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: Is that the Emperor and Empress of Japan applauding in the audience? Love the percussion here, 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.

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. Irish 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, as in the kind of Chinese restaurants that 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 all 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. The doo-doo-doo ending feels completely out of place, whether it’s meant to be a party song or not.
V: This is odd: it just sort of starts and ends, and 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 Luxembourg! 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.
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, only 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 was the best thing Austria had ever sent to Eurovision to this point.

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 feels 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? 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 such we can 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.