In 1983 I was asked to write English lyrics for the Italian finalist in Eurovision.  I was up against the wire and had to do this really quickly. As I was working Tommy Morrison rang me and said, “what are you up to” (as he often did). I told him what I was doing and he said “do you need a hand” and I said he could come over and sing a demo for me. So he drove up from Sunderland and what you hear is me and him in my kitchen with him singing and me on my acoustic.  Man, I wish Tommy was still around. He’d be so into the new band, running around and helping and he’d be at every gig.

Not long after I had delivered the finished lyric and the demo I got a phone call from Italy. They played me the recording over the phone with Riccardo Fogli singing my lyric. They wanted me to check that he had the right pronunciation. It sounded fine to me. However, as he only came 11th in the competition I never heard my version again. Then relatively recently I discovered an album on German Ebay. The notes said the version of the Per Lucia was not as the credits indicated,  but the “rare English version”. So I bought it and it’s laid in a cupboard for years until I finally got around to listening to it and sure enough, it’s my lyric version. I’ve dubbed the English version onto the 1983 Performance.

In 2010 I gave an interview for a book on Eurovision – you can read the transcript here.