Home Composed Song Contest 2018

Contest overview

The 2018 edition of the Home Composed Song Contest was organised by Martin Faulkner from the HCSC Organising Committee in coordination with the previous year's winner, Eduard Alexogiannopoulos from Greece.

A total of 18 songs from eight countries took part in the competition.

As the HCSC Rules state that entries must represent countries that participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, it was perhaps inevitable that Australia would eventually make its HCSC debut; Phil McNulty and his Rainbow Orbit project had the honour of flying the flag for "Down Under" in HCSC for the first time. At the other end of the scale, one notable returnee was Lobo from Spain, who participated for the first time since 2006.

As in previous years, there was an internet-based public vote (shown as in the scoresheet) and a guest jury (shown as in the scoresheet). The latter consisted of four former HCSC participants covering various eras of the competition: Eduard Alexogiannopoulos from Greece, NIDEJ from Serbia, Felix Krückau from Germany and Christina Irving from the United Kingdom.

Konstantinos Papoutsis from Greece took an early lead in the voting but was overhauled around one-third of the way through by "Direito à vida" representing Portugal II, and a series of five 12-point scores from six juries in the middle of the voting meant there was no looking back. Although it could theoretically have still been caught with just a few juries left, "Direito à vida", performed by Micaela Abreu and submitted by long-standing participant Rogério Afonso, took an extremely comfortable victory ahead of previous HCSC winners Andy Brook (participating as usual under the "londonvision" banner) and Bo Söderholm (this time as part of the duo AB).

Having first been represented in the competition back in 1997, this was Portugal's first ever HCSC victory.

The results video is still available to view here.

Entries and results

Draw	Country	Song Title	Performer	Composer	Lyricist	Position	Points
01	Sweden I	Quiet	Martin Kahnberg	Martin Kahnberg	Martin Kahnberg	17	13
02	Portugal I	Vermelha	Heitor	Heitor	Heitor	10	59
03	United Kingdom I	Missing You	Andrew Boyes	Andrew Boyes	Andrew Boyes	8	64
04	Sweden II	Schrödinger's Life	Ben Robertson	Ben Robertson	Ben Robertson	16	29
05	Germany I	Nina	Jan Wehner	Jan Wehner	Jan Wehner	18	5
06	Germany II	You	Korjun	Korjun	Korjun	11	55
07	Spain I	Gentil	Lobo	Lobo	Lobo	5	79
08	Finland I	I Only Need This Weekend	AB	Bo Söderholm	Anssi Partanen, Bo Söderholm	3	110
09	Greece	Physis	Konstantinos Papoutsis	Konstantinos Papoutsis	n/a	4	84
10	Germany III	Bis zum Mond	Rebecca	Marcus Seiler	Stefan Engel	11	55
11	United Kingdom II	Just Wasn't Meant To Be	Cellphone	Jim Brook	Jim Brook	11	55
12	Australia	Pathogen	Rainbow Orbit	Phil McNulty	Phil McNulty	15	33
13	Portugal II	Direito à vida	Micaela Abreu	Ricardo Rodrigues	Rogério Afonso, Filipe Ramos	1	153
14	Finland II	I Want You (Out Of My Life)	Snowclone	Tero Aalto	Tero Aalto	9	63
15	Germany IV	I Don't Really Care	Úna	Howard Atkinson	Howard Atkinson	6	76
16	United Kingdom III	Leviathan	Vulnerable	Ray Holt, Martin Faulkner, Andrew Donaldson	Ray Holt	7	67
17	United Kingdom IV	Westport Beach	londonvision	Andy Brook	Andy Brook	2	112
18	Spain II	Just One Word	Alfonso Daniel	Alfonso Daniel	Alfonso Daniel	14	48

Scoreboard

	Juries
																					Total
Quiet	2	3							1		2					2		3			13
Vermelha		7	12		10		7		2						1	5	7	8			59
Missing You			10	5				10	10	6		5				8	1	7	2		64
Schrödinger's Life		5					8	8					8								29
Nina											3		2								5
You	10		1	3	3	5	3		6	4	7	2	7	4							55
Gentil					12			2		7			12	12	5	4	10	6	6	3	79
I Only Need This Weekend	3	10		8	4	2	10	5			8	7		10	12	12	5	2	5	7	110
Physis	12	2	8	12		12	4	6	5	3		1			3	10				6	84
Bis zum Mond	5				5		5	4	4	8	1			5	6		4			8	55
Just Wasn't Meant To Be		6				1		7	7	5	5	8					3	1	10	2	55
Pathogen	4		7			3					4		6		2	1		5	1		33
Direito à vida	6	12	5	10		8	12	12		12	12	12	3	8		6	12	4	7	12	153
I Want You (Out Of My Life)			3	7	6	6	6			2		6		7	7				3	10	63
I Don't Really Care	8	4	2	6	1	4	1		3			10	1	1	8	7		12	4	4	76
Leviathan		8	4	1	7	7			8			3	5	3			8		12	1	67
Westport Beach	7	1	6	4	8	10	2	1	12	10	6	4	10	6	4		6	10		5	112
Just One Word	1			2	2			3		1	10		4	2	10	3	2		8		48

Media

HCSC 2018 winner: Micaela Abreu - Direito à vida

Recap of all HCSC 2018 songs in draw order
The host