1976

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1976

Not a bad year by any means. The performances throw up a few surprises in terms of lifting or sinking the studio versions.

01 United Kingdom
B: Reading the lyrics, this could be a very sad ballad.
A: Some of the choices in the instruments (the brass in particular) give it that kind of nuance. Obviously it’s not though. What it is is oh so accessible, with a simple but very effective arrangement. At 40 seconds plus, the chorus works perfectly as a hook. The final bar is a great ending, and works well with the twist in the lyrics.
V: Great arrangement, perfect vocals, simple routine: Eurovision at its most accessible. They look like the cast of Man About The House.

02 Switzerland
B: What was the obsession with downtrodden buskers in the 1970s? And has any other group performed at Eurovision so often in so many languages? So many questions.
A: This song makes me think Mary Poppins done by the Carpenters. It’s a rather jaunty arrangement for something so depressing. There are two acts musically but they complement each other nicely. Hate the comedy boiiiiing! ending.
V: And people say Eurovision these days is all about the gimmicks. I like the strings here, but not the way they so clumsily compete with the rest of the music: they render it all a bit off-putting, as though something somewhere is refusing to gel.

03 Germany
B: “Wenn Lieder diese Welt verbinden / Zerstört sie keiner mehr” sounds cheesy and naive, but there probably would have been a lot of people in the Baltic States in the early ’90s who would argue the point.
A: It’s the Goodies theme! Even sounds like Bill Oddie on vocals. It’s interesting that in the English version the German pronunciation of the title is retained, so it comes out like zing zung zong. Overall it’s rather repetitive, but not hopelessly so.
V: The black backing singer (if that’s not underplaying her contribution) looks fab, but unfortunately les Humphries do not. They sound much better on the English bits than they do on the German, but the overall impression is of something rather ragged. It’s big enough that it should sound huge and compelling, but it doesn’t.

04 Israel
B: I see they’re still/already complaining about isolation 30 years ago.
A: This sounds like it should have come out of a TV show as well – albeit one slightly later in the ’70s. There are some very disco touches to the vocals, but I’m bored of it by the halfway mark. Not that it does much that’s intrinsically wrong.
V: Fantastic vocal arrangement, which has always been the best thing about this song. Looks a bit half-arsed as performances go, like they kind of worked out some choreography but could never really be bothered following it through.

05 Luxembourg
B: This reads as French…
A: …but it doesn’t sound like it. I’ve had more than enough of this by the halfway mark, too. I’m not sure it has any redeeming features. It doesn’t even have a decent melody. And are we even in the ’70s?
V: Jürgen gives us his best ‘overacting child’. The only amusement comes from his bow tie appearing almost as bouffant as his hair.

06 Belgium
B: Very ahead of its time I would have thought, with lyrics like “...un soir changer de peau / ... / Avoir un corps comme un roseau / Les yeux tout vides / Mais pas de rides”.
A: Does this sound a bit like the verses from Hotel California? Pierre treads a fine line with his delivery, trying to make it sound more meaningful. I like the music, rather stripped back as it is (and yet still melodious, something stupid fucking Luxembourg couldn’t manage), and it has a lot to say that is surprisingly worthy, but it hasn’t really got much of a voice in the end.
V: The orchestra blends well with the acoustics and percussion here, but Mr Rapsat’s vocals get a bit lost at times in the music. Great backing vocals... not that they have a lot of scope for buggering it up.

07 Ireland
B: I adore the lines “Your love was written in the sky / But at the time, I never looked so high”.
A: Note-perfect predictability, but I think that helps here. This has the potential to be really big, even a winner maybe, but it lacks the strong, clearly defined chorus I would like it to have. The ending goes a long way to making up for it though.
V: Quick, they’re Irish, dress them in green! You can’t fault the vocals here, but I don’t believe the performance for a second: Red’s imploring looks just seem so contrived and calculating.

08 The Netherlands
B: These lyrics don’t really work for me.
A: Divine Karen Carpenter vocals in the verses, and I like the contrast of the lone violin against the full-voiced choir, but suddenly it turns into Those Were The Days. And unlike Switzerland the two musical approaches feel lashed together. The ending seems odd, too. Maybe I’m just missing something.
V: That eyeshadow – love it! The way this makes the transition from studio version to stage is astoundingly good, towering over the Swiss entry.

09 Norway
B: I get what this is saying, I think, but the allusion seems a little strange all the same. And what is it with Norway and their song titles? Casanova, Mata Hari, Romeo...
A: Ooh, this sounds promising. [Waits] Well, the chorus is more like it, but the verses are a bit laboured. Ms Strøm has commendable if rather irritating diction.
V: Can never go past a gold sequined bell-bottomed catsuit. There’s not an awful lot wrong with this, but Anne Karine’s vocals aren’t the strongest, and I can understand it coming last.

10 Greece
B: This is about what – Cyprus? Not exactly a barrel of laughs in any case.
A: And there I was assuming this would be some gentle acoustic ballad! Ms Koch’s delivery is captivating but not exactly pretty. The music actually comes across as out of place with these lyrics, unless it’s designed to underscore how wrong the whole situation is. Hugely brave for only their second ever entry, but a bit hard to take.
V: An entirely different prospect to the Norwegian entry, and arguably more worthy, but in its own way just as easy to pick as something that’s not going to set the scoreboard on fire. That said, I like it a lot more. The audience clearly doesn’t know what to do with it.

11 Finland
B: My favourite lines here come from the Finnish version: “Pylly vasten pyllyä / Kuumat väreet aikaan se sai” – ‘Put your bottom next to mine / It gave us warm vibrations’! I’d forgotten there were ‘and friends’ on this, so the lyrics seemed a bit odd when I was reading lines like “You are the man of my life” thinking Fredi was singing them.
A: Mind you, he does chime in on them. Maybe the juries were just as confused by this and forgot to give Finland more points. Maybe there was some age-old conspiracy to deny Finland (and Portugal) deserved higher placings? The chorus is easily the most uplifting piece of music so far this year.
V: Fredi hadn’t lost much weight in the nine years since his previous appearance, had he? I think this is fab. Naff, but fab.

12 Spain
B: Great lyrics.
A: The chorus here is quite unconventional in its way. Love that, too. And there’s nothing especially jingoistic about the instrumentation or arrangement (which is wonderful), but it’s so identifiably Spanish. Which is a good thing, I mean.
V: Sounds terrific. And the conductor’s a bit of a looker.

13 Italy
B: I love the idea of corti vestiti being prati fioriti.
A: Italy’s only entry not to be 100% in the mother tongue? Probably a shrewd move, although this is comfortably Italian. Mind you, it’s not a million miles from some of ABBA’s stuff. It flirts with disco but quickly decides that a balalayka thing is the way to go, and quite right. It’s really rather fab. Was Romina Power American or something?
V: Whatever she was, she sounds like her father bought her a recording career to make her stop slashing her wrists. This is a shambles, which is a huge let-down given how good it should be. Nice to see Mr Bano knows the words to the song.

14 Austria
B: Is ‘Waterloo & Robinson’ really that much catchier than ‘Kreuzmayer & Krassnitzer’? This is the winner of the cheaper-by-the-dozen award for its lyrics, but I suppose that makes it easier to latch onto.
A: Hardly adventurous, is it? Annoying accents.
V: Does Mr Waterloo have some Cherokee in him? Looks like he does. Possibly on a regular basis, considering how camp this is.

15 Portugal
B: “Gostar de ti é um poema que não escrevo...” The south-east and south-west of Europe have a monopoly on oranges and wheat and pine trees, don’t they?
A: This is fado for the mainstream, and absolutely to die for.
V: Carlos do Carmo may look like a frustrated history teacher, but he’s got one of the most engrossing voices Eurovision has ever heard.

16 Monaco
B: Monaco singing about Paris is just one of the factors that makes it seem like this and Un, Deux, Trois should be the other way round.
A: This proves that Monaco was able to come up with something vaguely modern and catchy when it wanted to. (For which read: I like it.) Great chorus; bit of a wakka-wakka overdose, like Hawaii 5-0 on the Côte d’Azur.
V: Lots of elements here battling for supremacy, and I’m not sure who or what comes out on top. Mary Christy has a nice frock. Is she singing into one of those things you hit a gong with?

17 France
B: Thumbs up for “Ma politique à moi / C’est d’être aimée de toi”. Catherine Ferry makes that three very not-French sounding names on the French songs.
A: This is Puppet On A String sped up a bit, isn’t it? Another good chorus, except they forgot to repeat ‘1, 2, 3’ about a hundred times more often than they do. More street musicians, I see: could do without those interludes. Loses its appeal towards the end, but is well produced. It’s another economical entry as well (with less than five minutes total between this and Monaco).
V: Very attractive. A clearer winner and runner-up you could not get.

18 Yugoslavia
B: Love the lines “Ne molim da se vratiš / Al’ molim te da pamtiš / Voljela tebe samo sam ja” – there’s something beautifully compact about the Balkan languages, however depressing they seem to be.
A: This has a fairly routine chorus in terms of the vocal arrangement, which is more interesting elsewhere, but the voices themselves are good. Doesn’t go all that far though, does it?
V: That male vocalist! That hair! Those super-tight trousers! Bet it wasn’t only his pain he couldn’t hide. This is somehow simultaneously airy and intense. I’m rather impressed.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to Greece

2 points go to Ireland

3 points go to the Netherlands

4 points go to Monaco

5 points go to France

6 points go to Finland

7 points go to Italy

8 points go to Spain

10 points go to the United Kingdom

and finally...

12 points go to...


Portugal!!!


The wooden spoon is awarded to stupid fucking Luxembourg.

1975

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1975

A year with a handful of great songs, but one in which Ding-A-Dong winning still makes sense.

01 The Netherlands
B: I’ve always wondered whether the otherwise incongruous ‘alright’ in the first line of the chorus is meant to be accompanied by an explanatory shrug.
A: Completely daft, of course, but what does it matter? I love songs where the first chorus is more or less over before 30 seconds are up. I also like the fact that it doesn’t overstretch itself: when it’s said what it has to say it shuts up. The strings in the chorus hint that with a change of lyrics it could have been a decent ’70s ballad. If Mama Cass hadn’t been such a depressive most of the time she might have sung stuff like this. On acid.
V: Just the performance it needs: slightly daft-looking but very together vocally, and boppy in a way that underlines the fact that the song’s a harmless bit of fun.

02 Ireland
B: I hate the line “Ladies and gentlemen of the whole wide world”.
A: Minus two. Sounds like a song the Brady Bunch would have recorded. The sentiment is nice enough, but really, this kind of stuff should be left to the likes of Israel or Germany. Only the second song and already I’m thinking wooden spoon.
V: There’s nothing much wrong with this, but there’s not a lot to write home about. It looks as though their feet are nailed to the floor. Do you think they went for the hideous blue outfits just because of the second line of the first verse?

03 France
B: I’m not sure I really like these lyrics, as they make a rather odd paean, but I suppose there’s a lot to be said for the role art and entertainment play in our lives.
A: Strings and piano – I couldn’t really ask for much more. Ms Rieu has the perfect voice for this kind of song, which builds very nicely indeed.
V: Permtastic! Not sure about the green eyeshadow, or what Nicole keeps glancing at – the conductor’s bouncy hair, perhaps. Nice performance though, and the audience clearly likes it.

04 Germany
B: These lyrics could come across as sentimental in that peculiarly German way, especially in the title, but here it all (once again) makes me think Mama Cass and Make Your Own Kind Of Music and therefore seems more... right.
A: This works for me on just about every level, despite the saxophone! The arrangement boasts a lot of great touches. I’m assuming Joy Fleming couldn’t pull it off live, although that would surprise me. I can’t think of any other reason why it would have fared so poorly.
V: I wonder whether there was something Freudian in our Joy painting herself as a blow-up doll in the postcard. I also wonder why all three backing singers were drafted in from the UK when only the final chorus was in English. Great performance, although most of the vocals are drowned out by the ruckus coming from the orchestra pit.

05 Luxembourg
B: The lyrics here are quite odd; I don’t really get what it’s saying with its mix of tenses.
A: Brave of Luxembourg to pick someone whose French pronunciation even I could better. Again it’s one of those songs where I like the verses much more than the chorus. What’s with the marching music at the end??
V: The sheer loveliness of the strings and piano fade into insignificance when you’re confronted by Geraldine and the most blatant non-accent in the contest’s history. She’s hardly the strongest singer in the world, either. The whole thing’s a bit disjointed.

06 Norway
B: ‘Summer’ must be the most blatant phallic metaphor in Eurovision history.
A: Despite the fact that this is nicely composed – I like the way the chorus has a touch of desperation and uncertainty to it – you won’t find me lavishing praise on Norway this year.
V: She looks like a metronome.

07 Switzerland
B: Depressingly honest in lines like “…zeig’ niemals ein Gefühl / Wenn dich was nicht angeht… / …Mikado, spielt heute jedermann”.
A: Yes, Switzerland, whatever. The playfulness of the music might be in touch with the game at the heart of the lyrics but I wish that was why they’d chosen to compose the song that way rather than more obviously going for that solid gold Eurovision sound.
V: I don’t know whether it’s the way this was shot or just the way they were cut in the mid-’70s, but all of the dresses are making the ladies look about 16’9”. Ms Drexel bops about convincingly enough but doesn’t look like she’s enjoying herself in the slightest.

08 Yugoslavia
B: I like the realistic description of the titular day as one which “da ti vse in vse ti vzame”. Thematically this is not dissimilar to Switzerland in the sense of never knowing when it’s all going to slip through your fingers, but at the same time it is essentially a lot more positive.
A: Whilst still being rather forgettable. Not even ABBA went for quite that much of an echo in their songs, on which you could justifiably claim this to be based.
V: She’s got to be Regina’s mum, no? I quite like the country twang that comes out here, and the harmonies are great. And not that it has any bearing on this entry, but I had no idea that Pepel In Kri provided Toto Cotugno’s backing vocals on Insieme: 1992.

09 United Kingdom
B: Is ‘magic moon’ a euphemism, do you think?
A: It’s not hard to tell this has been produced by people who know how to put the ‘pop’ in ‘popular music’. I love the “Won’t you show me you care?” bits before it goes into the chorus.
V: Slightly listless, despite having more energy than most of the entries so far put together. That said, it stands out within about half a bar, and sounds fantastic.

10 Malta
B: It’s a showdown between this and Teach-In for the most banal “cheer up” lyrics.
A: Not nearly as enjoyable overall as the Dutch entry, but parts of the composition do stand out (such as the guitar). It’s unlucky to come straight after the UK: it sounds like any number of previous British entries.
V: That outfit!!! Almost as bad as the song. Renato does his best to inject the energy into it that the orchestration is lacking, but just comes off looking a bit of a twat for his efforts.

11 Belgium
B: It’s strange how the two halves of this song seem to be saying completely different things: the English bit is all ‘I love being with you’, but the Dutch bits appear to be a treatise on social isolation. Or am I reading too much into it?
A: The sound here seems a fairly predominant one, either for the mid-’70s or mid-’70s Eurovision, so I’m glad it’s one I quite like. But again the chorus struggles to stand out enough.
V: Backing-vocalist timeshare was clearly popular back in the day. Ms Christy has such a Dutch mouth! Great performance that really lifts the song.

12 Israel
B: Joyous lyrics, which also provide some fantastic fnaar-fnaar value in lines like “At krova kmo geshem / Al roshi ve’al panai / Vehamaim shebefi leta’ami”. Ze rak sport indeed!
A: This is one of those unusual Israeli entries that just sings a song and doesn’t have an agenda, and therefore I’m much more disposed towards it, especially when it’s this poppy and together.
V: Does what it says on the box. Pity it feels so empty when you jiggle it up and down though.

13 Turkey
B: The ‘la la la’ aside, I do actually like the words here. I wonder if “sevişmek bir dakika” is true of all Turkish men.
A: I like the arrangement, too. But it reminds me of Ukraine choosing to go with Hasta La Vista for their debut, thinking it was an unbeatable combination of Eurolyrics and Euromusic: all told it’s rather faceless, and it would be easy to understand why it was overlooked if I didn’t suspect it was largely due to xenophobia.
V: Semiha’s rather striking in the postcard, so it’s odd to see her on stage looking about 12. I’m glad of the touch of melodrama she injects to her delivery; it goes some way to making up for the awkward pregnant pause in the middle of the song where she just stands there wondering what to do with herself.

14 Monaco
B: I love the honesty of half of these lyrics, in that I fully agree that a lot of songs are simply what people would otherwise kill to have the courage to say to someone. But that’s pretty much undone by the assertion that the only things worth saying as such are the equivalents of “Je t’aime” and “Partons tous les deux sur ce navire”.
A: Interesting timing to the music, which lifts it slightly above the blandness it threatens to bog itself down in.
V: Poor Sophie’s so faceless no one even knows her last name. And I think you can see why from this performance.

15 Finland
B: There’s a sort of homespun romance here to scenes like “In some valley he lives free, where his notes ripen on the trees / Underneath the harvest moon”. Couldn’t abide a life like it myself, but still.
A: This is lovely – so different! – and underscores for me how consistently good the Finnish entries were in the mid-’70s. Wonderful harmonies. Pihasoittajat are a bunch of dags, but this is country music.
V: The harmonies are even better live, but it’s all far too static: the guys on the stools inject more movement into the performance than the singers.

16 Portugal
B: It would be almost sacrilegious to criticise a song this meaningful, so I’ll keep it to saying that “Que o canto assim nunca é demais” is an understatement in terms of Portugal’s contribution to Eurovision around this time.
A: I’d like this to sound a lot bigger and more powerful, but that may be because it’s the live version I’ve got making it sound a little tinnier than it actually is. Mr Mendes certainly performs it well and gets the wealth of emotion across. Still a little lacking though, perhaps.
V: Even when it’s not sounding tinny, I can only paraphrase what I just said: very well-performed, but still missing that extra something.

17 Spain
B: I wholeheartedly agree with “Pero no te importe si alguien piensa / Que has jugado y perdido” if it’s the right thing for you.
A: Deceptively simple, given how layered the arrangement is, and quite delightful. Could do without Sergio on it, but it makes sense having it as a duet I suppose.
V: Mind you, Sergio is rather attractive in a prim and tidy kind of way. Can’t really hear him for most of the song; this is perhaps a good thing. Some of the harmonies sound a bit dodgy.

18 Sweden
B: Jennie is quite clearly a troubled girl if the lyrics of the verses are anything to go by: “Your diary’s confessions are like signs that the ocean erased forever from the sand”. A thoughtful song, but not a complete success.
A: The chorus confounds almost all of your musical expectations, which is a plus.
V: Dark jackets offset by enormous, brightly coloured lapels were all the rage in 1975: he looks like he’s wearing origami. Decent performance of a song that, in the end, just makes me shrug.

19 Italy
B: Love these lyrics, especially “Era… arrossire in pubblico (L’amore) / Era parlarsi in codice (d’amore)”.
A: Italy always tended to bring something different to the contest, and here’s no different. The way the bass works almost separately from the rest of the music is great, and there are more brilliant melodies. Classy.
V: Their voices work really well together, and the song just exudes… something. I can understand why it wouldn’t have been everyone’s cup of tea though.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Israel

2 points go to Spain

3 points go to Yugoslavia

4 points go to France

5 points go to Belgium

6 points go to Finland

7 points go to Italy

8 points go to Germany

10 points go to the United Kingdom

and finally...

12 points go to...


the Netherlands!!!


The wooden spoon goes to Ireland.

1974

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1974

Quite a nice little year, really.

01 Finland
B: Carita’s promise to give her lover ‘morning winds’ makes me wonder what her usual supper menu consists of.
A: Every time I hear this I find myself wondering why I don’t like it more, and then I realise that as lovely as it is it is also entirely unremarkable.
V: Great performance from Carita – whose eyebrows seem to be migrating up her forehead, perhaps out of a secret desire to join the bouffant of hair nestled above – although she might as well not be playing the piano for all but the bridge, since you can’t hear it. That though is because the arrangement, orchestral and otherwise, is brilliant. I love the hint of wakka-wakka guitar we get every now and then.

02 United Kingdom
B: I don’t know who the Sally Annie Band are, but Valerie Avon and Harold Spiro’s lyrics seem to be taking the piss out of them well and truly in lines like “When you feel the spirit move ya / Glory, glory, hallelujah”. Me likey!
A: A song written for Eurovision if ever one was. Or were the early ’70s hit parades in the UK really populated with such contrived numbers? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Musically it does feel like a list’s being checked off as they go though.
V: Now we know where Yohanna recycled her dress from for Moscow. Eurovision has only ever featured or produced a handful of household names, so it’s odd that two of them pop up in the same year. Ms Neutron-Bomb’s performance is strangely uninvolving, and is not helped by the fact that the orchestra seem to reduce the composition to about three elements. But she looks gorgeous.

03 Spain
B: There’s a lightness to these lyrics that I like. Peret might waggle a finger in “Si para olvidar las penas necesitas tomar vino / No lo hagas buen amigo”, but at the same time he seems more than happy to advocate chucking a few back if you’re in the party mood!
A: Within a few bars this is displaying more imagination and finesse than either of the previous entries. The arrangement in the verses is surprisingly subtle given how blatantly hoppa! the choruses are. The balance between the two is sublime. I’m absorbed by the cleverness of the music for half the song and singing along with the best of them for the rest.
V: Check out the Brillo pad backing singers – you could scour an oven with that hair! Peret’s a great performer and really takes this where it needs to go. The orchestral arrangement doesn’t do the song a whole lot of favours, but the presentation makes up for it. Love the early ’70s version of the clip-on microphone!

04 Norway
B: The most unlikely hymn to revolution in the contest’s history, surely. Even if she were banging on about the sexual revolution or flower power or whatever… she’d be how many years late?
A: The structure is by far the most interesting thing about this song. Rather like the Finnish entry, it feels like it has nothing whatsoever to do with the country it comes from. Great use of backing vocals to add an extra layer to the composition.
V: Does what it sets out to do, I suppose.

05 Greece
B: Even less pretentious than Canta Y Sé Feliz (to wit: not at all). You’ve got to love anyone whose criteria for a happy life extend no further than alcohol, a bit of sunshine and someone to shag.
A: Bright, breezy and with a suggestion that if the ouzo shots haven’t been poured already they soon will be. And voila: off they go with the ‘la las’.
V: Marinella (how do you get that out of Kiriaki Kiriazopoulou?) is great but her stripy blouse is the most exciting thing about this performance. I hope for her sake the guy on the bouzouki isn’t her eponymous boyfriend. The backing vocalists look like they’d rather not be there.

06 Israel
B: Great set of lyrics. I particularly like the opening lines.
A: Inventive, this. The arrangement of both the music and vocals could have been a whole lot more pedestrian, and thus far less interesting, but I’m not bored by this for a second.
V: Love the knitted tops, but this is as flat as a tack. Danny Sanderson has to be American with those teeth?

07 Yugoslavia
B: The way I interpret this is that he’s longing for the war-torn days of his childhood. No?
A: This has more of a late ’60s than early ’70s feel to it to me. Perhaps the Region Formerly Known as Yugoslavia has always been in a bit of a timewarp. This is just as not-lazy as the Israeli entry in terms of what it does with its music (as opposed to what it could have settled for) but it’s not as interesting.
V: Great vocals, and loads of personality; not sure about the outfits. Zlatko Pejaković and the other members of Korni have more than enough hair between them to rival the Israeli lads that took to the stage ahead of them.

08 Sweden
B: Clever use of metaphor here. It took me years to realise that the first line of the chorus wasn’t “I was defeating you on the wall”, despite the fact that I never had any idea what that should mean.
A: This isn’t even ABBA’s best song, but it’s still pop perfection. It’s a completely different kind of upbeat to the Spanish entry, grabbing you instantly and never letting go.
V: The comparatively huge reception this gets is testament to the fact that it’s the first real performance of the contest and has undeniable pop appeal. It’s far from Frida and Agnetha’s finest hour vocally, and there’s a feeling of the group still being quite raw at this point, but everything points towards them becoming the huge stars they would soon go on to be.

09 Luxembourg
B: For someone who didn’t really speak French at the start of summer, Ireen Sheer’s not doing too badly for herself a few months later!
A: Exactly the kind of pim-pom predictability I was thrilled to see Israel eschew. There’s little that’s intrinsically wrong with it, but coming after something as vibrant as Waterloo does it no favours.
V: The innocence of an era in which pastel green and lilac were thought to offset one another attractively! Ralph Siegel is irritating from the off here, although I appreciate the conceit of explaining away Ms Sheer’s appalling accent in the lyrics.

10 Monaco
B: This is the perfect accompaniment to Bye Bye, I Love You. “Mais déjà ‘nous’ voilà devenus ‘toi et moi’” is my favourite line for being so cleverly constructed. The insistence on ‘he’ and ‘his’ in the English translation on Diggiloo adds a frisson of excitement in making you wonder who’s who in the lyrics.
A: Very cleverly constructed. I never remember the rest of the song, but the chorus sticks in your head and refuses to budge: this is one of very few songs from this era that just pops up in my mind, entirely unbidden, time and again. The arrangement goes places you might not expect it to, which is a boon. The only disappointment is that I’d like the ending to be much bigger than it is.
V: Convincing in a very dated kind of way. The ’70s haven’t done anything to make Romuald any less easy on the eye, however hard the glammed-up suit tries. Did the backing singers for Luxembourg forget to exit the stage before he came on?

11 Belgium
B: Airy-fairy lyrics. “Est-ce bien ici que tu vis / Dans ce palais de verre et de ciment” puts me in mind of Notre Planète. I’m not sure this is a good thing.
A: A more perfunctory introduction to a Eurovision song would be hard to find, although at least it cuts to the chase. Pity the rest of it is as meandering as it is. I have no complaints about the quality; the scope, perhaps, but not the quality. Apart from the beginning. Oh, and the ending, which is even more abrupt.
V: He clearly means what he’s saying. Surely those lapels are taking the piss even for the ’70s?

12 The Netherlands
B: “I see a star, a brand new star / It’s right there, twinklin’ in your eyes” works for me.
A: I’ve never been a fan of the street theatre genre, but this must be one of the best examples of it in the contest. And I suppose it’s Dutch. Catchy chorus.
V: Ooh, it’s a novelty entry. Which is slightly ironic, since the orchestra gives us probably the best rendition of the night. Mouth looks like a Muppet.

13 Ireland
B: One long list of clichés. Next.
A: [Mimes jaunty playing of piano and drums.] There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, but it’s part of a line-up where the likes of it are all too common for it to truly stand out*.
V: Another great arrangement for and performance by the orchestra here, and the vocals are spot-on. *So in fact it does. But did microphones come at a premium back in the day? Why are all the backing vocalists forced to huddle around them?

14 Germany
B: They were big on wringing their hands over summer flings in the ’70s, weren’t they.
A: This is great when it’s just being acoustic. The harmonies throughout are probably technically laudable but don’t make for enjoyable listening when it’s Bert who’s carrying them. Is the bouzouki meant to place this particular sun-soaked love affair on a Greek island?
V: The fabulousness that is Cindy’s dress is disastrously countered by Bert’s outfit. The harmonies sound better live but still fail to earn my approval. The static performance doesn’t do much for the song either.

15 Switzerland
B: For a song dripping in romance, “Sehnsucht nach der Vergangenheit” is a very clunky opening line. But that’s German for you.
A: They get away with it somehow. Probably because the song itself is lovely. Anything that makes such prominent use of woodwind like that is going to win me over.
V: The verses are rather intense, aren’t they. I’d much rather there was a lightness to them. Still, the vocals are excellent.

16 Portugal
B: I wonder whether Paulo de Carvalho revealed more than he intended to with “Tu te deste em amor, eu nada te dei / Em teu corpo… eu adormeci”. The whole thing’s very honest, and graphic in a poetic kind of way. I see Portugal were only marginally more successful depois do adeus than they were antes do adeus.
A: Understated and unprepossessing, in a good way, although you can understand why it failed to set the scoreboard alight. It doesn’t really come into its own until it’s too late. There are some lovely touches to the composition.
V: When he’s not in close-up Paulo looks like he’s wearing a mouth guard. Not that it affects his vocals either way: it’s a powerhouse performance. Slightly uninvolving though, as songs go.

17 Italy
B: Who would have thought the tail-end of 1974 would be so sex-obsessed? Insightful lyrics in lines like “Per paura o per amore / Non me lo chiesi mai”, but then the Italians could always be trusted to come up with something wonderful. I love the transformation Gigliola has undergone between then and now: the shy girl of Non Ho L’età has well and truly grown up.
A: Evocative and accomplished. I just wish I had more than a respectful admiration for it.
V: Engrossing: orchestration, performance, everything.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Yugoslavia

2 points go to Israel

3 points go to Monaco

4 points go to the Netherlands

5 points go to Ireland

6 points go to Portugal

7 points go to Switzerland

8 points go to Spain

10 points go to Sweden

and finally...

12 points go to...


Italy!!!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Germany.

1973

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1973

Not a classic year by any means, and the first few steps into the wonderful new world of no language restrictions fail to produce anything outstanding. But still.

01 Finland
B: The English lyrics are quite good, but the Finnish version has a rhythm and rhyme to it (in the likes of the opening line “Aurinkoisen aamun voi alkaa”) that goes together terrifically with…
A: …the music. That said, I’d only ever heard the Finnish version until I saw Muistathan and thus the [English] version actually performed at the contest, and in fact I think I prefer it. It’s certainly very catchy and a great number to open the contest.
V: The la-la clap-along bit is a bit of a nadir, albeit a product of its time. Fab dress, and fab performance generally.

02 Belgium
B: These lyrics are odd, although I love the translation of one of the lines where “sometimes love is nothing but a sore”. Ouch!
A: Musically this doesn’t kick the shins of those around it and stand on the bumps to try and tower over everyone else, but for all that it’s not so bad.
V: Well the costumes are clearly wrong, and the choreography... but beyond that it’s all quite cheery and doesn’t really strike me as having been worthy of last place. But then I guess last didn’t mean all that much under the voting system in place at the time. Would it have ended on a big fat 0 a couple of years later I wonder?

03 Portugal
B: It’s hard to please the Portuguese: when they’re not demonstrating against dictatorships they’re demonstrating against materialism, using the bullfight as a metaphor. Rather a clever one really, producing a great set of lyrics, with lines among them like “Nós vamos pegar o mundo / Pelos cornos da desgraça” standing out in particular.
A: The song itself tends not to do anything, more’s the pity, meandering on until it reaches the fitting, if still somewhat irritating, ‘la la la’ denouement. Or am I just missing the point?
V: We’re more than halfway through and I’m still waiting for a discernible structure. And a chorus. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in some songs and performances, but it doesn’t do a lot for this particular entry.

04 Germany
B: I should have realised from the lyrics to the chorus that this would take a turn for the cliched.
A: The verses here seem to be leading somewhere more meaningful in their way, but it ends up sounding like Charlie Chaplin. It’s got a good beat to it though and I’ll admit it has sing-along quality, but it doesn’t try very hard. Snatches of the arrangement strongly echo the likes of the Mamas and the Papas (two years in a row for the German entries).
V: The orchestra make something of this in a way that Gitte Hænning never really manages to, probably because she hasn’t got much of a voice. When the brass is blasting out it sounds fantastic.

05 Norway
B: The weaving together of the lyrics is quite clever – on paper. Extra marks for making up words (‘girl-and-boyness’), unexpected twists (‘...cats can play house here / But who is playing the mouse here?’) and for giving their all and ‘just balling’. Whatever that means.
A: But when you listen to it, it’s frankly off-putting. I like the playfulness and the lounge feel to it all, but I find it very hard to concentrate on or pick out anything.
V: The Benny and Bjørn half of the Bendik singers were never going to win any Mr Norway titles, were they. One of them’s even got one eye looking at you and the other eye looking for you. (That this is the most noteworthy aspect of their performance is all that needs to be said.)

06 Monaco
B: I can take or leave most of these lyrics, but the second verse throws up a few interesting things: my French is not good enough to know whether “Le train bat la campagne” really means ‘the train scours the countryside’, but I like the idea; and the lines “Elle ne sait pas grand-chose... / Sinon de quitter ceux qu’elle aimait” add an unexpected but quite welcome harshness, however lightly delivered they may be.
A: Bit of a run on now. This sounds remarkably similar to something else I can’t think of. I like the way sections of the orchestral arrangement are used almost like sound effects.
V: Dear Marie’s a bit of Plain Jane, isn’t she. Her voice is irritating, too. The train she’s on sets out with the right intentions but gets lost along the way and eventually derails completely.

07 Spain
B: The lyrics just repeat the title ad infinitum. More wheat things happening, too.
A: For years I had heard the praises of Eres Tú sung loud and clear and was therefore slightly disappointed to find that, while certainly competent enough, it isn’t particularly innovative or exciting. Not much goes on in the composition until the strings are introduced towards the end. It’s clearly got something that struck a chord at the time, and I can see why it did well for itself, but to me it comes across as little better than a lot else.
V: Amaya Uranga Amézaga has amazingly fish-like eyes: they almost fall off her face. This sounds better and far more together than anything else so far, and if the general standard is maintained I’ll start to realise why it did so well.

08 Switzerland
B: This is a list song, in a way, which I never like, but what does strike me here is the way the lyrics throw up a kind of caveat emptor in “Demain je serai bouclé” and a slight desperation in the lines “Il faut qu’on s’en souvienne jusqu’au bout de la vie / Et que quoiqu’il advienne, nous restions des amis” that gives the otherwise jovial nonsense of it all a sense of realism. (That said, I find greatest entertainment in re-imagining the story behind the line “Je vais me marier, Roger” sung by a man.)
A: While the song is undoubtedly cheesy in many ways, the arrangement is rather good, the best bits being the touches of strings and piano that appear almost at random. Musically there are parts of it that are not far off the yet-to-be-discovered ABBA sound.
V: Patrick Juvet looks the part for 1973 but is saddled with a song that is typical to the contest in a way that doesn’t do him any favours. It’s funny how when the orchestra’s not giving it what-for they sound like they’re in the next concert hall over.

09 Yugoslavia
B: Bosniaks are miserly when it comes to lyrics, aren’t they? They certainly like their economies. Make savings where you can, I suppose.
A: This could just about come from anywhere if it weren’t for the hints at easternness in the delivery of the lines in the chorus, if that’s what you’d call it. There’s a lot more going on in the music towards the end than you realise at first.
V: It’s the Balkans’ answer to Tom Jones! Vocally at least. Zdravko’s an attractive proposition in his own right though, as is his performance. It’s only rivalled by Spain so far in terms of the welly everyone gives it.

10 Italy
B: I realised when reading the lyrics to this that there are only three words in the Italian that give away the fact he’s not singing about a man; indeed I missed the ‘altra’ at the beginning and wondered for a second if I’d remembered wrongly and that it was in fact sung by a woman. I particularly like the line “Lucide vetrine, specchi per gli innamorati” in the context of everything else the song is saying.
A: Quite sad, this, as reflected in some clever touches to the arrangement, which comes across as surprisingly (and in fact pleasantly) old-fashioned.
V: Massimo Ranieri has alarming moments of looking vaguely like Michael J Fox. He puts in a very likeable performance which lifts the song enormously.

11 Luxembourg
B: I love the entire second verse here, but I don’t really get the point of the lyrics overall: is it basically just saying that wherever you go, you’ll recognise yourself in everyone you see? I certainly recognise parts of this song in another (Monaco): what is it with French numbers and their obsession with railway stations being the cradle of adulthood?
A: Strong, stirring chorus, which is what I assume clinched it for them.
V: Anne-Marie David being quite pretty might have helped, too. That and the fact the song might as well be called Juries Will Love This. Have the visual effects been going on in the background the whole time? I didn’t notice them until just now.

12 Sweden
B: Yes, well, question and exclamation marks galore. Is ‘summer’ a euphemism here, possibly for any number of things, all connected? The line “your breasts are like swallows in nestling” has already been lampooned on Eurovision clip shows, but they’re still worth raising an eyebrow over, if for no other reason than they’re the same in Swedish (“Dina bröst är som svalor som häckar”) and yet equally incomprehensible. In fact, worse than that, I find these lyrics vaguely disturbing – especially “you never tell me no”.
A: Musically and vocally, however, it’s rather good.
V: The acoustic intro to this always makes me expect more from it than it delivers. That said, what it does deliver is very solid, and actually feels modern (says he born four years later). Claes och Göran look like they should be winning doubles tournaments at Wimbledon.

13 The Netherlands
B: Nice use of metaphor.
A: This stays just on the right side of overkill for me. I like Ben Cramer’s voice, and the music’s very good at doing darkness, loneliness and whatnot. I would like the way it builds to the chorus to actually lead somewhere that sets it apart more than it does, but then that wouldn’t be entirely in keeping with the lyrics, so I suppose you can’t have everything. Oh, the end is good – a bit more oomph and then a forlorn fade away to nothing. Nice.
V: Not that it works here, but otherwise it’s a very strong performance. Like Portugal, it’s slightly ponderous; unlike Portugal, it’s reasonably accessible. At first I wondered whether the power had gone off, but I see they were in fact going for moody lighting in a rare attempt to tie in with what the song was saying.

14 Ireland
B: My first thought when I read these lyrics was that they would be useful for practising question forms with lower level English students and useless for poetry, although I like the idea of the sunlight ‘quivering’ on the water.
A: This is another song where – for me at least – there’s not nearly enough distinction between the verses and the chorus, which is where Luxembourg for example was so strong. Not bad though, all told, and by the end of it I am surprised to find myself pleasantly disposed towards the iteration of the title, as it actually makes a decent hook. And the ending’s not bad either.
V: Despite the posh frock, Maxi looks like yet another Blue Peter presenter. She sounds like she has a day job which isn’t singing, too. Or at least ought to.

15 United Kingdom
B: Not sure I can get into the hippie-ish message of it all, frankly.
A: Not sure I can get into the marching music, either – which would turn up the next year as well in Long Live Love! – but you can’t deny that it’s well-produced and suits Cliff Richard’s voice perfectly. The studio version really lets you hear how good the arrangement is.
V: I’m glad Sir Cliff was so pragmatic about Eurovision: it would have been crushing otherwise. This is in a class of its own in any number of ways.

16 France
B: For once I’m almost glad to say that the lyrics to the French song don’t stand out, without having anything wrong with them as such.
A: The chorus is a bit lame here, despite the effort they go to to do interesting and unusual things with the arrangement and delivery during it. Sounds like something from the soundtrack to Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, at least to begin with.
V: Fittingly, Martine Clémenceau looks like an aging but glamorous transsexual singing into a hair brush. Or perhaps a hot roller. Her head looks enormous. She sounds like a breakdown is imminent. Any and all of these things could be related.

17 Israel
B: I love the fearless enthusiasm of “Ze hasheket shelifney hase’ara / Bo nelekh akhshav”.
A: The terrible sound quality on the studio version I have* takes away a bit from what sounds like quite a decent number for a country that’s making its debut. I’m not surprised they did well for themselves: it’s uptempo, uplifting and (from what I can tell) pretty decently put together.
V: *This, on the other hand, sounds brilliant, and Ilanit is stunning. Fantastic first entry.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to Ireland

2 points go to Sweden

3 points go to Spain

4 points go to the Netherlands

5 points go to Italy

6 points go to Luxembourg

7 points go to Yugoslavia

8 points go to Israel

10 points go to Finland

and finally...

12 points go to...


the United Kingdom!!!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Monaco.

1972

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1972

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

01 Germany
B: Cheesy at first glance but in the end I agree with its message completely.
A: The way this builds towards the chorus is great. Given the M&P touches to some of the music, it may have benefited more from a singer with a more soulful voice, but Mary does the job well enough.
V: Love the percussion, but it could have been a bit lower in the mix. Mary’s dress is fab: it reminds us that we’re only just this side of the ’60s, and makes her look about eight foot tall. Is that the Emperor and Empress of Japan applauding in the audience?

02 France
B: I find myself concurring with most of what this is saying: “Je t’aime, tu m’aimes... / Pourquoi faut-il s’en défendre?”…
A: …however dull (and abruptly curtailed) the delivery. It’s hugely irritating. I keep expecting that needle-scratching-off-the-record sound and something serious to be played in its place. We can be thankful at least that it’s not a chanson, but still, France can do so much better.
V: I can’t fault this: it’s the best and yet most oddly unappealing impersonation I’ve ever seen.

03 Ireland
B: Undoubtedly trite, but the sheer alienness of the language provides them with enough cover to get away with it.
A: This doesn’t do a lot musically, does it. And once the fascination with the words has worn off, that doesn’t leave a lot to be going on with.
V: Sandie holds her microphone like a posh person drinking tea. Love her very of-the-era-green chainmail frock. Oirish sounds like no other language in Europe. Charming if largely underwhelming performance.

04 Spain
B: The idea of searching for ‘new blue colours in the sky’ is lovely.
A: Well it had to start like that, didn’t it? I would’ve been disappointed with it any other way. I like how it changes tack during the second verse, bringing the guitar to the fore, and then playing up the piano in the second chorus, adding layers as the sun continues to rise. It makes the inevitable key change seem like the only logical place to go. Bizarrely, it reminds me in places of both Once In A Lifetime and stock Chinese restaurant music, albeit the kind of Chinese restaurants where they also serve steak & chips.
V: Mr Morey seems rooted to the spot by the creases in his trousers there at the beginning, but soon throws himself into the song as much as he’s ever going to. Which is quite considerably come the key change. He’s got a very attractive voice.

05 United Kingdom
B: Throughout this it sounds like they’re saying “I’ll make your garlic grow”.
A: This has an obvious attraction I wouldn’t try to deny, but it does very little for me and comes across as something the producers simply strung together in a very “if we do this here, and put that there...” kind of way. (Mind you, that’s probably how all producers work.)
V: What was wrong with the Old Seekers? And what are the enormous bow ties compensating for? Apart from those conundrums, this performance is very easy to comprehend. There’s an ever-so-slight raggedness to it which actually adds to the authenticity.

06 Norway
B: If you read these lyrics without the music they’re perfectly sweet and harmless (and finally put the words ‘dag’ and ‘slag’ into the same line, even if it is in Norwegian!)…
A: …but with Grethe and Benny on the chorus it just grates. The music doesn’t really know what it wants to be when it grows up and so tries a bit of everything, as evidenced by the opening bars. Naff [harp] ending.
V: An adorable one-trick pony this: it starts off sounding like a leftover from the ’50s before transforming into something more identifiably of the era, but once it’s done that, repeating the trick is robbed of any effect. Still, it’s a great performance vocally, and sounds good in any case.

07 Portugal
B: Oh yes, sounds like a political message. “Que venham todas de vontade” indeed.
A: At least the chorus is vaguely festive. I’d like to be able to excuse the rest of it as a metaphor, except it’s pretty much up and down. I just hope it meant more to Portugal than it does to me now. The doo-doo-doo ending feels completely out of place, whether it’s meant to be a party song or not.
V: This just sort of starts and ends, doesn’t it. An odd experience. It almost feels like Carlos is miming and someone else is singing the words off-stage.

08 Switzerland
B: The all-encompassingness of this – in lines like “Elle m’attend dans le vent et sous la pluie / Dans le bleu d’un ciel bleu en plein midi” – is very identifiable.
A: Ooh, unpredictable structure! Almost Turkish twang to the guitar! Delivery you’d expect from a Luxembourg entry! Me very much likey. The blend of acoustics and strings is inspired. Given it’s Switzerland we’re dealing with, this is a monumental triumph.
V: I like the way Véronique pitches this, but it’s all a bit incongruous: her brunette Carol Brady look and the blow-up beach ball-patterned country frock don’t really seem to fit the song. The take-’em-or-leave-’em vocals are just right though, and the music sounds magical.

09 Malta
B: It’s all I can do to drag my eyes away from lines like “X’inhi l-imħabba kbira taż-żgħażagħ?”.
A: The waka-waka guitars make this sound like an unnecessarily cheery ’70s cop show theme tune. It’s certainly nothing special, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Malta’s poor showing in the ’70s was for much the same reasons as Turkey’s until the ’90s. (Was English not an official language of the island back in the day?)
V: Parts of this sound distinctly Arabic. Most of it sounds distinctly unexciting. Joseph is clearly far more into Helen than Helen is him: it’s all she can do to glance sideways at him sometimes.

10 Finland
B: “On onnea surukin osaltaan / Se vain elämänä täytyy oivaltaa” is universal but still seems a peculiarly northern way of looking at things.
A: This starts like you’ve come into it halfway through. In fact the whole thing feels like a story you’re only being told half of, and seems totally mistimed. Appalling ending. Not one of Finland’s better entries, you might say.
V: Lapels! And yet another couple holding hands, albeit slightly less fecklessly than the Maltese pair. It’s like Kuin Silloin Ennen without the props, although the arrangement sounds even more old-fashioned.

11 Austria
B: So falter and schmetterling both mean ‘butterfly’ in German? The lyrics here are saying something I like, but I don’t know what it is.
A: All I know is that put together with the music they work for me. It’s almost too classy and (probably) meaningful to be Austrian really.
V: It’s hard to pick what’s hippiest about this. I think in terms of both song and performance it’s the girl on the flute. I’m tempted to say this is the best thing Austria’s ever sent to Eurovision.

12 Italy
B: I love the lines “Distesa sull’erba come una che sogna / Giacesti, bambina, ti alzasti già donna”.
A: Can you hear the drums, Fernando? This could all sound quite leery with a voice like Nicola’s but he manages to pitch it perfectly. Yet again it’s something refreshingly different from Italy. Not wholly engrossing, but lovely.
V: For a performance this static it’s surprisingly arresting. Most of the credit for this has to be given to Mr di Bari, who delivers the song perfectly; the rest of it has to go to the orchestra, and whoever produced the arrangement for them.

13 Yugoslavia
B: Great alliteration in “Svoj san svatko sniva sam”.
A: I love the way this starts off sounding vaguely threatening, like Tereza’s snagged herself a bit of soldier and doesn’t know what to do next. She has a lovely voice, so singing was a good choice. Especially something so uplifting. Great bass.
V: Love the fanfare as Tereza gravitates towards the microphone stand. She chucks everything at the performance without it for a second looking like it’s put on.

14 Sweden
B: It’s like a Mere Lapsed singalong for the whole family, with the sense of adventure and ambition squeezed into a single summer day. Sunning yourself on a rock seems like a very Baltic thing to do :)
A: If Amanece did it, I suppose they should be allowed to. Great blend and balance of voices, but after the promising first verse it all descends far too quickly into tweeness for my liking.
V: It’s like a three-minute plug for the Swedish dental industry.

15 Monaco
B: “Il fait des rêves blonds” sounds like an insult.
A: After piking out of hosting duties they could at least have tried harder to come up with a stronger entry as the title holders. The verses aren’t bad, but the choruses are horribly lazy. It all comes with self-assembly instructions you never even need to look at.
V: Peter and Anne-Marie make an attractive couple, for 1972. Still can’t understand though why Monaco would enter such a song when they weren’t desperate to avoid hosting a second time.

16 Belgium
B: Again, I like the lyrics, although they’re a bit unfathomable in places (“Ce n’est jamais assez au gré du cœur”).
A: Thumbs up for the seemingly odd, almost shifting structure for much of the first half of the song. After that it lacks the passion its lyrics promote and goes just about nowhere.
V: It’s ironic how bland and uninvolving this is, given the title. At least the wigs on the backing vocalists distract your attention.

17 Luxembourg
B: “Après toi, je pourrai peut-être donner de ma tendresse / Mais plus rien de mon amour” are my favourite lines here.
A: Certainly rousing. Yet another singer for one of the mini-states with a discernible foreign accent. Ms Leandros has never really had an outstanding voice, has she? Gets away with it here though. The music is helped along enormously by the Greek touches, although that also only makes it seem more fake. Quite similar in parts to Italy, too.
V: This comes and goes without making me understand why it should have won quite as convincingly as it did. Is the bunch of grapes Vicky’s sporting a sign of mourning or something in Greece (if that’s what the rest of the Morticia Addams look is getting at)?

18 The Netherlands
B: Love the lyrics, with the bridges – if that’s what you’d call them – being the highlight in more ways than one.
A: Mad, possibly brilliant, and a great closing number.
V: Not an unqualified success, but it knocks all of the other duets of the night into a cocked hat. It’s easy to see why it won favour with the juries, and it’s great to hear the audience clapping along towards the end.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Norway

2 points go to the Netherlands

3 points go to the United Kingdom

4 points go to Germany

5 points go to Luxembourg

6 points go to Yugoslavia

7 points go to Spain

8 points go to Austria

10 points go to Switzerland

and finally...

12 points go to...


Italy!!!


The wooden spoon goes, once again, to Malta.

1971

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1971

Apart from the wooden spoon and a couple of indifferent entries, this is a pretty strong year by all accounts. Even my also-rans have much to recommend them in places.

01 Austria
B: Good lyrics for song #1. I like the recognition that “Machen die Leit Musik / Oft wird’s verkauft als des, was gar net is”.
A: Rather boisterous opening to the contest. Marianne tries to match this vocally in the chorus (in which the Viennese Austrian German sounds remarkably Slavic) but doesn’t manage it with a lot of conviction. Quite an odd choice of melody for the chorus as well, like they deliberately tried to eschew anything you could sing along to. This goes with the line “Soll’s die Sprach der Phantasie und Freiheit sein”, but fails to help its chances much. Consistent though, and the arrangement is good, particularly in the bridge.
V: And in the first of several not-very-amazing coincidences, Ms Mendt looks like the Russian singer Larissa Dolina, who has a very big forehead. Her delivery in the verses is almost the vocal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders, and as I suspected is overshadowed in the chorus by the wall of noise coming from the orchestra pit. The beautifully rolled Rs earn her extra points.

02 Malta
B: Lines like “Il fortuna laqqgħatni miegħek / Ħelu d-destin” have a very stop-start look about them, don’t they.
A: The studio version I have sounds way too crisp to be the original. Certainly sounds tacky enough to be associated with Malta though; you still hear this kind of show tune in badly lit, sparsely populated lounges on Finnish ferries. The Maltese sounds much nicer than it at times looks on paper, but can’t do much to mask a very cheap production... and approach.
V: The conductor’s name’s Twanny! Wonder what it’s rhyming slang for on Malta. Joe Grech sings out of the side of his mouth as though his jaws aren’t aligned. He gives it what-for when the music ramps up, but that’s about the only thing that adds any excitement to the song. The crappo ending certainly doesn’t.

03 Monaco
B: The lines “Mais si nous ne partageons rien / Que nous reste-t-il en commun?” and the last verse generally are as topical today as they obviously ever were.
A: This just has everything going for it from the outset, doesn’t it? Which can’t be said terribly often about Monaco. It was composed by the same fellow as Celui Qui Reste... and you can tell: it has the same insistent rhythm, but a better melody. Plus the otherwise-might-have-been-irritating aspects like the la-la-la backing (and ending) and the slightly overbaked sentimentality work. Even the harp feels right.
V: Bit of a cacophony this year, isn’t it. Not that it can hide how effective either the composition or arrangement are here. The vocals sound a bit... shredded.

04 Switzerland
B: Youth was clearly a running theme in French-language pop in 1971.
A: This is nicely arranged and has some good harmonies. Seems like it’s missing something at first, but this feels right enough by the end, given its brevity. Harmless and, er, nice.
V: Looks awkward, the way Peter’s holding his guitar there. And is that hair on Marc’s head or some kind of helmet? The la-la opening befuddles me: it’s like they’ve forgotten the words (not to mention the music) and are just going to stand there for a couple of minutes singing bugger all. After the song actually starts it all falls into place nicely, if not altogether engrossingly.

05 Germany
B: In its way this is just as sentimental as Monaco, but with a different focus – which is laudable in itself, and ahead of its time I would have thought, but current affairs and pop never go together for me very successfully. I like the lines “...ist sie auch ein Staubkorn nur in der Unendlichkeit / ...dieser Stern ist unser Stern...”.
A: More harps, and another perfectly good arrangement, if a little uninvolving in the verses.
V: The second contestant in our not-very-convincing lookalike competition is Katja Ebstein. “Tonight, David, I will be... Anastasia Stotskaya!” Fab hair and outfit. Best performance overall so far, too, with some great backing vocals.

06 Spain
B: “Busca las cosas sencillas y encontrarás la verdad” seems a bit naïve but I still like the idea.
A: I like the way this builds, too. I was about to decry its lack of a clear chorus, but it works anyway, and very well. Didn’t hook me immediately, and – oh... that Big Band marching end tagged on. Dear me. It was doing so well.
V: If you’ve ever seen Russian primadonna Lyudmilla Gurchenko, our María Isabel Barbara But-You-Can-Call-Me-Karina Llaudes looks just like her before her eyes sealed over from a lifetime of plastic surgery. I wonder if she knows she has a hole in her dress. This makes loads of Eurovision sense, so I understand why it did so well for itself. I’m not sold on it, but it’s a good performance.

07 France
B: “Semer en étant sûr que l’on donne la vie / De la graine au bourgeon et de la fleur au fruit” is another prime example of French taking eye-rolling lyrics and making them somehow enormously palatable.
A: Listen to the oh-so-French voice on Serge Lama. This is terribly well-composed, in the verses at least, which try for something a bit different. The chorus is a bit run-of-the-mill*. In fact it seems to take all the power out of it when it should really be injecting it. Nice ending.
V: *It’s only just struck me, in fact, how much it sounds like The First Noël. I wonder who the rather glamorous young lady watching Serge from the wings is. What a mystery. Serge himself looks like he’s been busting to go to the loo for ages but been holding it in.

08 Luxembourg
B: She claims “Je voudrais savoir ce qu’il y a dedans” but she’s already answered her own question: “il y a des tas de pépins”! Tant pis.
A: Love the crackle on the 45 recording I have. This is very... boppy. Sounds a bit like Jack-In-The-Box, which is probably unfortunate for it, considering it’s next. Supremely brainless, but not nearly as dire as I expected it to be. Indeed, there are some lovely touches to the composition.
V: Monique looks like a Blue Peter presenter. Luxembourg were a bit mean, weren’t they, only sending one backing vocalist as accompaniment. They get away with it, but the whole thing feels threadbare – albeit in a guileless sort of way.

09 United Kingdom
B: Clever metaphor here. The lines “...when it’s upside down / Look at the way that it swings” are amusing.
A: This is yet another super-solid production from the UK. How can you not love it? As with Monaco, the la-las feel right rather than annoying.
V: Hotpants! Clodagh Rodgers’ breasts look like they’ve migrated to her shoulders from some angles, and she looks like she has Monty Python animated eyes – which is quite appropriate, given that’s where I best know and remember this song from – like some Frankenstein prototype of Olivia Newton-John. Despite the movement that goes into this it still comes across as way too static, and almost half-hearted.

10 Belgium
B: The whole “...krijgen we niet al te veel, ’t kan ons niet schelen / We vinden ook het minste deel sensationeel” thing makes me suspect that morgen is a metaphor for something rather base and depraved. Hopefully.
A: How I bet Nicole & Hugo wish they’d been able to stick with this. (Who suddenly gets jaundice?) It doesn’t do much that’s spectacular, but what it does do it does pretty well, and Jacques and Lili sound great together.
V: Jacques certainly got better looking between 1963 and here, but can’t dance to save his life. Lili looks like Stefanie Powers, but has the wobbly voice of a woman twice her age. Together they look like they’re enjoying themselves, but it all seems a bit perfunctory.

11 Italy
B: The line “Chissà se un fiore c’è là sotto la neve per te” comes across a bit aggressively, given its beauty.
A: Oh, what a tremendous vocal arrangement. I would like Massimo Ranieri’s delivery to be a little more toned down here and there, but this could be seen as staying true to the emotion driving it all. Sounds like the kind of song that would have persuaded Greece to enter a few years later, what with all the balalayka things.
V: One of the few performers tonight with a voice big and bold enough to outdo the orchestra. Terrific. Massimo looks like he should have been starring in a BBC adaptation of something by Dickens, not singing in Eurovision.

12 Sweden
B: I absolutely love these lyrics: Europe’s not just all sun-soaked Mediterranean. I would love to see a British version of it: Grey Expanses?
A: More balalayka-sounding thingies! The chorus is so easy to sing along to. This seems like a concession forced on the rest of the song, which is much more principled. Still, it’s not trotted out all that often.
V: Marie Bergman looks like Shirley Jones doing The Partridge Family here. I see Family Four would return in ’72 with much less success, but I almost chuck a point their way then, so it bodes well for this. Great harmonies. Pierre, on the left, doesn’t move his legs much; perhaps his trousers are so tight they’ve cut off the circulation.

13 Ireland
B: For the lines “One day soon, very soon / Deep in love you will fall” I say: thank you, Yoda.
A: I like the acoustics and brass introduced in the third verse in place of the temporarily retired strings; it would all be a bit repetitive otherwise. Still feels like it goes on for 6 minutes rather than 3 though, and as home entries go it’s very bland.
V: Angela Farrell looks rather dour, despite her pink frock. She has a slightly irksome voice, too, that doesn’t really suit the song. But she’s to be commended on her diction.

14 The Netherlands
B: Love the lines “...stormen worden opgebouwd / Uit adem, zucht voor zucht”.
A: That’s a cor anglais, isn’t it? All the woodwind here is lovely. In fact the entire arrangement is impressive; there’s something almost medieval about it, and you really get the sense of a story being told. You know, a proper one. This does tend to make it feel like there should be 30 more minutes of music either side of it telling the rest of the story; as an independent piece of music it doesn’t really work. Good though. I like the fact it’s called Time but feels so timeless, like it pays no heed to it.
V: Saskia’s rather stunning, as is her voice. I think I’m getting the awkward guitar thing now: they have to hold them up to the microphone so that anyone will hear them. Yes?

15 Portugal
B: Hay... mint... pine tree sap... lavender without a flower bed... It must be poetry: I have no idea what most of it means. It sounds largely like a religious experience, and given that the performer, composer and lyricist have the names Jesus, Nazareth and the Saints among them, this might not be a coincidence.
A: So creative, without sounding odd, and still sounding contemporary. Love it.
V: Great dress. Great ending. Great everything.

16 Yugoslavia
B: It’s nice to see lines like “A noć je duga i tamna kao bol” being trotted out in a Balkan entry in a context other than civil war.
A: The chorus here needs to be stronger, but there’s no denying how captivating the arrangement is – there’s always something vying for your attention, or stealing it away unexpectedly. Having said that, it starts to get a bit samey after two minutes. But still.
V: This sounds more High Ridge than Portugal, and Kruno certainly sounds more like Tom Jones than Joe Grech looked the part of his swarthy Maltese uncle. I’d be more upset with his hairdresser and stylist than his ex-girlfriend if I was him though. Fantastic vocals (and eye shadow).

17 Finland
B: The idea that “Kun yksi ottaa ja toinen antaa / ... / ...samaa tietä kuljetaan” is reminiscent of Monaco.
A: This has the same kind of drive as Jack-In-The-Box, but it’s stuck in a much lower gear. It feels a bit too disjointed, like the composers had written parts for three different songs and ended up cobbling them together here (as I did with the lyrics above). Mind you, they also wrote Tom Tom Tom, so maybe it was deliberate. It could be a work of genius; I wouldn’t know. I suspect not, however.
V: This is typical enough of the contest to explain why it did so well by Finnish standards. Markku Aro looks like he could be one of David Walliams’ characters from Little Britain.

18 Norway
B: Thematically this isn’t that different from Spain, but they certainly express it in a different way – “Lykken er sild i dill”!!!
A: Surprisingly, given it’s only 1971, this is the only song that still sounds ’60s. (A year out clearly didn’t help their sense of timing.) Perhaps it’s because Arne Bendiksen’s behind it. It was up against a lot of stuff that must have sounded much more ‘with it’, so I assume it came across as staged as it sounds. Looks like it was.
V: [Was it?] Yes, and how. If I’d been in the audience those false endings would have gotten on my tits.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to Austria

2 points go to Germany

3 points go to Yugoslavia

4 points go to Spain

5 points go to Sweden

6 points go to the Netherlands

7 points go to the United Kingdom

8 points go to Monaco

10 points go to Italy

and finally...

12 points go to...


Portugal!!!


The wooden spoon is awarded, whether on its debut or not, to Malta.

1970

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1970

It’s like a desert island: Portugal ‘retiring’ prior to the contest (whatever that means – another highly political entry, as the lyrics would make it seem, but this time one that took a step too far perhaps?); Austria sitting it out for another year after consecutive disastrous results in 1967 and 1968; and Sweden, Finland and Norway missing, all out in their hissy fit after scraping together about 5 points collectively the previous year. Perhaps they were right to when the top 2 here account for almost 50% of the available points; 60% with the top 3. It’s also interesting to note that while French songs, with the reduced numbers, make up almost half of the competition, they altogether managed barely more than 20% of the points. Love the stainless steel backdrop.

01 The Netherlands
B: Though nicely developed, the subject matter is slightly daft (as is the opening line!). Astrology was big back then I assume.
A: Certainly airy, but I was expecting something a little more... disco. Getting ahead of my time perhaps. Lovely harmonies: the vocals really draw you into it. The ending is a nice touch, as all the way through it hints at – and then builds up to – something bigger.
V: Some serious hair and eye shadow happening here. With the percussion being so low in the mix the choreography comes across as incongruous. Wonderful harmonies again.

02 Switzerland
B: While questionable in places – “ta douleur vaudra bien mon ardeur” comes across as insufferably arrogant, and if “Toi qui donnes l’amour mieux qu’une mère” is anything to go by I don’t want to hear about his childhood – these lyrics paint a pretty honest picture.
A: Nothing like I expected it to sound: I must have had their similarly monikered 1962 entry in mind. Is that meant to be a yapping dog, that sound effect? The approach taken to the music takes away from the gravitas of the lyrics: the whole pa-pa-pa thing undermines it for me, especially when the composition is so monotonous.
V: Legs up to here! Wish he’d use them more than just to bob about and mime occasionally, because the performance is far too static. He looks like he’s enjoying himself singing to me far more than I am watching and listening to him.

03 Italy
B: It’s funny how even in 1970 you can play Six Degrees of Separation with almost every song, reducing it to a less cumbersome One Degree before you start: this struck a chord with me, and so I did a bit of digging and discovered that it had been written by the same fellow who would go on to write Questo Amore in 1978. You can tell from the themes and the imagery alone. Typically for Italy it’s another grown-up story with no false modesty or pretence. I love the whole idea of “Occhi di ragazza, io vi parlo coi silenzi dell’amore / ...quanto male vi farete perdonare / L’acqua di una lacrima d’addio sarà l’ultimo regalo / Che da voi riceverò”.
A: Now here’s a song that knows how to hook me, with guitar, piano and strings all within the opening 10 seconds. The music perfectly captures the feelings that are played out in the arrangement, touching on the shameless inevitability of the situation whilst drawing on the beauty of it. Or something.
V: This is fantastic: Gianni makes lanky and awkward work for him in a way Henri never manages to. Great voice and performance.

04 Yugoslavia
B: Talk about the summer of love – Eva Sršen seems altogether too ready to allow her cherry blossom to be deflowered if you ask me. Typical Yugoslav economy in the [7 different lines of the] lyrics.
A: All very innocent of course, or made to seem that way by the orchestral arrangement (well, strings), which is lovely.
V: Does what it says on the tin, but neither the label nor the contents are particularly enticing.

05 Belgium
B: It’s interesting that Jean Vallée is in fact Paul Goeders: Flanders clearly had no love of him. Complete opposite theme here from his 1978 entry, which may explain why he came 2nd then and didn’t this time. I love the lines “Quelques larmes viennent de naître / Un peu d’amour qui s’enfuit” from the first verse.
A: This chorus tries very hard to be big, but as it’s so similar to something else and therefore has to watch itself, it never quite manages it. The backing vocals seem a bit of a throwback to an earlier era, even by 1970 standards. The overall impression the song gives in fact is one of being a bit dusty and forgotten.
V: I still feel like there should be a ‘pa-ra-pa-pa-pam’ somewhere in the verses. Jean has a fine command of his media, which is a good thing, since at times his song threatens not to.

06 France
B: “Je ne veux rien savoir du reste du monde / La terre ne m’a jamais semblé aussi ronde” make for a great couple of lines.
A: I’ve just sat here for three minutes completely entranced. That beautiful arrangement; the hint of sadness that makes you suspect it’s all a dream... the quintessential ballad.
V: Love the frills – much better than his Bill Gates impression of 1983. Wonderful arrangement, and the vocals are flawless.

07 United Kingdom
B: “Sit and dream of how things might have been / And as I close my eyes, I get the strangest feeling...” that those were perhaps the days, my friend?
A: Such a perfect slice of music from the era: original Britpop. It sounds amazingly fresh and clear, and it’s simple and catchy without sacrificing quality. The composition is quite layered in fact. I hope it was as huge a hit for Ms Hopkins as her Ukrainian pinch.
V: Boptastic. I’m glad her very black dress is at least sparkly.

08 Luxembourg
B: “Je suis tombé du ciel pour me pencher sur toi” – is that a metaphor, do you think?
A: I can understand why no one picked this as their favourite: it’s competent; more than, in fact, but very standard at the same time. It could be one of a hundred Francophone Eurovision entries from the ’60s and ’70s. Mr Double-Barrelled Name’s delivery is also a bit... insistent, even though (again) that’s right enough in context. The ending, needless to say, is pants.
V: Mr Kleerekoper wins the looker of the night award so far, and he certainly makes the most of a song that in itself offers relatively little.

09 Spain
B: Here’s another statistic then: 25% of the songs in 1970 were women’s names! Perhaps not surprisingly, my favourite lines in this are “Conservo tu amor / Tan dentro de mí”.
A: Julio Iglesias has such a distinctive and seductive and expressive voice, really bringing out the emotion here. You feel it on lines like “Yo he buscado en mi alma queriéndote hallar / Y tan sólo encontré mi soledad”. It’s a bit too downtrodden for its own good though, the song, making it at times hard to listen to. Easy to watch, I imagine, but hard to listen to.
V: [Watches] Can’t fault the voice, obviously, and the audience are clearly up for it; still not sure I am. The blue of Julio’s outfit is more shocking than the pink of the backing vocalists’ pantsuits.

10 Monaco
B: Gold star for use of the word ‘langoureusement’.
A: With music written by Brits and lyrics by a Frenchman this is a typically outsourced Monegasque entry, but a fairly successful one. The voice is right, and certainly goes well with the music. But as usual with such songs (and most of the principality’s output) it comes across as pastiche and you struggle to take it seriously, hence my use of ‘fairly’ above. It does earn points for being unpredictable and completely different to everything else on offer.
V: Sister Dominique? She looks like a nun in a sparkly miniskirt. I can’t believe she was only 16 – especially with that “cheveux frisés comme un mouton”. Neither the song nor the performance do anything for me. Perhaps you had to be there.

11 Germany
B: I wonder if there were more than just artistic reasons behind Katja Ebstein not going by her real name of Karin Witkiewicz? A Pole representing Germany! Still, the stage name clearly didn’t hurt, with three top 3 finishes out of three. I like the idea of accusing someone far too miserable without real reason of “Fangen mit dem Leben viel zu wenig an / Dabei steht das Glück schon vor der Tür”.
A: This throws us headfirst into the ’70s, doesn’t it? It sounds like incidental music from The Brady Bunch, that organ bit. Bits. It’s a million miles from Zwei Kleine Italiener in any case, although it comes from the same composer. The vocal arrangement is excellent. The music’s good, too: I love the slightly melodramatic strings chucked in here and there.
V: Katja’s a presence you can’t ignore. The more interesting aspects of the music get a bit lost here, unfortunately, but the quality’s still there.

12 Ireland
B: It’s just These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things, isn’t it. Or whatever it was called. I like the lyrics, but they occasionally annoy me.
A: I can see Dana’s (...but you can call me Rosemary) gap-toothed smile from here and get the immediate attraction, but I don’t completely share it, because it’s simply not that outstanding. Iconic though.
V: The French & Saunders take on this gets it so right.


And so to the points...*

1 point goes to Monaco

2 points go to Luxembourg

3 points go to Yugoslavia

4 points go to Spain

5 points go to the Netherlands

6 points go to Germany

7 points go to Ireland

8 points go to Italy

10 points go to France

and finally...

12 points go to...


the United Kingdom!!!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Switzerland.

*of any of the Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Austrian or Portuguese juries, who under a modern system would probably still have been given the right to vote despite withdrawing in a huff/being politically repressed

1969

http://www.diggiloo.net/?1969

Really rather a splendid year, all told, and one in which I can understand why there was a four-way tie for first: if I could I’d probably give 12 points to all of my top 6 for one reason or another.

01 Yugoslavia
B: Quite possibly the tackiest lyrics Croatia (and Yugoslavia) has ever produced at Eurovision; total lowest common denominator stuff. Do they get through the entire list of ‘good days’ represented in 1969?
A: Good harmonies.
V: Great song to open the competition in Spain, with vocals like that. Gets pretty tired pretty quickly though; perhaps that’s why Ivan’s eyes seem so far down his face.

02 Luxembourg
B: Sweet, innocent lyrics, although “Je vous offrais mes tartines et mes chocolats” would make a worthy double entendre.
A: The more entries I hear from Luxembourg the more I’m convinced they never once intended to win and only ever did by accident. The arrangement here does nothing for me with its awkward blend of coquettish glockenspiel and farty brass. The last couple of bars sound like a different song completely, which is rather nice, since the rest of it lacks anything much in the way of character.
V: The least successful of Romuald’s three evenly spaced outings: he should have stuck with Monaco. He sounds kinda sexy when he lets rip, and gives a decent performance.

03 Spain
B: I can associate with “Desde que llegaste ya... / Vivo cantando, vivo soñando”.
A: Lovely moody opening. The explosion into the chorus is not really the kind I was expecting, but is all the better for it. The percussion’s fantastic. It’s relentless once it gets going. Fab!
V: My mum had hair like that. Love the outfit and the upright epilepsy masquerading as choreography. Salomé is great with the cameras.

04 Monaco
B: Lovely lyrics encompassing many of the feelings of what being a child is about.
A: Monaco gives us our first ever Junior Eurovision entry. Not as good as the one the Spanish kid gave us in 2004 (or whenever) about his dead mum. I’d like the Fernando bits to bear more weight than they do, but then I suppose he is just a kid: you oughtn’t overegg the gravitas. It’s all just a bit too cheery for a song whose lyrics seem somehow more serious.
V: I was prepared to write off Jean Jacques as a little upstart twat, but he gives a good performance and has a great (and well-developed) voice for a kid of 12. Looks like he’s wearing the son part of the mum-and-son outfit he shared with Salomé too, sans wibbly bits.

05 Ireland
B: These lyrics are so predictable you’d think they were written by a non-native speaker – rendering the title pretentiously over-reaching at best.
A: How I’d rather this were a Welsh entry sung by Shirley Bassey. Love the guitar adding a very ’70s twang to what is essentially a completely ’60s production. Takes an awfully long time to say very little; the key change could have been excised altogether.
V: Muriel Day is the kind of name no one has heard or publicly admitted to for the better part of 40 years, isn’t it. The backing vocals are a bit on the perhaps-not side, but our Muriel does her country proud, giving a note-perfect and energetic performance.

06 Italy
B: More wonderful lyrics from Italy.
A: Very familiar-sounding vocal arrangement here, with an air of timelessness about it that could see it set to music today and sounding like it had been written especially.
V: I love Eva Zanicchi: what a voice. She looks like she’s reading the lyrics off a prompter.

07 United Kingdom
B: I suppose ‘Lulu’ is more catchy a stage name than ‘Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie’.
A: Easy to see the appeal of this; it owes a lot to past entries, but is quite accomplished in its own right. The vocal arrangement in the chorus is just different enough to make it truly interesting.
V: Very colourful live. Love the “olé!” at the end.

08 The Netherlands
B: Lovely lyrics again, telling a story from start to finish, with great alliteration in “Zo zong hij heel zijn leven lang / Zijn eigen lied, zijn eigen zang / Toch gaat de dood gewoon zijn gang”.
A: Wonderfully rich composition, too, which Lenny Kuhr’s vocals suit perfectly, directing our emotional response to it all.
V: How very Dutch she looks! She wasn’t the old one in Treble, was she? Commanding performance.

09 Sweden
B: That screen grab on Diggiloo must be the bit where Tommy sings “Believe me, it was more than a mouthful”. “Kanske jag ändrar mig, då hörs jag av / Då ska jag presentera mig som din Mister Medel-Svensson” is a lyrical gem, both amusing and scathing.
A: Unassuming, this, on the whole, with some impressive stuff happening here and there, although again the key change is unnecessary. We’re still getting stuff like it in Melodifestivalen today, so there must be an enduring affection for it.
V: Very laid-back performance, with impressive awareness of the microphone cord.

10 Belgium
B: Catherine, Judy, Jennifer... running theme, anyone? I love the “Hopeloos voorbij” coda, but why choose a name as clunky as ‘Jennifer Jennings’?
A: How very daring of them to write a song with no obvious catch in the chorus. If it had one, considering the straightforward strength of the rest, it would be textbook late ’60s pop.
V: Nice vocals live, but what’s that Tourette’s fit he throws on the first line of the first chorus all about? He looks a bit shifty, too.

11 Switzerland
B: The rather banal early lyrics in this are offset a little by the ‘but I know it will all turn to shit’ take later on in the piece.
A: Very Swedish in the way that the chorus and verses seem to have been shackled together from different songs, albeit without the Swedish finesse that allows them to get away with it. The whole slow-down-speed-up thing can be seen a mile off.
V: Inoffensive in every sense, but hardly a showstopper (apart from the final note). Sounds much more cohesive as a piece of music when played live.

12 Norway
B: Wonderfully, uncomfortably honest in places, these lyrics.
A: Unlike Switzerland, this sounds like all of the bits of the song came from the same place, but they still don’t sit together very happily.
V: What a shame Kirsti Sparboe didn’t spit this one out with the drunken venom it needed! Instead she just looks like she’s having a bit of a laugh.

13 Germany
B: Yet another entry about a music box, but the lyrics aren’t as interesting here as the Norwegian ones from whenever it was; the metaphor gets a bit obvious, too, when you’re presented with it more than once.
A: Good lord, this is familiar. I know someone did an Estonian version of it, probably the day after the 1969 contest. I wonder if that’s where I know it from. Wonderful vocals, and the arrangement has some fantastic touches to it. It’s slightly too classy to be accused of aiming for the same tone as the likes of Puppet On A String. Certain bars could almost be Greek.
V: Nice performance, albeit one that drags a bit.

14 France
B: The French [lyricists] have a thing for these ‘welcome to the world’ songs, don’t they.
A: Stands out a mile from everything else for how seriously it takes itself, without being too po-faced.
V: The orchestral arrangement is divine, as are Frida Boccara’s vocals: she puts in an impassioned performance. If today’s rules had applied, this would have been the outright winner (for what it’s worth).

15 Portugal
B: Portuguese poetry in motion once again – where else could something like ‘love in every husked corn cob’ possibly come from? “Ó, minha terra... / Casca de noz desamparada” is depressingly beautiful.
A: Fado with a ’60s arrangement, and yet the pop concessions take nothing away from it.
V: Simone de Oliveira’s earrings prove that what we saw in the eighties was the history of accessories repeating itself. They are almost as powerful and expressive as her voice.

16 Finland
B: Try saying “enempää mä nää” and convincing anyone Finnish is a beautiful language.
A: The trumpet (or whatever it is) is like the disembodied third singer in this. There is a lightness of touch to the vocals that I like – especially on Jarkko’s, since Laura’s aren’t the most convincing – but I’m not overly taken with the comedy approach to the music, which would make it a perfect Muppets number.
V: Let’s be honest, Laura was never going to make Miss Finland, was she. She looks a bit like an owl in a wig.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to Belgium

2 points go to Sweden

3 points go to Ireland

4 points go to Germany

5 points go to the United Kingdom

6 points go to Portugal

7 points go to Italy

8 points go to the Netherlands

10 points go to Spain

and finally...

12 points go to...


France!!!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Luxembourg. Again.