Return of A Euro Star

Unlike Dustin, (or indeed Brian Kennedy), Paul Harrington successfully seized the day at Eurovision. Along with his singing partner, Charlie McGettigan, he scored enough “douze points’ with Brendan Graham’s ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids’ to win out impressively in 1994. His latest album Paul Harrington – A Collection includes a newly-recorded version of the song, which he says has been good to him over the years.

“I’ve very fond memories of the whole thing, but it was a lot different back then,” he says. “The whole unplugged thing was popular for a start and that helped us a lot I think, given the way we had approached the recording of the song.
“But it’s all changed today – now you can be beaten by someone spinning plates! That’s not the way it should be. My position on Dustin is that I wished the guy well – but I didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell of him getting out of the qualifiers.”
Would he ever consider entering again? “The answer is no – I had my time, so why go back and come in 27th place? Besides, there are no juries any more, which is a bad thing in my opinion. It’s all about making money on phone calls.”
Meanwhile, Harrington is back on the road later this year in support of the album which he says is doing exceptionally well. “I didn’t have a record available over the last ten years and people would ask me on a regular basis ‘is there anywhere we can buy something?’
The album includes a reworking of an earlier hit ‘What I’d Say’, his own distinctive version of ‘Carrickfergus’ as well as his Euro winner ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids’ along with popular live classics like ‘Uptown Uptempo Woman’ and ‘My Girl’.
“These are just some of the ones that stand out from the hundreds of songs I’ve done over the years,” he says. “I suppose what they all have in common is that I love to sing them and people over the years have seemed to really like them.”
He has also included five of his own songs including the plaintive ‘Thinking of You’, written with his brother Joe. “I hope to do some more original stuff in the future but this kind of sums up where I’ve been and where I’m at right now. It’s got a bit of momentum going for me again which is great. I was hoping to tour a bit in the summer but I left it a little too late so I’m looking at October. The reality for musicians nowadays is that it’s back to touring which I think is my forte.”

Paul Harrington – A Collection is out now. www.paulharrington.ie