Eurovision contest tempts Morrissey

In one of the more improbable unions in musical history, the BBC yesterday confirmed it was in talks with arch miserabilist Morrissey to pen Britain's Eurovision Song Contest entry. The former Smiths frontman is widely acknowledged as one of the best lyricists of his generation with archly bleak ditties like Girlfriend in a Coma, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and Every Day is Like Sunday to his name.

If he accepts the Eurovision challenge he will have to succeed in a competition where boundless optimism is the order of the day, and Boom Bang-a-Bang, La La La and Diggi Loo-Diggi Ley are among the previous winners.

Ardent Morrissey watchers will recall that last year he expressed an interest in entering the annual festival of high camp, banal lyrics and trite melodies - but most assumed he was joking. In the wake of another lamentable performance from the UK entry, with Daz Sampson's Teenage Life coming 19th out of 24 entrants, Morrissey said: "I was horrified but not surprised to see the UK fail again in the Eurovision Song Contest. And there is one question I keep on asking: 'Why didn't they ask me?' That question keeps going round my head."

The BBC, given the task of finding a British entry that is traditionally chosen via a viewer vote, took him at his word. A BBC spokeswoman said: "Morrissey has expressed an interest and we are in talks with him as well as other people. But nothing has yet been confirmed."

It would also be a case of life imitating art after the video for his most recent single, You Have Killed Me, featured Morrissey as a Eurovision entrant.

The Mancunian singer also once duetted with Sandie Shaw, the singer best known for becoming the first British Eurovision winner in 1967 with Puppet on a String, and who was one of his childhood heroes.