Better the Devil You Know: UK's Last Gasp Before the Long Drought

MAY 15 1993 · 12:20

Sonia · "Better the Devil You Know" · United Kingdom · 1993 Placement: 2nd · Score: 164 · Language: English · Composers: Dean Collinson, Brian Teasdale · Venue: Green Glens Arena · Host: Millstreet, Ireland · Type: upset · Broadcast: color crt On May 15, 1993, inside the Green Glens Arena — an equestrian centre in Millstreet, County Cork, a village of 1,500 that had successfully bid to host Eurovision against Dublin and Cork — the Liverpudlian pop singer Sonia Evans represented the United Kingdom with 'Better the Devil You Know', a Stock-Aitken-Waterman-adjacent uptempo pop track. Sonia, then 22, had already scored a UK number-one in 1989 with 'You'll Never Stop Me Loving You' and arrived at Eurovision as an established pop act rather than a purpose-built contest singer. The performance was professionally staged: Sonia in a short sequinned outfit, a choreographed three-person backing group. At the close of voting she finished second to Ireland's Niamh Kavanagh and 'In Your Eyes' with 164 points — a margin of just eighteen. Context Eurovision 1993 was the thirty-eighth contest and the first held in a village rather than a major city. British Eurovision entries through the 1990s were still selected via the Song for Europe national final on BBC1. The UK had won Eurovision five times by 1993 and had finished in the top five in a majority of its participations through the previous two decades. Legacy 'Better the Devil You Know' marked the beginning of a decade-long British second-place streak. Sonia's near-victory is often cited as the point from which British Eurovision nostalgia crystallised. The country would win once more, in 1997 with Katrina and the Waves, but the relative decline through the 2000s and 2010s has made 1993 retroactively feel like the end of an era. Mythology The 1993 result is sometimes remembered as a British defeat by a wide margin; in fact the UK came within eighteen points of victory.