United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1985

In all, 333 songs were originally submitted to the Music Publisher's Association, with 8 songs chosen. Songwriters could only submit a maximum of two songs to the MPA, but the identity of the writers was not disclosed to the MPA judges. Due to the poor reception of the UK entry in the previous year's Eurovision Song Contest, the BBC wanted to revert to the method used to select the UK entry used from 1964-1975 and approached both Bonnie Tyler and when she was unavailable, Lena Zavaroni to represent the UK and perform all the shortlisted songs in the UK heat. The MPA rebuffed the BBC's concept, wanting the composers and authors the option of choosing their own performers. A compromise rule was introduced, stating that no groups (more than 2 performers) were allowed to take part and writers would be limited to two entries each, however this rule was only in place for this one year. The songs were selected by around 90 people, DJs, producers and publishers.

Notable songwriters and performers included Paul Curtis who had had entries in the Eurovision final as well as a large number of previous entries in the Song for Europe. Despite the rule limiting song-writers to two entries, both his songs reached the final eight. 1970s glam rock singer Alvin Stardust (who had recently enjoyed a comeback in the charts) appeared as a performer as did Fiona Kennedy who was at the time a presenter of TV's Record Breakers.[1][2] Annabel is Annabel Layton who competed at Song for Europe 1981 as part of Unity.[3]

The show opened with a group of dancers, dancing to old Eurovision songs: "Making Your Mind Up", "Waterloo", "Puppet on a String", "Save Your Kisses for Me", "Boom Bang-a-Bang" and "Congratulations". The artistes were introduced on stage with captions on screen, followed by presenter Terry Wogan. The songs had been first previewed in the previous week on the Wogan TV show.

Nine regional juries located in Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh, London, Norwich, Plymouth and Bristol voted for the songs. Each jury region awards 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5 points to their top 8 songs.