On March 9, 2023, the BBC announced Mae Muller as the choice to represent UK in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 performing this song. Muller composed the tune in 2022 when she was going through a hard time and wanted to feel empowered about relationships.
So who is Mae Muller? A singer-songwriter hailing from Kentish Town, London, Muller first appeared in the music world as a nine-year-old in the video for Mika's hit single "
Grace Kelly." She released her debut album,
Chapter 1, in April 2019 and supported Little Mix on their LM5 arena tour. Muller also achieved chart success in both the UK and US in 2021 with the song "
Better Days" in collaboration with Swedish group Neiked and American rapper Polo G, reaching the Top 40 in both territories.
On this song, Muller sings about a former lover who was unfaithful. She enumerates the actions she desires to take against him, including creating a public spectacle outside his residence, damaging his vehicle, and generally causing him distress. However, Muller elects to take a step back from her hurt feelings and view the situation from a more removed perspective. Instead, she processes her anger by writing a song about her cheating ex.
"This song is for the girlies that went through heartache, hurt, or pain and came out the other side, who persevered and came out stronger, who took the high road and chose to love themselves," said Muller. "Crying at home? Absolutely not. Spend the night alone? Its a no from me! Trash the Benz? Too busy having a stunning time. It's giving growth, it's giving empowerment, it's giving LIBERATION."
Mae Muller penned "I Wrote A Song" with:
One of Joel Corry's regular production partner's Lewis Thompson. He also worked on the Becky Hill and David Guetta collaborations "
Remember" and "
Crazy What Love Can Do."
Songwriter Karen Poole, the daughter of former Tremeloes front man Brian Poole. Her other credits include The Shapeshifters' "
Lola's Theme," Kylie Minogue's "
Wow," and Tiesto's "
Nothing Really Matters." She also contributed to the writing of Becky Hill and David Guetta's "
Remember."
Lewis Thompson co-produced "I Wrote a Song" with Alfred Parx, giving it a relaxed club beat. The two producers also played all the instruments, with Thompson on bass, keyboards, synthesizer, and Parx on drums, flute, guitar, bass, horn, piano, keyboards, synthesizer, strings, and violin. Karen Poole sang the backing vocals.
Mae Muller gave the song its live debut at a pre-show Eurovision party in Barcelona, Spain on March 25, 2023.
Though the song's production has some additional Eurovision flavor, it doesn't differ too much from how Muller originally wanted it to sound. "The released version is very similar to the demo – it was always an upbeat and empowering dance bop designed to make people feel confident,"
she told NME. "Then once I found out about Eurovision, I wanted to keep that in mind. The spoken word middle eight section wasn't in the original and I wanted to add that in with the Eurovision performance in mind to really have an intimate moment with the 200 million people that are going to be watching."
"I Wrote A Song" finished a disappointing second to last on the Eurovision contest with 24 points.
