[Red Moon]

Give us a song, Simon!

Our Charlie and her band Hope are struggling after last week's X Factor "disaster" – and are having trouble finding a song for Saturday's live show.

Normally the all-girl group are straight into rehearsals on Sundays to get to grips with their next song at the earliest possible opportunity.

But we can reveal that Hope, who include Sunderland songstress Charlie Mole, have tried out no less than seven songs in the past few days – and mentor Simon Cowell has been unable to find anything he likes.

Simon's indecisiveness comes after Hope found themselves in the bottom two for the second time last week, despite a fun-filled and sleek performance of Abba's Gimme Gimme Gimme.

Simon told presenter Fearne Cotton after the show: "Disco week has been an absolute disaster. Everyone let me down. I've seen better performances."

Now the music mogul has changed the theme for this week's show from Motown to love songs, to try to avoid karaoke-like performances.

Hill View mum Charlie, 23, is worried about all the changes.
She said: "We still haven't got a song. Simon just hasn't liked any of them so far.

"It's really hard not knowing what we are doing yet – I would like to do a ballad, but with Beverley and Niki doing big ballads Simon doesn't want to go that way."

Hope are down to the final six in the competition – and Charlie needs Wearside's support more than ever to help her pop-star dream come true.

She said: "Obviously this week is going to be the decider. If people want to vote in Sunderland, it would mean ever so much to us. I feel like this is our last chance.

Source: Sunderland Echo