Because the two halves have different jobs. The English verses speak to a "you" and carry the story to a jury, and to any listener who does not speak Ukrainian. The Ukrainian chorus carries the claim the song exists to make, "моє море", and a claim of ownership does not survive translation without losing the stress and the vowel it sits on. I am one of four credited writers on "My Sea", Molodi's entry in Vidbir 2025, alongside Kyrylo Rohovyi, Ivan Stepanishchev and Andrii Parfenov (credits and lyric). What follows is what the released lyric shows on paper, what the numbers from the final say, and what the two-language decision costs and buys.
What is on the lyric sheet?
Seven blocks of four lines: a verse, a pre-chorus and a chorus, then a second verse, the same pre-chorus, and the chorus twice. That is 28 sung lines, of which 12 are Ukrainian, all of them the same four lines of chorus sung three times. There is no bridge. The final double chorus does the job a bridge would do, and it does it in the language the song wants you to leave with.
The song was released on 23 January 2025 with the other nine finalists (eurovision.tv). Molodi are a two-piece from Mariupol, a vocalist who plays guitar and a drummer, who started as a street band on the square in front of the city's drama theatre (Molodi). Ivan Stepanishchev told Radio Promin that the most painful moment of their lives was the loss of their home, and that this was what the song had to be about.
Why do the verse lines and the chorus lines end differently?
Read the line endings and the two languages are already doing different work.
Verse one ends its four lines on home, stone, hands, path. Every one closes on a consonant, so the lines read as speech: a question, a statement, a second question, a second statement. Verse two ends on storms, unstoppable, night, hope. Still consonants, still statements. The pre-chorus ends on older, heart, with, start, and the last of those is the cue. "So let's start", and the Ukrainian starts.
The chorus ends on світів, море, вітри, море. Two of the four lines end on the same word. That is an identical rhyme, and it is the hook doing its work by repetition rather than by rhyme. "Море" also ends on an open е, so the note the singer holds at the end of the chorus line sits on a vowel. A line that ends on "sea" would hold too, but "my sea" is one stressed syllable and "моє море" is two.
What does the stress pattern do to the melody?
In Ukrainian the stress falls on the second syllable of моє and the first of море, so the title phrase runs weak, strong, strong, weak. Two stressed syllables in a row force the tune to give two downbeats back to back, and that is where the chorus gets its weight: the melody has to land twice, hard, on the two words that carry the whole song. The trochaic push through the rest of the chorus, which the lyric analysis at Wiwibloggs points out, keeps the line moving toward those two syllables.
This is the same mechanism I set out in writing a topline for Ukrainian instead of English: the language decides where the melody can put its accents, so you choose the language for the line where the accents matter most. In "My Sea" that line is the chorus, and the choice follows.
Why does the switch happen at the chorus?
Because the pre-chorus hands it over. The last English image is "take a deep breath, dive into the sea", and the first Ukrainian line answers it: "Скільки б не побачив я нових світів", however many new worlds I see. The verses address a "you". The chorus is the first time the singer says "я". The change of language and the change of person happen on the same downbeat, at the loudest point in the arrangement, which is the only place the ear accepts a switch that big without hearing it as a seam.
Under the rule in force since 1999 an entry can be sung in any language (Rules of the Eurovision Song Contest), so nothing here is forced by regulation. What is forced is the audience. A jury scores from a studio recording and a translation. A public in another country scores three minutes of sound. The English verses answer the first group's question, what is this about, and the Ukrainian chorus answers the second group's, what does it sound like when it matters.
How did it place, and what did the tie say?
The final was on 8 February 2025 in Kyiv, ten songs, running order position 3 for "My Sea". The jury of three, Jamala, Serhiy Tanchynets and Kateryna Pavlenko, chosen by a public vote of 442,374 people on the Diia app, gave the song 7 points. The public gave it 70,885 votes, second only to Ziferblat's 90,390, which converted to 9 points. Total 16, second place (Vidbir 2025 results).
Three songs finished on 16. Masha Kondratenko's "No Time to Cry" had 8 from the jury and 8 from the public, Khayat's "Honor" had 10 from the jury and 6 from the public. The public vote ordered the tie, and "My Sea" came out ahead of both. The winner had 19: 9 from the jury and the maximum 10 from the public. So the gap between first and second was two jury points and about 19,500 votes, and the song that won the jury outright, "Honor", finished fourth. What those two rooms measure is in the 1 September release cutoff; the tie is the sharpest version of it.
What does an acoustic version test?
Molodi released an acoustic version later in 2025 and titled it "Моє море", in Ukrainian (discography). The title moving into Ukrainian for the stripped cut tells you which half of the song the band considers the song.
An acoustic version is also the cheapest test of a bilingual lyric. Take away the production and the English verses have to carry the narrative on a guitar and a voice, and the Ukrainian chorus has to carry the hook with no drop under it. If the chorus needs the arrangement to land, the problem is in the writing, and no arrangement fixes it in a contest hall.
What does this mean for a bilingual song you are writing now?
Decide which language owns the hook before anything else is written, because that fixes where the stresses can go. Put the switch at the point of maximum energy, and make the last line in the first language hand a concrete noun to the first line in the second, so the ear follows the image across the border. End the held lines on open vowels. Then count: 12 of 28 lines is 43 percent, but because those 12 are the chorus, they are the lines anyone hums afterwards.
I composed and produced "Stefania" for Kalush Orchestra, which won the 2022 Contest, and composed "Teresa & Maria" for Ukraine's 2024 entry, both sung largely in Ukrainian. Those credits and their sources are at /credits.
Frequently asked
Who wrote "My Sea"? Kyrylo Rohovyi, Andrii Parfenov, Anton Chilibi and Ivan Stepanishchev, as printed in the credits published with the release and in the Vidbir 2025 entry list.
How did "My Sea" place at Vidbir 2025? Second. The jury gave it 7 points and 70,885 public votes gave it 9, for 16 in total. Three songs tied on 16, and the public vote put "My Sea" ahead of the other two.
Is a song in two languages allowed at Eurovision? Yes. Since 1999 an entry can be sung in any language or mix of languages, and a Ukrainian chorus under English verses breaks no rule.
If you have a lyric in two languages
Send the lyric sheet with the stressed syllables marked, one line on which language you want the listener to remember, and a phone recording of the chorus sung once. What comes back is a marked-up sheet showing where the accents can fall in each language, where the switch should sit, and which line endings need an open vowel. Background and contact at /about.