t have seen before on the Eurovision stage.”

Premiering their song on BBC Radio 2, the band added: “We feel like we’re on another planet. Nothing is sinking in.”

They’ll be hoping to improve on Olly Alexander’s performance at last year’s Eurovision Song Contest. His song, Dizzy, took 18th place after receiving the dreaded “nul points” in the public vote.

He was only saved from last place by the jury vote – where professional musicians and songwriters awarded him 46 points.

But the former Years and Years star shrugged off the loss with typical good humour.

Playing at Radio 1’s Big Weekend Festival a month later, he introduced Dizzy as “the 18th most popular song at Eurovision.”

Remember Monday’s song is markedly different from the decadent electro-pop of Dizzy. In fact, it’s in an entirely different realm.

Try to imagine, if you can, that Abba and Sam Ryder have teamed up with the cast of Six: The Musical, got blackout drunk and tried to recreate Bohemian Rhapsody from memory. (This is a compliment.)

There are a dizzying array of key changes and tempo shifts, but with every corner they turn, the band find another hook – with the soaring chorus a particular highlight.

Remember Monday wrote the song with Brit Award nominees, Billen Ted, who’ve previously worked with Little Mix and Anne Marie; Thomas Stengaard, who wrote Denmark’s 2013 Eurovision winner, Only Teardrops; and pop artist Julie ‘Kill J’ Aagaard.

It opens with a gently strummed mandolin, and a story about the terror and euphoria of being so partied-out you can’t remember the night before.

“Someone lost a shoe, I’m still in last night’s make-up,” they sing. “I’m waking up like, ‘What’s this new tattoo?’

“Room is spinning, ears are ringin’… I’m clutching my pearls like, What The Hell Just Happened?”

At that moment, the song explodes into a baroque rock opera, all power chords and chunky harmonies, before jumping into a double-time groove that recalls Laura Branigan’s 1980s hit Gloria, or Billy Joel’s My Life.

Over the next two minutes, we find out more about the band’s debauched night out. Heels were broken, strangers were snogged, swimming pools were depth-charged.

“In my defence it’s been a real hard year,” they protest, before delivering the killer blow: “You can blame my ex.”

It’s a quirky, catchy girls-together anthem – and the biggest creative risk the UK has taken at Eurovision for years.

But will it be enough to push Remember Monday up the rankings?

The trio will arrive at the contest with high hopes. They’re seasoned performers who, crucially, can deliver precise three-part harmonies in a live setting. All three have performed on the West End, in shows including Phantom Of The Opera, Matilda and Mary Poppins.

The trio also have a vibrant presence on social media – notably on their TikTok channel, where they defiantly sing the insults that people leave under their YouTube videos.

If they can bring that spirit to the contest, and the pre-parties that take place across Europe in the next two months, they’re sure to win over a few voters.

The competition is already heating up, with only seven countries left to reveal their entries before the deadline of 10 March.

Sweden is currently favourite to win – despite the fact their contestant won’t be chosen until the final of their national selection competition, known as Melodifestivalen, on Saturday night.

Among those contending for the honour are 2015 winner Mans Zelmerlow and comedy group KAJ, whose entry Bara Bada Bastu is an ode to the joys of a sauna.

The Netherlands, Finland and Estonia have also generated buzz for their submissions – which range from soul-searching ballads to stadium rock anthems.

Meanwhile, Australia is hoping for a reversal of fortunes after being eliminated in last year’s semi-finals.

They’re sending singer-songwriter Go-Jo, whose song Milkshake Man is a throbbing pop number laced with barely-disguised double entendres.

Malta took a similar path with their song – which plays on the phonetic similarity between “kant”, the Maltese word for singing, and a notorious swear word.

However, the EBU has ruled that singer Miriana Conte, must change the title and the lyrics to avoid causing offence.

Writing on Facebook, Conte said she was “shocked and disappointed” by the decision, “especially since we have less than a week to submit the song”.

However, she added, “I promise you this: The show will go on – Diva NOT down.”

This year’s contest will take place in Basel, Switzerland, after their act Nemo won in 2024.

The ceremony was mired in controversy after participants were caught up in a row over Israel’s inclusion.

Protests were staged outside the event, and many artists made on-stage protests over Israel’s military action in Gaza.

Nemo later told the BBC that organisers had not done enough to support participants.

“I felt very alone,” the Swiss singer said. “I really hope they have things in place for the next year.”

The contest subsequently announced new wellbeing measures for 2025, including a code of conduct for participants, no-filming zones backstage, and the creation of a welfare producer.