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 the music.
A: 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 very catchy, and a great number to open the contest.
V: The la-la clap-along bit is a bit of a nadir, if 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, as is the choreography, but beyond that it’s all quite cheery and doesn’t 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: We’re more than halfway through and I’m still waiting for a discernible structure. And a chorus. It just meanders on until it reaches the fitting, if still somewhat irritating, ‘la la la’ denouement.
V: Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in some songs and performances, but it doesn’t do a lot for this entry. Or am I just missing the point?
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 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. It just 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, at least 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 fact that one of the Benny and Bjørn half of the Bendik singers suffering from strabismus (or, to put it colloquially, one eye looking at you and the other eye looking for you) is the most noteworthy aspect of this performance says a lot about the rest of it.
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: The unprepossessing Marie has an irritating voice. The train she’s on sets out with the right intentions, but gets lost along the way and in the end derails completely.
07 Spain
B: The lyrics just repeat the title ad infinitum. More wheat things happening, too.
A: For years I’d heard the praises of Eres tú sung loud and was therefore disappointed to find that, while perfectly competent, it isn’t all that 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: 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. Amaya has strikingly wide-set almond eyes.
08 Switzerland
B: This is a list song, in a way, which I rarely 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 of 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, 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 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, which just seem to be 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’m 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.
A: The chorus is a bit lame here, despite the effort they exert to do interesting and unusual things with the arrangement and delivery during it. Sounds like something from the soundtrack to Priscilla, at least to begin with.
V: Fittingly, Martine Clémenceau has something of the look of an aging but still glamorous transsexual singing into a hair brush (or perhaps a hot roller), and it 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: Live, on the other hand, it 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.
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