Almost at the half way point of the countdown, and just missing out on the top 20, is the second of the three Baltic nations. Lithuania have not yet won (unlike their neighbours Estonia and Latvia) but do have a pretty good qualification record and achieved a surprisingly high placing last year. Can they repeat that feat in 2019, in their 20th appearance at the contest?

The Lithuanian national final season is a marathon in itself, stretching out over several shows and weeks but in the end, Jurij was the eventual winner with “Run with the Lions”. He’s been to Eurovision before, having been a backing singer for Lithuania’s 2015 entry, “This Time“, where famously the backing singers did a same-sex kiss during the performance.

Now this song doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of love in the fandom, in the various YouTube tops and other fan rankings (or in the betting), which I think is rather unfair as I really enjoy this song! It’s a got a catchy chorus, some nice falsetto throughout and Jurij is extremely easy on the eye.

It never does to discount Lithuania. They have perhaps one of the most consistent and organised of diaspora votes and this always translates to a good number of televotes. They have 4 of their 5 top historical votegivers able to vote in their semi-final (UK, Ireland, Latvia and Norway) so I think it would be premature to right this one off. They are sandwiched between two of the more favoured songs, it’s true but never underestimate Lithuania’s ability to qualify!

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National final performance:

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My preview video:

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Lithuania in the Eurovision Song Contest