Eurovision’s first semifinal finished in Vienna on Tuesday, May 12. While everyone sorts out their favourites, we have a slightly different filing system: songs that could soundtrack a hallway at 3am. Glassy pop, theatrical voices, familiar sounds placed somewhere unexpected. The cat has become a very specific kind of playlist curator.
These six picks include Belgium, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania, all confirmed among the first-semifinal qualifiers, plus automatic finalists France and the United Kingdom. The latter two are due to perform during Thursday’s second semifinal before competing in Saturday’s final.
“Liminal” is our mood-board label here, not an official genre or a claim about how these records were made. For Tuesday’s stage spectacle, see our first-semifinal recap. For an imaginary service station with suspiciously good speakers, keep reading.
United Kingdom: LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER — Eins, Zwei, Drei
Sam Battle is an electronic musician and instrument-builder whose inventions include a Furby organ. In the official song introduction, he describes the writing session on his custom synthesizer Kosmo. The entry’s premise is escape from the working day, with a generous helping of absurdity.
Our mental picture is a fluorescent office discovering that its equipment would rather be in a band. The German counting in a British entry adds to that slightly displaced feeling: familiar ingredients, an unexpected combination, a canteen that may have acquired a dance floor.
The liminal setting: a service station at 4am, where three languages share a sign and the coffee machine has started a solo career. If the appeal is partly music made with things you can touch, our cassette comeback story explores another side of that affection.
Belgium: ESSYLA — Dancing on the Ice
Belgium’s broadcaster announcement presents Dancing on the Ice as electro-pop, with a message of continuing to move when things feel unstable. That makes more sense of its dance impulse than treating it as a delicate, motionless ballad.
The icy imagery gives our playlist its snow-globe moment, but this snow globe has a beat. We like the tension between a surface that feels precarious and the insistence on keeping going. It is a useful ingredient for an after-hours soundtrack: forward motion, uncertain footing.
The liminal setting: an empty ice rink whose lights remain on after everyone has gone home. Listen through the official artist page and decide whether your imaginary rink needs a disco ball.
Poland: ALICJA — Pray
ALICJA co-wrote Pray with Weronika Gabryelczyk and Sinclair Alan Malcolm. Eurovision’s March announcement describes a personal song about an artist’s path, belief in dreams and readiness for change, from a singer working with R&B and soul influences.
Our image for this pick is a cathedral and a basement club sharing an address. The prayer imagery brings solemnity, while the contemporary musical setting keeps the scene from settling into one familiar room.
The liminal setting: an unexpectedly grand doorway at the bottom of a nightclub staircase. If that architectural mismatch appeals, our Backrooms explainer has plenty more rooms that feel slightly wrong.
France: Monroe — Regarde !
France’s official entry announcement describes a blend of opera, musical theatre and pop. Monroe grew up between France and the United States and won Prodiges in 2025. The song is presented as a hymn to love.
For this playlist, the appeal is the change of scale. An operatic vocal approach can make a pop-sized space feel suddenly enormous. In our imaginary building, this is the moment the modest corridor opens into a room with a ceiling you cannot quite see.
The liminal setting: an empty theatre foyer after the audience has left, with one extravagant chandelier refusing to go off duty.
Sweden: FELICIA — My System
FELICIA won both jury and public support at Melodifestivalen, as her official biography records. My System turns to the familiar problem of someone remaining in your thoughts despite every effort to move on.
This is our glossy club-memory pick: a remembered dance floor resurfacing with everything polished brighter than it was in real life. Think Eurodance nostalgia with the lights turned up until the past looks suspiciously new.
The liminal setting: a closed club whose coat-check ticket is still in your pocket. The music has gone home; the feeling has not.
Lithuania: Lion Ceccah — Sólo Quiero Más
Lion Ceccah brings a background in performance, visual art and musical theatre. His official profile and lyrics make clear that the song is multilingual: Lithuanian and English sit alongside its Spanish refrain, with other languages appearing too.
That movement between languages suits the late-night, in-transit feeling of this list. There is no “wrong” language for a country’s entry; the interesting part is how the switches alter the listener’s sense of place. The desire for more can read as yearning rather than merely greed.
The liminal setting: a taxi crossing a city you do not know, while the radio briefly makes it feel familiar. The cat is staring out of the window as if it has important unfinished business.
A Playlist, With Room for Disagreement
These songs do not need to belong to the same genre to share a playlist. Our connection is the scenery they suggest: an office after hours, unstable ice, a theatre foyer, a dance floor remembered slightly too vividly.
The second semifinal is still ahead on Thursday, May 14, and the final follows on Saturday, May 16. There will be more songs and performances to consider. For now, this is a small detour from the scoreboard into six imaginary places. Bring headphones. The cat has already taken the corridor.
