1983

At first I thought this was going to be a fairly average year, but I found myself trying to stuff a baker’s dozen into my top 10 and struggling on the rankings once I’d finally decided which songs to include. In the end, the winner picked itself. Surprising amount of quality all told, and nothing without a redeeming feature of some sort. The three languages and pregnant pauses are a bit much though.

01 France
B: The more I look at these lyrics, the more I’m sensing all sorts of metaphors.
A: I like the way this develops from straight ballad to soundtrack music. The structure is a bit off-putting at times though, and there’s a sense that it’s taking itself altogether too seriously. Fits together neatly enough, having said that.
V: Guy Bonnet looks like he’s just had something unexpected inserted in his person at times. Perhaps that’s where the lines “...aime à genoux / ...même si tu dois souffrir” come from. Nice vision mixing from the team at ARD. The big ending sounds a bit out of place.

02 Norway
B: “Så enkel og så fin.” I’ll be the judge of that.
A: The introduction does nothing to endear this song to me. In fact it irritates the crap out of me. But more than that: it almost seems out of place, despite the point of the whole song, because what follows is musically otherwise quite decent for Eurovision. And yet it’s so tired – it’s Jahn Teigen again, with a song written by him and Anita Skorgan again, from the same lyricist as their 1982 entry, and it really has no ambition whatsoever. Still, it’s nice to see that the ending is as bad as the start. At least they were consistent.
V: I remember my mum wearing outfits scarily similar to those sported by the backing vocalists, whose contribution here is more welcome than Mr Teigen’s. The orchestra does a good job of the music.

03 United Kingdom
B: These lyrics read like they were penned by a non-native speaker, which makes me wonder whether any of the fabulously named writing team of Roker, Pulsford and Wigger were foreigners. Is the title a threat or a promise?
A: As usual for the UK, this is very much a product of its time. You can see why it didn’t do that well, but it’s not bad. In fact the chorus is rather good: textbook stuff in more ways than one. There’s no need for a key change though.
V: And I thought the Norwegian outfits were bad! I’m gobsmacked at how good this sounds, which I suspect has something to do with the invisible backing singers.

04 Sweden
B: As clichés go, “Stjärnor jag ser dom, vill gärna ta ner nån till dig” is rather pretty.
A: At last I can refer to ABBA for good reason. The chorus is surprisingly underwhelming until it all gets turned up a notch at two minutes, but the production is very solid (as it should be coming from the prolific Lasse Holm). Is it an indictment against Sweden that this song could have come from Melodifestivalen 25 years later, only programmed?
V: Carola sounds her age, in a good way. If only there was as much power in her three-quarter pants and tank top as there is in her voice! I suppose I have to resign myself to the fashions. Another stellar turn from the backing vocals and orchestra here – you’d think you were listening to the studio version at times.

05 Italy
B: Now this is a set of lyrics. (Can you imagine anyone in the Balkans ever contemplating wasting this many words on one song? Of course in not doing so they’re denying themselves, and us, the poetry that so many Italian entries represent.) I love the lines “...quando spegnerai / Indosserai le stelle e... / Avrai ... / un silenzio quando vuoi parlare”.
A: The song’s secondary to the story it’s telling and simply carries it along rather than flowing in its own right. Which is not to say that it’s not good – it just doesn’t grab me, feven with those lyrics. More guns here, too, after France; was there some war going on around Christmas/New Year 1982-83? The Falklands was earlier than that, no?
V: If I was the drummer having to follow that plodding timing I’d be covering my ears with those giant headphones, too. Lovely performance by one and all, yet again, but there’s just not enough to the music to hold your interest. Riccardo’s little “I did it!” bit at the end is endearing, if somewhat self-deceptive.

06 Turkey
B: What a mystifying choice of ode for the Eurovision stage. And it’s a list song to boot.
A: Just doesn’t work.
V: Çetin Alp has a good voice, but he looks like he’s stepped out of a[n admittedly dapper] production of Dracula. The schadenfreude when novelty entries fall flat on their arse is *chef's kiss*.

07 Spain
B: Bonkers. “Las trenzas de tu madre… / Que dime quién se las peina… / Voy a pedirle que me trence, anda y sí” shows that the best hairdressers have always been gay.
A: I can understand why the juries were a bit reluctant to throw points Spain’s way. What I prefer to call Who Floats My Boat? probably has great artistic and musical value, but it isn’t ideally suited to a contest like Eurovision.
V: This is hard to take your eyes off, for many, many reasons. Ironically, or perhaps understandably, Ms Amaya looks pained. It’s odd how enthusiastic the audience is for it when the people giving out the points weren’t: you have to wonder how it would have fared if there’d been anything resembling a televote at the time.

08 Switzerland
B: “Così non mi va... / Si fa per amore oppure no” – give it a chance, love, or your husband will be out in search of a rent boy! For some reason Swiss Italian never comes across as entirely authentic to me; maybe the Swiss operating in about five languages simultaneously explains it. The lyricist of this is the same one behind Switzerland ’81, ’86 and ’88, and it shows, whatever the language.
A: Back to more traditional Eurovision territory then with the Swiss entry – surprise! – but I actually quite like it. The chorus is nothing like what I expected it to be, which is nice.
V: There’s a real hair war going on here between Mariella and her band. She looks and sounds like she’s singing her own song at the beginning, completely ignorant of what’s going on around her. The performance, like the song, is competent but wholly unexciting.

09 Finland
B: I like the line “Huominen on kaiku eilisen”.
A: So easy to pinpoint as Nordic. It’s amazingly melodramatic, considering how accurate and ordinary a picture the lyrics paint. It has to be one of the least Finnish-sounding Finnish entries from back in the day. Good it is, too. (Coincidence?!)
V: Great direction again, and the sound certainly matches the visuals in quality. I assume it was always the Finnish itself that turned the juries off the country’s entries, since here, as so often, it sounds awful. But top marks for the performance.

10 Greece
B: The romance in these six lines of lyrics is rather sinister in a Fatal Attraction kind of way.
A: The contrast between Finland and this works in both their favour. The music is just lovely, and the arrangement is grea– oh. It turns into a show number two-thirds of the way through. Why couldn’t it content itself with being a gentle ballad?
V: They thought it was worth having a guy on stage just to play the triangle? I love this up to the two-minute mark, but can’t abide it after that. The nasty saxophone sums it up.

11 The Netherlands
B: Flash forward 20 years and “Hoe het daar is en wat doe je dan zo aldaar” could be a line out of Wadde hadde dudde da.
A: I was prepared to hate this, but it’s too well-produced. Yes, it’s twee and annoying, but unlike much that is twee and annoying, it still works. I’d rather it not have been done by the Dutch, but what can you do. At least the production is pretty much guaranteed to be good that way (and the arrangement here is terrific, with touches of Xanadu). But would you ever guess that it was composed by the same person as De troubadour and De eerste keer?
V: What on earth is Bernadette wearing, a garland of daffodils? She might have the range, but she hasn’t got the depth to her vocals to outshine the orchestra, let alone the backing vocalists, so she gets a bit lost in this.

12 Yugoslavia
B: Neat play on words in “I nju mi je odnio dan / Ostalo samo je sjećanje na jedan juli”.
A: For a long time, Bosnia was just as bad as Sweden for still producing the same music they’d been making for the previous 30 years. Is this Bosnian? [Checks.] Oh. Oh well, you get the idea. I don’t like it much at all, but I won’t necessarily mark it down because of it. Funny how this and Rock Me were their big success stories.
V: The slight injection of tempo here makes this come across a bit odd to my ears, and it’s the first time tonight that the music has sounded empty and far away. Danijel’s vocals are spot on.

13 Cyprus
B: Last year’s winner repackaged.
A: Pretty obvious attempt at Ein bißchen frieden in terms of composition, too (in the bits between verses and choruses). Still, it’s very solid, and the arrangement is both rich and imaginative in parts. Singer Dina went on to compose Mana mou, so of course I love her.
V: You could strip this of the language, the look, just about everything basically and the vocal technique alone would be enough to pinpoint it geographically. I wonder whether the beefed-up arrangement was a reaction to it all sounding a bit too much like E.B.F. I’m not sure I like it as much, but it’s still well done. Elena Patroklou resembles a brunette Bette Midler.

14 Germany
B: Good lyrics, with none of the superficiality that many German entries are tarnished by. I love the lines “Fehlte uns die Kraft, uns zu vertrauen? / War es Angst vor ehrlichem Gefühl?”
A: Great chorus. Very solid overall, and a great entry on home soil.
V: Were they the Hoffmanns’ best matching blue and pea-green outfits, do you think? I love the fact that they just stand there and deliver this. I would have been as chuffed as this audience clearly are to have something of this quality representing me at home.

15 Denmark
B: Kloden drejer looks so un-Danish to me for some reason.
A: Nothing much to the music or lyrics here, but Denmark did this kind of thing very well back in the day. Strange how it morphed into guitars and mid-tempo.
V: Love the minimalist, bassy feel to the chorus, but Gry’s vocals are very exposed. Yes, let’s leave it at that.

16 Israel
B: Given that these lyrics combine the themes of songs, praying, the nation of Israel and friends from across the seas, they’re more quattro formaggi than anything you’d find on an Italian restaurant menu.
A: Completely Israeli, as you might expect it to be when composed by Avi Toledano and written by Ehud Manor, but good enough to overcome it, too. The arrangement is impressive, if a little busy at times, which nevertheless fits in with the lyrics. Ofra Haza has a lovely voice. Perfect stuff for Eurovision really. Takes ages to get to the first chorus, but soon makes up for it.
V: The political significance of this song being performed by Jews in Germany is as impossible to ignore as the audience’s enthusiasm for it. But then, on a purely Eurovision level it works a treat: its allure is undeniable.

17 Portugal
B: I wonder, with lines like “Mas não há nenhum mal em ser assim”, whether the ‘she’ of the opening line is his psychiatrist?
A: Everything about this is romantic, from the flow of the words and the way Armando delivers them to his oh-so-right voice and the orchestration of it all... bar the electric guitar, for which it automatically loses points. Otherwise lovely.
V: Mr Gama looks like the love child of Yoko Ono and Professor Snape. He sings beautifully, and there’s nothing wrong with any of it. But in the context of some of the other songs and performances, it’s just a bit too unremarkable for its own good.

18 Austria
B: Lyrics like “Ich leb’ in meinen Phantasien” and “Ganz allein mit meinem Kummer” would set off all sorts of alarms if this were the German entry, but you know Austria’s never going to be quite that interesting.
A: What a triumph for synthesisers everywhere this is, especially when paired with those strings. I bet it sounded nothing like this live.* It would be easy to dismiss it as yet another lame Austrian entry, but it’s not bad really.
V: Oh my god – those outfits! Gary Lux looks like Kenny Everett. *Actually it sounds exactly the same. I’m impressed. The routine makes perfect sense, and the vocals only get better as they go along.

19 Belgium
B: It took two people to write those lyrics?
A: Sounds like Bananarama. Never a hope in hell of impressing the juries, but it’s a little masterpiece. It’s like modern art, only you get it. I think.
V: Utterly, fabulously amazing. Pretty much everything has sounded good tonight, but nothing has sounded this good.

20 Luxembourg
B: Wonderful, terribly sad lyrics: “Mais le temps a tous les droits / Et l’enfant qui n’est pas là / C’est aujourd’hui mon seul bonheur imaginaire”.
A: The big French number none of the other French-speaking countries could manage in 1983. Is that (and the fact that it comes straight after the rather more off-beat Belgium) the reason the juries voted for it? It’s competent, certainly, but doesn’t strike me as being overwhelmingly good. Just good. The ending’s rubbish, after all.
V: Every time I see Corinne Hermes she looks like she’s just had a fan-forced convection oven opened in her face while baking in her dressing gown. She certainly overeggs the pudding here. I both can and can’t understand why this won, which is a bit of a shame really.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to Cyprus

2 points go to the Netherlands

3 points go to Denmark

4 points go to the United Kingdom

5 points go to Portugal

6 points go to Israel

7 points go to Finland

8 points go to Sweden

10 points go to Germany

and finally…

12 points go to...


Belgium!


The wooden spoon goes to Switzerland.

1982

Odd to have a year without big guns Italy and France; even Greece’s absence is felt, despite Cyprus showing up, and if not exactly missed. Maybe they stayed away because of the strange way the contest unfolds: in studio there’s lots of fun to be had, but on stage, however hard a lot of them try, they just can’t convince me the contest is an enjoyable experience.

01 Portugal
B: Hey!
A: Surely a contender for Portugal’s most brainlessly upbeat entry (and successfully so)?
V: I first came across this and a host of other Portuguese entries quite by accident one day when I found my way to the TVP site and discovered it had clips of every Portuguese entry from 1964 to the present. I was drawn to this of course by their outrageous – but somehow still rather glamorous and culturally appropriate – costumes. I fell in love with it immediately. Live it sounds very empty compared to the bass-driven studio version, despite the very obvious percussion. And the vocals are a bit rough in the verses. But what can you do. It’s still fab.

02 Luxembourg
B: “Il faut être fou / Pour vivre à genoux” – not sure everyone would agree with you there, dear! This is quite interesting when you consider just how materialistic the ’80s would prove to be. It’s the first example of a not-France French song from this year that looks like it was put together by a sixth-form student armed with a rhyming dictionary.
A: Svetlana’s delivery is right for the song but borderline irritating-as-fuck.
V: What I thought would be the weakest link here based on the studio version ­– Svetlana herself – turns out to be perfectly alright. At first I thought the fact that there were 500% more backing vocalists was designed to mask her shortcomings, but not so. That said, the song and performance are still pretty uninvolving.

03 Norway
B: “De vil aldri dø” indeed: you couldn’t weld the lid shut on the Eurovision coffin of these two underachievers, could you?
A: At least they kept them short. This is a decent enough attempt at a touching piano-led ballad, but it struggles to even locate the heartstrings, let alone tug at them.
V: Has Jahn Teigen just stopped in on his way to the pub? This sounds lovely, but then it has the kind of arrangement that was always going to benefit most from the set-up. The bits where Anita stops playing mid-way through the chorus look weird.

04 United Kingdom
B: I like how realistic “But I forgot all the things that I planned to say / I don’t know if I tried to” is, and I initially put lots of exclamation marks beside the lines “You could have turned around / And hit me and I wouldn’t have cared” because I assumed it would be a woman singing them. Dodgy either way, of course.
A: Again the UK pushes the envelope and tries to force something contemporary on doggedly intractable Eurovision. This stands the test of time remarkably well if you ask me. Pity they didn’t make more of the short-lived early fusion of synths and acoustics.
V: Stephen Fischer and Sally Ann Triplett are decent singers, but this fails to come together however much they throw at it. It doesn’t help that the entire chorus sounds like it was written for tambourine, the way the sound emerges from the orchestra.

05 Turkey
B: Such a fascinating language: even Finnish would be hard-pressed to sum up the ideas contained in lines like “Konuşulmuyor hiçkimseyle” so economically, and yet Turkish looks and sounds to me at times surprisingly similar to another Finno-Ugric language, Hungarian (“Kullanmazsan birkaç tatlı sözcük”, for example).
A: They like their extended introductions, don’t they? This sounds quite good; a bit repetitive, but this is offset by the variety of the arrangement, which features some great strings and never for a minute lets your attention slip. I’m glad to see it had at least one set of decent points thrown its way.
V: The first 20 or so Turkish national finals must have been sad and strange affairs. “Who shall we send to be unjustly ignored this time?” Mind you, they look like the cast of a cult sci-fi series, and the backing vocalists have no concept of the term ‘subtlety’. It all comes together quite well – if rather brassily – towards the end.

06 Finland
B: The first Eurovision entry to contain the word ‘poo’? You’ve got to praise this for having such a serious message at its heart. Needless to say the play on words in the title is fantastic, and I love virtually everything about the line “Jos et sä herää tällä erää, niin et herää ollenkaan”.
A: Musically it’s a bit of a disaster, despite the orchestral arrangement, because it seems so meandering and disjointed. But maybe that’s the whole point. Incidentally, when you go back and compare them, this and Hani? have uncannily similar beginnings.
V: Within seconds it’s obvious no one’s going to vote for this, but in its way it’s a work of genius by the Eurovision standards of the day. For much of it Kojo sounds like he’s left his vocal cords in Helsinki.

07 Switzerland
B: I identify with the lines “On peut quitter sa patrie... / Il nous faut l’amour d’abord / ...quand bien même tu nous enchaînes”.
A: However, this is another case of Switzerland going for the lowest common denominator. The composition sits together very comfortably, but therein lies the problem: the chorus in particular is predictable to the last. A safe but entirely unrewarding two-and-a-half minutes, with a naff title to boot.
V: Best orchestral arrangement so far, and it comes across all the more convincingly for following Finland. Still unexciting though. No wonder it came third.

08 Cyprus
B: ‘Only love’, Anna – we get it already.
A: The bridge is the musical highpoint of this song, promising to turn it into something completely different; the rest, I’m afraid, fails to win me over. And why am I not surprised by the instrument of choice?
V: It’s The Curious Case of Anna Vissi, in that she almost looks older here than she did in Athens. I blame the perm. (I inevitably do. Even the guy on backing vocals has one!) Rather like the Swiss entry, this is cleverly arranged to make the most of the orchestra, but it fails to do anything for me whatsoever.

09 Sweden
B: You look at some of the lyrics here (“Men nu var det nåt som sa mig”, “Sen den dag jag såg dig här...” et al.) and think: do they have some rule that word length must not exceed the number of fingers on one hand on which you can count their letters?
A: You can sing along to this even if you’ve never heard it before and still hit most of the right notes, but there’s something about Swedish schlager that makes that a good thing where in the case of Switzerland it just doesn’t. Perhaps because it doesn’t seem so contrived, although it clearly is. Double standards perhaps to reward it for doing what you expect of it, but that’s my prerogative.
V: Schlager this simplistic should at least be fun, and yet this must qualify as one of the most listless and perfunctory Swedish performances the contest has seen. I didn’t expect that from this pair at all.

10 Austria
B: Never have six less true words been spoken (or sung) than “Hat so etwas Schönes an sich”.
A: They chose to call themselves ‘Mess’? Why not call yourself ‘Our Song Is Shit’?
V: Kudos to them: they do a good job of filling up the stage when there’s only two of them, and of making it all seem like something verging on fun. Vocally they manage much the same feat. But there’s no disguising how empty the music sounds for a lot of the song, and the emphasis on the strings in the opening bars doesn’t work.

11 Belgium
B: “N’est-elle pas magnifique? / … / Fais qu’elle fasse vibrer!”
A: Fab early ’80s disco, but it’s saddled with a chorus from a much more irritating and run-of-the-mill song, and those incessant drums (snare?) really annoy me.
V: Of course the trump card was in getting a proper diva to do this: it’s the kind of thing that would be wrong in the hands of anyone else. (That said, she seems to have recycled her curtains, and delegated backing vocals to her secretary.) Needless to say this is as fabulous in closing as the pink music box is in opening it.

12 Spain
B: I love the line “Él es igual que un perro fiel”, and the lyrics generally. It all makes me think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for some reason. Veruca Salt?
A: This sort of sits you up and slaps you around the face, doesn’t it? Just in time for the orgasmic sighing. And key change. It’s more or less run its course before two minutes are up and after that very literally fades away to nothing, but it’s impressive while it lasts.
V: Wonderfully airheaded and full of character. I too would be prancing around on tiptoe most of the time if I had trousers as tight as Lucia’s mascara-clad male dancer.

13 Denmark
B: You’re really reminded of the era you’re stranded in when you’re given references to colour TV like it’s something magical. Some things never go out of fashion though: “...når jeg ska’ slappe af / Bar’ et tryk på knappen...” indeed; only the technology changes! I can see why such an obsession would have led to accusations along the lines of “Hun si’r jeg ikke er helt normal”.
A: This must have been very much of its time. They should have realised it would get them nowhere. Flawed, and slightly cringeworthy when you look back on it now (can you imagine an entry in the mid-’00s called iPod, iPod or something?), but get past that and you can see its worthy qualities. Such as they are.
V: Pretty much everything I said about Nuku pommiin also applies to this, apart from the bit about it possibly being a work of genius. Very early ’80s in a way that didn’t serve it terribly well then and still doesn’t now.

14 Yugoslavia
B: They’re leaving themselves open with admissions like “Priče sve, čudno je”.
A: I can appreciate why they might have thought they were onto a winner with this very ABBA-sounding number. Pity it’s already at least five years behind the times. I’m seeing Pac-Man, for some reason.
V: Until the key change, when they start sounding somewhat less like drag queens, this sounds unremittingly awful.

15 Israel
B: Love the imagery of “Ve’od nisa ha’arafel ba’emek / Bein hazricha vehatal”.
A: I like the instrument at the beginning. Is it a fiddle? This follows a well-worked formula, so I’m not surprised to see that it very nearly delivered them their third victory in only five years. The way it builds is very effective.
V: The staging and choreography are pretty standard in approach, too, but they work like a charm in a line-up which seems to have been deliberately designed to sap the fun out of everything. To this point it’s head and shoulders above everything else.

16 The Netherlands
B: The vowel-o-rama of “Daar waar de perenboom staat” is positively Estonian.
A: Ooh, what does this sound like? Morning Train springs to mind, but I’m not sure it’s that. Something famous and chart-topping from the period though. Good vocal arrangement: nothing overwhelming, but with some nice touches that unexpectedly lift it.
V: Bill van Dijk sounds like the most cliched Dutch name you could think of. Full marks for looking and sounding like something very much of its time.

17 Ireland
B: Terrible lyrics.
A: In the verses this sounds very early (and indeed some much later!) Bananarama, while at the same time showing all the signs of being complete early ’80s disco, no holds barred. The chorus is far too lacklustre for this kind of song, although I quite like the mechanical nature of it, which feels right. In fact by the end of it I’m quite disposed towards it.
V: The orchestra sheds most of the disco trappings here, but the Duskeys do their best to retain them in their awful outfits and choreography. Sounds alright though.

18 Germany
B: “Dass ich die Hoffnung nie mehr verlier!” Well, one win from 50+ attempts clearly sustained them until Lena came along.
A: I suppose Bernd & Ralph had to get it right at some point: this has WINNER stamped all over it in huge splotches of red ink. Touches of Elton John piano in evidence once again.
V: Very simple and effective; blue vein cheesy, but Nicole’s sincere and charming enough to pull it off. Plus it sounds like nothing else before it.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to the United Kingdom

2 points go to Sweden

3 points go to Norway

4 points go to Turkey

5 points go to Belgium

6 points go to the Netherlands

7 points go to Spain

8 points go to Portugal

10 points go to Israel

and finally...

12 points go to...


Germany!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Yugoslavia.

1981

Odd that Austria and Turkey were drawn 1-2 again, and Luxembourg 4. Another of those years where nothing is dreadfully awful but neither is anything fantastically good. My original post-listening top 10 underwent significant changes once I got to see the live performances.

01 Austria
B: The sentiments in these lyrics are nice enough, and realistic, but bland at the same time.
A: The arrangement is lovely in the introduction, and generally throughout, but as a piece of pop music this kind of forgets to go anywhere after about the minute mark. The vocals in the chorus are hard to latch onto as well. But in its defence, it does sound like something off the soundtrack of a 1980s American TV show.
V: Marty Brem looks a hell of a lot more attractive here than he did the year before as part of Blue Danube, but what’s with the girl in the gridiron helmet, and what’s going on with that choreography? All it does is underscore what a slow start to the contest this song makes, regardless of the more upbeat bits in the chorus.

02 Turkey
B: I like the way “Yaşamak oyun değil arkadaş / Dünyaya gelmenin bir bedeli var” turns your idea of what a song called The Carousel might be about pretty much on its head straight away. It’s quite philosophical actually. The lines translated as ‘Lucky are those who go up my friend / But by those who go down stand true friends’ are nevertheless worth a snigger.
A: Turkey sounds like it’s clinging on to the dying days of the ’70s for grim life. Can’t hear much of a modern folk influence in the music, or indeed anything terribly Turkish, showing that there was in fact a time when the country didn’t think you had to have belly dancing and hanky waving just because. Then again, given what I said about Austria, maybe all music around this time was faceless.
V: Good vocals live from the foursome, with a nice clean routine that seems to go down well with the audience. Glad they’d all had their teeth bleached to match their outfits. Aysegül Aldinç is quite glam; everyone else looks kinda dorky. (Extra points for the conductor: Onno Tunçboyacıyan is such a fantastic name!)

03 Germany
B: “Kinder können grausam sein” is the understatement of the century.
A: If you look for the heart of this song where it’s meant to be, you’ll find it there, but it’s still super twee. The mouth organ is not nearly as annoying as it could be though, and the music as a whole comes together very nicely, as you might expect from the stable of Ralph Siegel & Bernd Meinunger. It’s also one of those entries, so few and far between, that makes German sound quite pretty.
V: Lena Valaitis is actually Elena Valaitytė! Does that make her the first – and to this day most successful – Lithuanian on the Eurovision stage? She puts in a nice performance that makes lots of sense (compared to the studio version) and works the cameras well.

04 Luxembourg
B: I bet “Elle berce mes nuits de cafard” is the only time J-CP ever used ‘elle’ in an admission like that. I wholeheartedly concur that “l’Amérique, ce n’est pas tout”.
A: The reed instruments are lovely, but this is very much a live song.
V: Jean-Claude Pascal returns, all ears and ill-fitting dentures, 20 years after scooping the pools with Nous les amoureux. He’s a true showman with a lovely voice and a great command of the stage; but it’s obvious from the word go that this ode to music is about as old[-fashioned] as Jean-Claude himself. Great turn from the backing vocalists.

05 Israel
B: The repetition of these lyrics ties in with what they’re saying, I suppose.
A: The intro here promises something sedately discotastic. [Listens further] Indeed, it’s all building very nicely, with a great handle on harmonies and melody. If it were a bit more brash it could be Chic. [Then] Love the way it takes off around the two-minute mark. The vocals don’t sound all that convincing, it has to be said, but at the same time if Abba had done anything truly disco it probably would have sounded like this. Love the key change downwards at the end of the choruses.
V: The Israelis like their line-up singing, don’t they? It looks a bit silly with the microphone cords going everywhere. Shlomit Aharon looks like the template from which Xandee was moulded. Super cheesy straight-to-camera performance, as many from the country are. Works quite well here but lacks the incident I’d like it to have.*

06 Denmark
B: “Længe leve børn / Om de har krøller eller ej” is a simple and endearing message.
A: The vocals in the verses are slightly heavy for what they’re getting across, and the instrumental break is a bit Love Boat, but that doesn’t mean I love it any less.
V: *Speaking of which...! Exactly the energy Israel should have had. Fab! The chorus hits just the right note. I adore the way the backing vocalists look like such nerds singing this kind of song.

07 Yugoslavia
B: It’s called Lejla and he has a beard and a vaguely Middle Eastern sounding name – it must be Bosnia’s turn! And the lyrics are almost the same, too: unrequited love.
A: Musically this is about as far from its namesake as it can get, ploughing a course I would normally associate with the likes of Israel. There are nice touches to the arrangement, but it lacks anything that really holds your attention.
V: Seid-Memić, who clearly wasn’t wont to suck on a Fishermen’s Friend, brings the Yugoslavs back after a four-year break. It occasionally sounds like he’s about to break into a rendition of Leader of the Pack. He seems very cheery singing such a sad song.

08 Finland
B: Great rhythm and rhyme in some of the lines here, but Finnish still isn’t winning the language equivalent of Miss World.
A: This almost sounds like something I might want to listen to as a studio version. Does it exhibit an early use of synthesisers? Perhaps the version I have is a later remix or re-recording.
V: Live, about half of the music seems to be missing, so it struggles to find the energy it needs to make it make more sense. It just seems a bit daft and empty, and has me thinking that if “mätti joka sanoo kiitti mulle riitti”, you can call me Mätti. I suppose the accordion makes sense if they were going to do Finnish reggae. I might not like this much, but it strikes me as being perfectly of its time, if not even a little ahead. Absolutely everyone looks appalling though: definite nul points for the lack of fashion, even if it managed to scrape together enough points to make 16th.

09 France
B: These lyrics seem a bit preachy in a new-age kind of way.
A: The backing vocals as recorded here are a bit too prim for my liking, and I’m not a fan of the organ. As a composition it comes across as rather faceless for something purporting to mean so much; at least the chorus is quite catchy. Once it takes things up a notch towards the end it hits its stride, but it takes its time getting there.
V: Jean Gabilou, who looks like a slightly less exaggerated version of Marty Feldman, turns this into an altogether different when he tells it in person. This is another performance that comes together on stage much better than in studio, with fantastic vocals from start to finish. Really takes it up in my estimations.

10 Spain
B: I love the imagery of “El viento enreda tus cabellos / Como queriéndote acariciar”.
A: I like this vocal arrangement. The whole thing is put together tidily, with the language suiting the sound of it really well. It’s good to hum along to, without a lot of individual personality. In fact most of the songs this year sound like TV theme tunes and/or have a sense of familiarity about them that takes me back to when I was about 5 years old.
V: Bacchelli has legs up to here, but looks like he’s knock-kneed and puts in a static and slightly underwhelming performance. It’s still good pop though.

11 The Netherlands
B: I can hardly not mention “Jij geeft m’n leven nu voorgoed een stimulans”, can I.
A: Didn’t at least a couple of ABBA songs start exactly like this? Didn’t at least a couple of ABBA songs sound exactly like this? I expect that was the point. As with several other Dutch entries it all gets a bit street performance in parts, but you can’t really fault the production. Needs something to lift it though, as it starts to drag after a while.
V: Linda Williams looks like a Play School presenter, albeit one with fabulous shoes. Good clapping live, and the vocals are lovely, but performing it like this reveals how plodding it really is. By the end of the first chorus – i.e the opening of the song – you’re already wondering where it’s got left to go. At least the second verse, in contrast to the rest of the song, is very meaningful.

12 Ireland
B: Great couplet in “Nothing can change the way we’ve chosen to live / And no one can tell us when to take or to give”, for at least two reasons.
A: I quite like the fact that they just diss superstition here in a song that is almost as upbeat as Ireland has ever gotten in the contest. The very Swedish piano is an unlikely and welcome inclusion amidst the heavy punctuation of the strings. Once the music kicks in, however, the vocals are very hard to make out in places, whichever version you’re listening to.
V: Vocally very competent, but not at all outstanding, and it all looks like something off a cheap Mardi Gras float. Marion Fossett has amazing bone structure.

13 Norway
B: “Tiden i ensomhet er forbi” – bet he wasn’t saying that come the voting.
A: While not all that enthralling, I can’t say that this is any better or worse than most of the songs so far, so it’s a mystery why it earned Norway yet another big fat zero. I like the acoustic slant of the verses when set off against the piano and percussion of the chorus. Can’t wait to hear how they reproduce those backing vocals live without it sounding empty and/or all over the shop.
V: The stage looks lovely for this, so it’s a pity Finn looks so awful... and yes, I can kind of understand now why it failed to impress anyone.

14 United Kingdom
B: Very confusing lyrics that seem to promote monogamy and screwing around at the same time. “Don’t let your indecision / Take you from behind” indeed!
A: It’s funny how strongly we place this in an ’80s Eurovision context when in fact even for 1981 it was as retro as all get out.
V: Bit of a Marie N win here if you ask me – the first sign, perhaps, of a performance swaying the juries more than the song itself? Not that it doesn’t have a strong hook: it’s just not very interesting. And they don’t even sound that good. And the guys’ trousers are way too tight. And have you ever seen so much hair on so many heads that looks so wrong?!

15 Portugal
B: Portugal showing they have a sense of humour for about the only time in their Eurovision lives. Seems like satire, but also irony...? Not the kind of thing you’d expect from them at all, influenced, perhaps, by the previous year’s Belgian entry.
A: It’s all rather bizarre, but surprisingly engaging at the same time, with some clever stuff happening in the music.
V: Carlos, who looks neither 23 nor like a doctor, actually has a good voice, albeit one better suited to something else. I love his outfit. No one was really going to go for this when it sounds this empty. Portugal at its absolutely least Portuguese.

16 Belgium
B: What does “Samson, vergeet je wilde haren” mean? Kick Dandy would make a great spoonerism.
A: Belgium’s with Turkey in desperately trying to prove that disco isn’t dead. This is more straightforward and successful in its aims, too, although the chorus for me is the weakest part after that great bridge. Perfect vocals for this kind of song though.
V: Works well live, although it’s screaming out for a massive diva on vocals.

17 Greece
B: “Fegari kalokerino, stu erota ton urano” sounds just like Cyprus ’96, and is just as lovely.
A: Apart from the language, this is another one to add to the ‘could have come from anywhere’ pile. Funny how whenever they’ve aimed for that kind of appeal it’s never really worked for them. Still, this is very of its time, and doesn’t do anything it shouldn’t.
V: This performance really highlights the richness of the arrangement, for all the good it does. Yiannis looks like he’s wearing a judo outfit.

18 Cyprus
B: Bit saccharine and repetitive.
A: The arrangement’s pretty monotonous too: the four lines of the chorus all follow the same tune. There’s nothing about this that explains to me why it fared so well for them on their first outing. I mean, it’s easy to get a handle on, but not really for the right reasons. Maybe the live performance made all the difference?
V: More hirsute Greek men! At least one of which I wouldn’t say no to. [Actually watches the performance] Well, yes, you can see why it appealed to the typical Eurovision jury of the time. There’s no wiping the smile off the pianist’s face.

19 Switzerland
B: Fourth language out of four for this trio, with great rhythm in “Dopo la tempesta camminiamo un po’ / Sulla sabbia pesta chiacchieriamo un po’”. The lyrics generally in the verses are great, while the chorus is a bit more sentimental and self-pitying.
A: Musically it’s the verses that go on a bit, while the chorus makes up for the slight drag in the verses. The vocal pitch and echoey production qualities suit the language perfectly. Given the absence of Italy, this makes a very authentic entry in its stead, and is probably the group’s most successful. It could just be this recording, but the composition sounds super-rich without doing anything especially different to most of the other songs.
V: Peter, Sue & Marc look every one of the 10 years it’s been since their first appearance, but their persistence was worth it.

20 Sweden
B: Interesting lyrics which are very much the reverse of most, such as in “Fångad i en dröm, hålls du kvar ändå av din fantasi”.
A: I appreciate the way the arrangement here departs from the more obvious Swedish ground it treads early in the verses, and although this makes it less accessible as a melody, it’s also in keeping with what the song is saying. I can’t say I like it all that much: strings and electric guitar never work that well for me. But it was clearly a popular genre in Sweden around this time.
V: Björn Skifs pretty much doubles his tally from his previous appearance in 1978 but still only manages 10th, which I feel is justified given 1) his outfit – lilac’s not really anyone’s colour – and 2) the fact that he hardly seems to be there during the verses. Good ending though.


And so to the points…

1 point goes to Ireland

2 points go to Spain

3 points go to Portugal

4 points go to Turkey

5 points go to Germany

6 points go to Switzerland

7 points go to France

8 points go to Belgium

10 points go to Israel

and finally...

12 points go to...


Denmark!


The wooden spoon would have gone to Luxembourg, but after seeing that performance I didn’t have the heart to slap it on dear old Jean-Claude, so instead – somewhat inevitably – it goes to Austria.

1980

What an absolutely cracking year! Under other circumstances virtually any of my top 12 could have taken the douze. Ranking them is a nightmare when the quality is pretty much wall to wall.

01 Austria
B: Eurovision’s ultimate list song?
A: Musically this all builds very satisfactorily to the end of each chorus, and from the halfway mark to the end it’s very easy to sing along to. Sounds great actually, which is not something you’ll often hear me say about Austrian entries. (Of which this is quite possibly my favourite.)
V: I admire Blue Danube for remembering all the names. They sound good together, but individually their voices are a bit irritating. They all look a bit dorky on stage apart from the glamorous blonde one. Was the conductor kept on as long as he was just because his surname was Österreicher? He was a permanent fixture in the orchestra pit for about a hundred years.

02 Turkey
B: I’m glad to have made the acquaintance of the words güçmüş and düşmüş.
A: Fantastic structure to the chorus here, and I love the breathy ‘ahhhhh!’ leading into it each time. Turkey were really good at straddling the divide between Eastern folk and Western disco/pop in the ’70s and ’80s. The percussion is fabulous from the off.
V: Ajda Pekkan is such a Charlie’s Angels diva: totally stunning. You’re transplanted to another world within moments of her opening her mouth – such a wonderfully alien approach to the vocals, which are brilliant throughout. But as much as I adore this, you can’t really blame anyone for being put off by it. (Incidentally, the woman introducing it just has to be the mother of that blonde one who was always giving their points!)

03 Greece
B: Vaguely approachable lyrics.
A: I keep wanting to throw in ‘I love you (I love you)’ during the verses, which owe a tad to Save Your Kisses for Me. Basically this is a sirtaki with some comedy sound effects. I won’t claim it’s not effective in its way, or that Greece weren’t aware of what your average Eurovision jury wanted, but there’s very little about it that’s inspired. Very well put together, and it doesn’t even feel like it labours the point when it clearly does: ‘autostop’ is repeated at least 37 times. Was this back in the day when hitch-hiking wasn’t a sure-fire way of getting yourself murdered, rolled up in a carpet and dumped in a ditch by a semi-trailer driver?
V: The pictures on Diggiloo do Anna Vissi no justice. She works the cameras like a total pro, and puts in a very watchable performance.

04 Luxembourg
B: Outdoing Greece, ‘Papa Pingouin’ is repeated 39 times (64 if you count ‘papa’ alone). The message at the heart of these lyrics is quite meaningful; it’s just a pity about the interpretation.*
A: The four-man composer and lyricist team were responsible for 45 entries for six countries between them and yet this is still all they could come up with. More than merely competent, of course, and the vocals sound good in studio, but the fact that it was a hit in France in 2006 when covered by a 10-year-old and set to a cheap animated video says all anyone needs to know about it. It might raise a smile if it were a Junior entry.
V: *And outfits. Sophie and Magaly aren’t the world’s best singers: without the backing vocalists bolstering their performance (including Mr Penguin himself) they’d be very exposed.

05 Morocco
B: Composer ’Abd Al-’Atī Amyna wins the award for having the most punctuation marks in one name.
A: Morocco steps into the breach left by Israel and delivers an anthem that could easily have come from the Promised Land if it weren’t for the mention of colour. I suppose if Turkey were doing it we shouldn’t be surprised that Morocco would go for disco as well, but it still comes as a surprise, especially when it owes even less to its land of origin than Petr’oil (apart, needless to say, from the vocals). Where it does stick out like a sore thumb is in its meandering structure, which generally is a feature of Turkish entries. Doesn’t do it many favours, it has to be said, but the ending sounds great. Kudos to them for sticking to Arabic when they could just as well have sung in French.
V: Nyssa of Traken sings for Morocco! She looks a bit like she doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so gestures vaguely every other bar.

06 Italy
B: “Poi le stelle e la luna spariranno e tu / Con le ali di cigno volerai laggiù” is nice – it’s not often you get swans in these songs – but overall it’s a bit bland.
A: Lucky it has a great arrangement then, albeit one that couldn’t exactly be described as adventurous, and Alan Sorrenti’s voice is not one I appreciate particularly (for the same reason I’ve never taken to the likes of the Bee Gees). Very ’80s sound to this for something barely out of the ’70s.
V: Live it hangs together neither visually nor vocally very successfully if you ask me. The verses are promising, but the chorus sounds like it’s been put through a Mouli whirl.

07 Denmark
B: Wonderful honesty in “Det er svært at lave om på mig / Ka’ det trøste lidt, at jeg / Altid tænker på dig?”
A: There’s something so unaffected about this, and so very Danish, that I can’t help but love it. I can understand why it was overlooked, but I personally find an awful lot to admire in it.
V: Unless you knew that the group’s name meant “teddy’s friends” you’d be forever wondering why they were all dressed in romper suits.

08 Sweden
B: Tomas wanted Paris and got... The Hague. I like the way almost the entire second half of the song is given over to repeating ‘just nu!’, as if in verbal defiance of “Veckan kryper fram, helgen springer förbi”. It works here so much better than in the Greek or Luxembourgish entries.
A: This is a markedly more successful one-man effort than Italy’s entry. It’s quite progressive in its way, while still bearing many of the hallmarks that have made Swedish music so successful since the 1970s.
V: Not sure the whole rock thing works on the Eurovision stage in 1980, at least not when the piccolo’s so close to the microphone down among the orchestra. Mr Ledin has the right kind of ‘are you looking at me’ look about him though, and I love it when he kicks his leg out. I wonder if he realised how camp it was.**

09 Switzerland
B: Peter Reber kept himself busy when he wasn’t on stage as part of Peter, Sue & Marc, didn’t he. I concur with “L’univers de mon enfance ne me quittera jamais”, but this is just super twee. It’s an indictment of sorts that this, the UK and Germany all earned more than 100 points.
A: If there was a bit more emphasis on the piano, this could well be mistaken for a Swedish entry (in the chorus). I can’t really say anything different about it than I said for Luxembourg: you can’t fault the way it’s put together, but that’s not necessarily something to be proud of.
V: **Almost as camp as Paola’s outfit. She’s back again after Bonjour, bonjour in 1969, with lovely bouncy hair; she and Ajda Pekkan should have done a Pantene commercial together. Good if rather twitchy performance.

10 Finland
B: There’s poetry in these lyrics: “On siinä päiväperhon leikkivä liito / Sammuvan tähden öinen viime kiito / ... / On siinä tuiskuvan talven hyytävä halla / Ihmisen pienuus kaikkeuden alla / On syksyn kuolevaa ruskaa, on elämä tuskaa / Sen huiluni soi”. Truly lovely.
A: This is a lot better than anyone might claim it to be. There are some very neat touches to the arrangement, as you would expect from the same composer as Lapponia, and I really like the unapologetic Finnishness of Vesa-Matti’s vocals (and vocalisation: I bet he was a real goer). The backing on the studio version is dreadful.
V: But I would have said it worked better live in any case. The ‘oops, a bit off there!’ moment towards the end is great, although you’ve got to wonder how many people realised it was intentional.

11 Norway
B: This only got 15 points in total and none of them came from Sweden or Finland, where you might reasonably expect them to.
A: If I’d been around in 1980 and discovered that the composer here hadn’t worked on any musicals I would have suggested he did so at once: there’s something very grand and theatrical about the way this is structured. It’s completely unorthodox and must have come across as quite mad. The way it undergoes such a sudden sea change mid-song is fabulous. You just have to go with it.
V: Mattis seems a very odd shape in that national costume, and makes yoiking look quite painful.

12 Germany
B: I like the metaphor of stage fright here, and the metaphor generally I suppose, but when you can’t appreciate the lyrics it’s just more nonsense from Siegel & Meinunger.
A: Credit where it’s due though: it’s really rather good. I wouldn’t have begrudged it victory. Very slick production, with a hundred times more oomph than the similarly styled Swiss effort.
V: And so the theatre continues, though catering much more to mainstream tastes. Goes down very well with the audience. Someone with red hair should never wear that much rouge. Did Katja borrow the bow tie from Luxembourg, do you think?

13 United Kingdom
B: “If there’s a place in your heart for me / There’s a room in my place for you” makes a nice play on words, but it sounds like he’s going to stuff her in an airing cupboard or bury her under the floorboards. “I’ve got love enough for two” sounds like he’s promoting bigamy as well.
A: This is a highly listenable piece of pop with a great hook in the chorus, but beyond that there’s not a lot to recommend it above many of the other songs this year. Having said that, the vocal arrangement stands out. The key change is unnecessarily clunky when half a bar earlier is a much more obvious place to introduce it more discreetly, but the ding-dong bell bits work well.
V: Atrocious outfits. Does it really need six people to sing a song called Love Enough for Two? At least the vocals are good.

14 Portugal
B: I’m not sure about the mechanics of “Este amor… / …é uma fonte / Que nasce dentro di mim”, but I’ll take his word for it.
A: Slightly muted, this. It seems to have said all it has to say before it’s even reached the minute mark. Yet another very solid arrangement, which kind of feels like it’s working backwards after starting with a (long) chorus.
V: Is José Cid Portugal’s answer to Elton John? Another one that has so much more energy live than in studio. The performance has me grinning like an idiot, even if it’s a bit of a cacophony and the pink outfits are a mistake.

15 The Netherlands
B: “Amsterdam... / De stad waar alles kan / ... / Iedereen die weet ervan / ... / Vind je dat wat je zoekt / Overal in overvloed” is as true today as it ever was, clearly. What’s so unworkable about Sjoukje Smit-van ’t Spijker as a stage name?
A: The best ever home entry for a country not actually defending the title? The Dutch take on what is normally the preserve of the Portuguese is a piano-led tour de force, musically no more original perhaps than Germany, but just as successful when coupled with Maggie MacNeal’s wonderful vocals.
V: She gives an engrossing performance I wish went on and on. She looks a little bit like a 30-something Maarja-Liis Ilus here.

16 France
B: “Chacun se dévoile, ce soir c’est le bal” along with most of the rest of the lyrics (and the sequins-and-glitter rainbow flag look) makes this a very Mardi Gras kind of song.
A: Did France ever offer us anything quite like this before, and has it done since? It’s so unashamedly upbeat and frivolous, and underpinned by a piece of music that’s both super catchy and accomplished, to my ears at least. By the standards of the day, a trashy treat of the highest order.
V: Hilarious! There really need to be floats dedicated to this song and performance.

17 Ireland
B: Johnny Logan really cornered the tortured divorcee market, didn’t he.
A: This is another classy entry, deserving of its success and standing out from the rest of the field, although the difference between 1980 and 1987 is that this year the calibre of that field is a great deal higher. Still, I can’t imagine it will finish outside of my own top 10 whatever happens.
V: I’d almost say he overplays the furrowed brow look early on if I didn’t know he was actually going through a shitty time in his life.

18 Spain
B: Trigo Limpio as a name invites a certain derision. I’m not sure what their lyrics are saying with two men and one woman singing them.
A: Ditto what I said about France, basically. There are parallels with Portugal in the approach they take to the structure of the song, too: it’s rather brave to anchor so much of it in long sections of almost no music. It works though, as you keep listening to it just to see what happens next. It’s like the musical equivalent of being peppered with cliffhangers.
V: The staging is slightly awkward, but it sounds huge. The three of them look a bit like a posh comedy club act into which Alan Sorrenti has wandered after a hair cut and a change of outfit. Iñaki de Pablo looks a bit like Hugh Grant as well.

19 Belgium
B: “Que le meilleur gagne!”
A: Electronica! The UK should have had this as their entry, performed as a duo between The Goodies and Metal Mickey (ft Gran). Puts me in mind immediately of Refrain refrain, and also of Minn hinsti dans for providing such an unlikely closing number. Whichever way you look at it, it’s absolute nonsense. I love it to pieces.
V: I love the irony of a song poking fun at the triviality of Eurovision actually taking part, then bombing.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to the United Kingdom

2 points go to Spain

3 points go to Finland

4 points go to Germany

5 points go to Portugal

6 points go to Denmark

7 points go to Ireland

8 points go to Turkey

10 points go to Norway

and finally...

12 points go to...


The Netherlands (again)!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Luxembourg.

1979

00 Turkey
B: I know it was withdrawn prior to the contest, but hey, with YouTube anything is possible! Not that it will count towards the results. For a surprisingly straightforward ballad from Turkey it has some lovely lyrics which showcase the bizarre beauty of the language: “Ben gecemde günümde rüyamda / ... / Güneşte gölgede yağmurda” being an example, and the opening line “Gün gibi belli seni sevdiğim”, given the sweet translation ‘It is as obvious as daylight that I love you’. They’ve had a great run of OTT names as well, haven’t they, for their performers. Maria Rita Epik & 21. Peron?
V: I hadn’t realised Turkey were pressured into pulling out by the Arab nations, who threatened to impose sanctions on the country if the government didn’t withdraw, because they viewed their participation as recognition of Israel. Given how sweet and innocent the song is only makes such a situation seem even more ridiculous. It’s one of those entries that doesn’t sound particularly like it comes from Turkey at all. I rather like it. (Not for that reason!)

And now for the contest proper:

01 Portugal
B: Kite-flying was clearly so 1978. I wonder where they would have gone next if they’d continued the theme – paper aeroplanes? The lyrics here go on forever despite the fact that there’s only about five of them. With lines like “Quanto mais não vale viver a vida assim?” this is clearly striving to be a wrapped-up-in-love kind of song, but to me it comes across as simply blinkered.
A: I was all prepared to say: “This comes from the same composer as Sol de inverno?” but I see they’ve tried to make something a little more meaningful out of it than the lyrics would suggest. The strings are lovely actually, and it’s a rather rewarding composition overall. There’s something about it that makes me think it should come from France rather than Portugal.
V: They overdo the yellow a bit, but the performance is nice. The way the backing vocalists swivel at the hips you’d expect them to reveal they’re standing in a huge vat crushing grapes with their bare feet.

02 Italy
B: Plenty of romanticism here in lines like “Quando un raggio di luna / Tra il cielo e le stelle, si accorge di me”.
A: Some unexpected Pet Shop Boys Disco2 sound effects there at the beginning. Familiar-sounding song this, despite the touches they’ve added to it to set it apart. Musically it has one foot in the ’70s and the other in the ’80s. I find it meanders when it could have forged a more straightforward course.
V: The sound mix is a bit out for this, and there’s something about Mr Bazar’s vocals that makes them sound like they’re only just clinging on to the right notes. The song is by no means bad, but it doesn’t really work in this context.

03 Denmark
B: Keld Heick was the very definition of prolific, writing virtually every other Danish entry for the next 15 years. Here the lyrics verge on the Austrian, but they have a slight kookiness about them which sets them apart. I’m assuming “Hun kræver action, det’ det samme hver eneste dag / Hvad mon det er, hun vil ha’?” is a rhetorical question.
A: Half the song’s over before it even reaches the chorus. Probably because of what we’ve had since, this comes across as something the Finns would try to copy from Sweden without as much success. Apart from the cheese factor, it’s not all that far from what Benny & Bjorn were doing around the same time. Inevitably, I like it.
V: Debbie Cameron on backing vocals here, I see. A good sign if ever there was one. She looks like she can barely contain herself for most of it. Tommy Seebach’s hair is almost big enough to qualify for an entry of its own. Good vocals all round, but it’s all just a little bit too static to take off the way it wants and needs to.

04 Ireland
B: Cathal’s rather hirsute, I see. Banal lyrics.
A: “No special meaning or plan” sums up the way this song unfolds, at least until it reaches the chorus, which is strong. This is lucky, as the chorus represents about 80% of the song, which feels like it goes on for about 10 minutes. Do I detect the ding-dong of a glockenspiel?
V: Is that Dustin the Turkey dancing the jig in the postcard? The lighting for this is the most effective there’s been so far. Cathal certainly sells what is essentially a rather repetitive and uninteresting number, and the orchestral accompaniment doesn’t hurt.

05 Finland
B: Katri Helena looks like she’s about two metres tall. The essence of the lyrics here is very French, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see it do better sung in basically any language other than Finnish.
A: Of Katri Helena’s two entries, this is far and away the better. It would probably have come across as more contemporary in 1993 (as retro-disco) than Tule luo, ironically. It’s not bad overall. Strange to think it was composed by Fredi of Varjoon - suojaan and Pump Pump fame, but then I suppose that’s the mark of a good composer.
V: The rhyme in the chorus just doesn’t make for fun listening, or viewing, like they’re trying to fit whole melons in their mouths. In contrast to Ireland, this is much stronger in studio than on stage, regardless of the power of Katri’s vocals (and the way she holds that last note).

06 Monaco
B: In an incongruous first, the protagonist here basically admits to being a pervy Hell’s Angel with a penchant for disco.
A: This is indeed as discotastic as it gets, so far. The strings must have sprained themselves stupid in the end section. It’s rather catchy in its way, although screaming out to be sung by a woman.
V: Yes, this doesn’t really work on any level. Mr Vaguener doesn’t have a voice that makes me want to listen to him for more than the three minutes I’m required to, and it’s funny how farty a bass guitar can sound. What made them pull out though? They’d been doing rather well for themselves. Boggles the mind, rather like Denmark. I’d hate to think it was just down to some intransigent director-general and his dislike for the contest.

07 Greece
B: ‘Socrates, you superstar!’ sounds so unlikely.
A: When this is just being acoustic and strings and Elpida’s vocals without any backing – i.e. in a handful of lines in the verses – I’m rather enamoured of it. Elsewhere, maintaining any enthusiasm for it is more of a struggle. As an aside, the Greek accent often comes across to me as if it’s being put on for some kind of effect I can never quite fathom.
V: Was it really this directionless in the studio version? Elpida needs better backing vocalists and better choreography. It’s bizarre that only seven years later she’d look about 30 years older. Maybe she aged out of sympathy for the classical figure she sings her ode to here. (I blame the ’80s perm.)

08 Switzerland
B: It’s the omnipresent Peter, Sue and Marc. “So was wie uns sah die Welt noch nie” may have been true at the time, but why do I suspect this will nevertheless be the kind of number Eurovision had seen a hundred times?
A: Yes, well, I’ve had enough of this before the minute mark. The first 15 seconds or so showed a promise I fleetingly hoped might be lived up to, but the only sections that do are the almost Jamaican kettle-drum instrumental breaks. German just does not fit this song, which has its basis in a good if slightly overbaked idea, and neither do Sue’s prissy vocals. Peter’s or Marc’s (whoever takes the male lead) suit it much better.
V: The director clearly thought there was enough colour in the performance not to bother with anything other than a petri dish-grey background. The stage act falls oddly flat.

09 Germany
B: I love the fact that one of the group is called Edina Pop and that she appears to be wearing an outfit (and hairstyle) borrowed from The Tomorrow People. Socrates from Greece I can understand, but Genghis Khan from Germany? Not that there should be any logic to it. From the lyrics alone it comes across as the kind of thing that would enjoy more success these days than it did back then. Then again, 4th is a pretty decent result. I love the way the list of things said to be unable to stop him seems to include Santa’s reindeer.
A: Forget Monaco: Boney M, anyone?
V: This takes Eurovision camp to new heights. It just works, doesn’t it, even in German, and despite the less than impressive vocals.

10 Israel
B: Lyricist Kobi Oshrat went from this to the likes of Olé olé and Ze rak sport. Let’s just sit with that for a while.
A: More of a hymn than an anthem, this is one of the most enduring songs in the contest’s history, and as such it’s a little hard to get any perspective on it. It’s certainly sweet and simple, and very effective. The contrast with Germany couldn’t be more stark, and it benefits both. As successful as it is though, my one criticism of Hallelujah is that musically it doesn’t stretch itself any further than it absolutely has to. Then again, why bother if it works anyway?
V: It’s easy to see why this won, but just as easy to see why it wasn’t a runaway winner. It takes a while to get going, but once it does, from about the halfway point onwards, it’s great, and the ending is fantastic.

11 France
B: With the performer, lyricist and composer all having wins under their belts, this certainly has the credentials. “Le printemps sur son manège déroulait pour nous ses arcs-en-ciel” is just one example of the poetry happening here in the story-telling.
A: I do like the way this eschews an easy melody. The woodwind is lovely, too. As stories go, however, it’s told in a very monotonous way.
V: Can’t add much to that. It’s classy, but doesn’t have anywhere near the impact it ought to.

12 Belgium
B: Why do I suspect with lines like “Zou dat niet heerlijk zijn voor jou en mij?” that the prospect of marrying Ms Marah might not fill the pantoffelheld with much enthusiasm?
A: How characterless this would be without its strings. It has to get to the 90-second mark before I’m convinced it’s worth listening to at all. The ‘hey hey nana nanana nanana’s – which could easily have been the undoing of the whole shebang – are the best bits of the song.
V: This works a whole lot better than it should. Oddly, Micha looks like her face has been added in post-production.

13 Luxembourg
B: The title here is quite clever in that when she says “J'ai déjà vu ça dans tes yeux” she’s actually referring to a reflection. Or is that looking at it all a bit too much?
A: Love the extended piano entry. Love it all really. Seems very early ’80s to me, and more American than European, although the string break redresses the balance somewhat.
V: I really don’t know why, but this works for me. Were everyone’s backing vocalists obliged to stand in a line in 1979?

14 The Netherlands
B: Xandra xooms into the fashion black hole of the 1980s a year ahead of time. Was outback America a popular destination for continental jet-setters in the late ’70s? I can’t imagine why else they’d be singing about it. I pray that “in het zadel” is a Dutch double entendre.
A: Catchy from the off. Can you imagine any ESC country apart from the Netherlands singing about a US state? The only one that springs to mind is Austria, and they wouldn’t come up with anything nearly as solid as this. The bit at the end of each chorus is great.
V: And why don’t all songs start with the chorus? They make a great hook when they’re this good and when there’s this much energy in the performance. Clever use of Dutch to sound exactly like English for much of it.

15 Sweden
B: Glad he’s not afraid of flying, with lapels like those.
A: The Swedes obviously went through a semi-hard rock phase in the late ’70s and early ’80s, but this chorus is too poppy for something pretending to be more plug-in-and-crank-up than shang-a-lang. The electric guitar fits in with the whole satellite thing, I suppose.
V: I like the way the backdrop is colour-coordinated with his fetching stripy knitted top. This is an example of when Swedish sounds a bit feeble though, especially when you’re dressed like that.

16 Norway
B: Anita Skorgan looks like she’s being held up by her eyebrows in that screengrab on Diggiloo. I rather like the inevitability-laden lyrics.
A: Competent, but they’re clearly not trying very hard, and Ms Skorgan’s attempts at Frère Jacques breathy delivery are singularly unsuccessful.
V: All of the women seem to be about eight foot tall this year for some reason. While no one’s hit a bum note to this point, this must easily qualify as the weakest vocal performance of the evening, or the least impressive anyway. Pity, as the song itself is OK.

17 United Kingdom
B: Black Lace were quite big in their way, weren’t they? I like their lyrics – full of a sense of blurting something out without really thinking about it (eg “Just when I reached for you / Like I usually do / I found her instead”).
A: Oh so British. The way the music and vocals build as the action of the lyrics does is neatly done. There’s something about the composition that ties in very nicely with the story that’s being told.
V: You can see who Justin Hawkins styled himself on. Not sure this has the oomph I’d like it to have live; there’s definitely something’s missing. Good song all the same.

18 Austria
B: Markedly ignored by the Israeli jury – perhaps because it would come across as rewarding the teacher’s pet – this actually seems rather nice. “Seht, aus der Kühle hoher Luft / Da fallen hundert Monde” paints a pretty picture, although before I thought about it I assumed they were talking about missiles.
A: Anthems in German always have to try a lot harder, because the language makes them sound so insincere. If this was in English, for example, I’d probably have fallen for it head over heels, in spite of the saxophone. It’s really quite different for Eurovision and probably deserved more than it got.
V: Interesting hair. Gets the thumbs up from me for sounding nothing like anything else.

19 Spain
B: It’s like a glamorous but slightly stern-looking school teacher learning something from her pupils. I suppose it’s rather sweet.
A: The way Ms Missiego sings makes it sound like she’s twitching her nose, constantly on the verge of sneezing. This is a bit too plonk-plonk la-la to take it very seriously, which is no doubt why it went down so well with the juries of the day. It presses all the wrong buttons for me: mostly the ‘off’ one.
V: Do you think she has some strange syndrome where she has to hold her arms at right angles or higher at all times? As far as I’m concerned, the kids can all go back to the breakfast cereal ad they came from, and take the song with them. [Addendum] Aargh! There’s an even cheaper trick at the end!


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Belgium

2 points go to Austria

3 points go to Finland

4 points go to Luxembourg

5 points go to Portugal

6 points go to Denmark

7 points go to the United Kingdom

8 points go to Israel

10 points go to Germany

and finally...

12 points go to...


The Netherlands!


The wooden spoon goes to Greece (again).

1978

Variations on a theme clearly do it for me in 1978, which seemed at first not exactly a classic year, but in the end still has its fair share of decent songs – just nothing that really grabs you.

01 Ireland
B: I love the idea of ‘slow morning light’, but I don’t like the whole travelling-musician-who-can’t-settle-down thing.
A: Comfortably familiar sound. The ending would be great if they’d kept it to a couple of repetitions, not four.
V: Try as the lapels and the tucked-in tablecloth might, he’s all legs. Strong performance.

02 Norway
B: Kai Eide might have wanted to apply his own logic (“Rett ditt sinn mot et annet sted”) in penning the chorus, which is as lazy as they come.
A: But surely it doesn’t make the song worthy of nil points? Slightly Beatlesy sound, or something. The strings are lovely and underscore the ‘mile after mile’ thing for me. The music suits it all pretty well actually, because of as much despite the fact that it drags on.
V: The backing vocals are too high in the mix again. Jahn Teigen’s approach is a little off-putting, and the slightly odd timing of the vocals makes you wonder early in the piece whether he’s come in too early or forgotten the words. P.S. Red pants have never been a good idea.

03 Italy
B: I love the knowing abandon inherent in “Due bambini non sarebbero mai stati / ...più impossibili di noi”.
A: This is all about the guitars, so it’s good that they’re great. Extra marks for the way it cranks up a notch so obviously following the line “Andiamo insieme... ancora piu su” after it’s already done so once so discreetly. Charmingly restrained, given how passionate it actually is. It’s easy to see why Ricchi e Poveri were so big.
V: The orchestra’s sat astride a giant rotating stingray! ReP crack an entire carton of eggs into this performance when a couple at most would have been enough, and it comes across as surprisingly twee.

04 Finland
B: Thumbs up for the irony of the Finnish sounding as clumsy and staccato as the ‘unsteady steps’ of the ‘little man’ Seija’s singing about.
A: I can’t tell whether this is deliberately understated or just boring.
V: The verses are barely even there, so I’m glad the chorus has a bit of boof about it. They don’t give you much to go on though, do they? Professional, but perfunctory.

05 Portugal
B: These lyrics alone are enough to make me take back what I’ll go on to say about Portugal 1992.
A: Mind you, it’s quite funky in a suitably kite-tugging-on-string kind of way and is imbued with the kind of childlike enthusiasm only adults can display. Knows when to call it a day, too, bless.
V: I so want to like this more than I ever actually do. It tests your patience before the end of the first chorus, and given that arrives before they’ve even reached the first verse, you know it’s going to be a long three minutes. Where it does succeed is injecting some energy into the contest, and the orchestra sounds great, so it’s not all bad.

06 France
B: 14 years early Mr Prévost says “Je connais ce sentiment” and sets Morgain’s mind at ease (see 1992 again – Ed). Rebelling against anything vaguely modern as she was, I’m sure she’d have been reassured to receive the message that fusty domesticity will get you in the end.
A: Nicely composed, with a chorus that sounds like a million others (or at least Monaco 74), which is presumably why it did so well. The rest of it’s rather dull.
V: This looks and sounds classy but is safe to the point of being unreachable, and there’s just no way the performance can do justice to the drama of the arrangement.

07 Spain
B: There are only about 10 lines of lyrics here, and the most interesting ones aren’t even in Spanish. Not that “Voulez-vous danser avec moi?” is intrinsically interesting.
A: Predictable and occasionally indolent, but the song makes this work in its favour, by throwing just enough at you to keep you occupied. The strings, as strings tend to be, are fantastic, especially when left to their own devices. In studio at least the whole thing screams ‘obvious winner’ to this point to me. Perhaps it was just too much of a throwback.
V: A little shrill in places, but whatever it does, it works in a way that the French entry didn’t.

08 United Kingdom
B: “You put all the good inside of me” is my favourite line, for obvious reasons.
A: Just as derivative as the last entry in its way, but nothing’s shown much originality thus far, so you can’t really mark it down on those grounds. Doesn’t work towards a lot in the end besides an unusually awkward-sounding key change.
V: So that’s what Shelley Long did before Cheers. I suppose the harlequin thing goes with the music; there’s no other excuse for such hideous outfits. The vocals take their time to either gel or overcome the orchestra, but when they do they sound great.

09 Switzerland
B: Cueillir would have made a much more intriguing title than Vivre.
A: How I long for Switzerland to surprise me with something fresh and interesting. This is one of their more passable (yet still fairly turgid) efforts, decently put together, but teetering constantly on melodrama. The chorus is quite strong.
V: You’d definitely think twice before getting into a relationship with Carole Vinci, whose voice I don’t like much. She seems personable enough though. Grey wasn’t the best choice of colour when you’re stood on that stage.

10 Belgium
B: Why do I suspect that ‘love puts coloured pencils in your heart’ would never make the opening line of a ballad in English?
A: All these French numbers are forming a blur, and we’ve only had three. Touch of ABBA in some of the music here*. Solid, but hardly the most exciting thing we’ve ever heard in Eurovision.
V: You know within moments of M. Vallée opening his mouth that this is the kind of song which will excite your average 1978 jury. It’s well performed, and the audience are clearly enamoured of it, but it does nout for me.

11 The Netherlands
B: Thematically this is little more than an update of their winner of three years back, but as sequels go it’s fabulous. I love the line “Streef naar wat sympathie”, which strikes me as odd.
A: *And here. Was everyone influenced by them that much or was this just what mid-to-late-’70s music was like? Voulez vous et al. It’s really rather good. Like most Dutch entries that know what they’re doing, it manages to structure itself like a song that should be much more than three minutes long without sacrificing anything in order to keep it short.
V: The stringathon in the orchestra and the half-hearted choreography strip this of the disco grandeur the studio version boasts. That said, it still sounds good.

12 Turkey
B: The idea that “sevmek ne büyük bir ülke” is nice. And true.
A: Whoever thought something so absolutely Turkish could also sound so Mamas & Papas in places. The music and the lyrics go together nicely – lots of light touches are offset by the drum and what have you, and the alternating rhythm. It’s repetitive, but that’s in keeping.
V: They look like they’ve raided the dolls’ house for their outfits, and they can’t click in time to save their lives, but they harmonise well, and the orchestra makes the most of the arrangement. The live performance doesn’t feel nearly as drawn out as the studio version does.

13 Germany
B: This shows its age in the attitude displayed by questions like “Willst du denn leben als Rühr-mich-nicht-an?” after the relatively pro-feminist first few lines. Put out now or die in miserable solitude!
A: Dzinghis Khan without the get-up? More of the ABBA sound (for lack of other points of reference). Very together if you ask me, though I can’t see Ireen Sheer pulling it off as it deserved on stage.
V: [Did she?] The percussion isn’t serving these upbeat numbers very well, but it’s nice to hear a bit of electronica. Ms Sheer is rooted to the spot by German ESC standards. As in the moment as she undoubtedly is – including being spot-on vocally** – it’s the kind of song that could do with a bit more movement to underscore it if the music isn’t going to.

**Although I can’t vouch for her accent

14 Monaco
B: Lots of nostalgia and ‘remember when’ in 1978, even for Eurovision. I love the fact that the little boy steals cherries for the little girl and all she does for his trouble is throw sand in his face!
A: Pure cheese, but at least it’s served up on a disco platter, setting it apart from its stablemates francaises. The two styles it melds go together rather well actually, but then strings and disco always do.
V: Yeah, a bit of bopping on the spot’s not really going to do it here either. This sounds even more stripped than Feuer. There’s a hint of wakka-wakka if you listen carefully, but not enough to escape the stranglehold of the strings. Normally I’d love them, but they’re a bit too stringent here for my liking. (See what I did there?)

15 Greece
B: That’s two songs in a row featuring Charlie Chaplin. At least when it’s in Greek it somehow seems more genuine, like Lithuania having a monument to Frank Zappa.
A: But come on, even the vocals sound pre-packaged. It’s all so... deliberate.
V: Fair dos to Tania: she throws herself into this and gives it her all. Mind you, it’s the kind of song that demands it if it’s going to have any hope of coming out the other end with any dignity intact.

16 Denmark
B: This gets my vote for the line “Jeg lagde mig på briksen, og han undersøgte mig” alone.
A: The prodigal son returns. This is a surprisingly unorthodox way to do so, on the whole. It descends into something a little more textbook quicker than I’d like it to, but I’d still rather listen to it again than almost all of the other songs on offer this year.
V: There’s something hugely affable about a performance where the singers are clearly enjoying themselves and not taking it too seriously, without throwing it away. Plus it sounds great.

17 Luxembourg
B: I only have the English version, but the best lines are of course in French, from the simplest (“Hmm... formidable, Maria!”) to the more suggestive (“Voila c’est une chance d’un cours de vacances”). Honni soit qui mal y pense!
A: So gloriously airheaded. Even if it was produced by the same people, it’s still plagiarism, just without anyone to sue you. The guitar’s brilliant. I assume it sounded nothing like this live, and probably nowhere near as fabulous.
V: [Watches] I wasn’t expecting this to be anywhere near as together or professional as it is. It’s easily the best-sounding up-tempo number of the night. Love it.

18 Israel
B: I could tell a “Keshehayinu yeladim / Ahavnu besodei sodot” story of my own, but that’s not for here...
A: A return to the upbeat winners of the mid-’70s after the slightly less upbeat aberration that was L’oiseau et l’enfant. Absolute nonsense, of course, but since when was that an impediment? Relentless, too. Great break.
V: The orchestra finally seems to have hit its stride. This is shorn of the excesses many Israeli entries sink under the weight of and just concentrates on selling itself for what is – and does so very effectively.

19 Austria
B: The lyrics to the English version are as bland as the German ones are odd. Talk about “...niemand kann verstehen / Warum, weshalb...”.
A: I hate the way they pronounce Caroline like they’re about to say ‘kerosene’. Quite catchy though, all told.
V: I ought to be able to say the same things about this as I said about Denmark, but I can’t.

20 Sweden
B: Wonderfully wrought, these lyrics, in every sense of the word.
A: If Mr Skifs is depressed, the music does a very good job of hiding it. I assumed this would be much more tortured, although the last two lines of the chorus – my favourites – go some way to underlining it. Still doesn’t sit well with me overall.
V: This whole performance is pitched wrong, if you ask me, as an alarming number of Swedish entries have been. Equally alarming is the camel’s foot Björn’s sporting, and that he looks like he’s reading the words off the piano keys. He clearly fancies himself as something of a comedian, which is incongruous given the song he then proceeds to sing. A damp squib to end the contest on, all told.


And so to the points…

1 point pour l’Irelande

2 points pour la Turquie

3 points pour l’Italie

4 points pour le Portugal

5 points pour l’Allemagne

6 points pour l’Espagne

7 points pour la Danmark

8 points pour les Pays Bas

10 points pour l’Israel

et finalmente...

12 points pour...


Luxembourg!


The wooden spoon goes to Greece.

1977

Can’t believe the expense they went to on those postcards!

01 Ireland
B: “The sweetest thrill is knowing you’re wanted” is right enough.
A: Thought it was Neighbours there at the start. “That old familiar feeling” indeed – it sure sounds like a TV show theme tune. The music reflects the sensations involved effectively e.g. the chorus starting off light and almost lip-chewingly apprehensive before the adrenalin kicks in and the blissful reality takes over. Sounds huge.
V: Not sure that counts as choreography, but whatever it is, it’s a bit rubbish. The oomph of the studio version goes all plinkety-plonky and cheesy smiles live, which is a shame.

02 Monaco
B: Monaco loved these debutante girly numbers, didn’t they?
A: Both elements of this song sound like others: the choruses reminiscent of Those Were the Days and the verses more House of the Rising Sun or something. They work quite well together though, reflecting the changes in the character and her situation (into something perhaps she’s not – hence the question in the lyrics).
V: Michèle Torr somehow looks 11 years younger here than she did 11 years ago; it must be all the vaseline on the lens. Doesn’t disguise any of the power in her voice. Her dress reminds me of the net curtains my grandmother used to have in her olive-green bathroom.

03 The Netherlands
B: I’m impressed by the sheer length of mensenlevensmallemolen. A lot of what this has to say seems depressing, although I assume it’s meant to have the opposite effect.
A: It’s Karen Carpenter with something lodged in her throat! I was all prepared not to like a song called The Merry-Go-Round but it’s really rather sweet, despite the lyrics.
V: I’m not sure what’s more alarming about that dress: the “here’s one I made earlier” look of it or the incessant garish pinkness of it. Heddy’s fine until the key change, when something about her voice makes it sound as though she’s slightly off-key, even though she’s not.

04 Austria
B: It appears Austria has a thing for satire in Eurovision when it can. I’m assuming the chorus is as stupid as it is to undermine the point. Still, it’s an odd statement to make on the ESC stage: it is a contest designed to find the most middle-of-the-road, crowd-pleasing number, after all.
A: Quite a brave choice, I suppose.
V: I applaud them for jumping into the intentionally daft routine, but the vocals aren’t really there. Mind you, this could just be adding to the point.

05 Norway
B: This only has about 10 lines when you add them up, not one of them inspired.
A: Lowest common denominator in almost every respect, although you’re more likely to be critical of it coming straight after Austria. At least there’s barely more than two minutes of it.
V: 1977 was a very pink year, wasn’t it. There’s nothing here that explains to me why Anita Skorgan was so popular on the Norwegian schlager scene, first time or not. She certainly doesn’t have a voice that makes me think “yes, I’d like to have her represent my country time and again over the coming however many years”.

06 Germany
B: Even the name ‘Silver Convention’ screams disco cheese. This actually reads like it could have been written in the early 2000s, swapping out ‘telegram’ for something more of its time. “Help me, miss, gotta send an MMS”?
A: Doesn’t do a lot you wouldn’t expect a song like this to, but what it does do it does fairly successfully if you ask me.
V: Ditto the performance. Sounds good, and looks good. Well, looks silly, but in this context it’s the same thing.

07 Luxembourg
B: What is Ms B. on about here? Who is this brother of hers she’s begging to sleep with? A big brother figure I assume (and hope). No blatant incest, Luxembourg, thank you.
A: Hot on the heels of Germany comes this much funkier number. It’s amazingly sexual stuff for Eurovision, regardless of how ’70s disco it is. “J’enrage d’être sage” indeed. Fabulous!
V: Long before Marija Šerifović and her Beauty Queens were getting into it, Luxembourg gives us true lesbian chic with these brilliant backing vocalists. You can see why the juries didn’t go for this, given how vapid it seems and the fact she only sings about a third of the song, but the ending’s great, and there are some wonderful, simple directorial touches to the camerawork.

08 Portugal
B: The Portuguese must surely lead in the number of entries that mention the country they’re from. As opening lines go, “Portugal foi a razão / Por que um dia morreu meu irmão” bring us straight back down to earth after Frère Jacques and his shenanigans.
A: Bucking the trend, as they’ve always done. This sounds a bit cheap and cheerful for a song striving for such meaning. Doesn’t do a thing for me, sadly. (It’s better than Norway though.)
V: Paulo de Carvalho looks like he’s still got the fork in his hand from the backstage buffet. The vocals are great, and you get a sense of their being something to the song, but the line-up feels unconvincing and cobbled together.

09 United Kingdom
B: Satire, yet again. Love it.
A: Goodie goodie yum yum! Great piano, and an excellent arrangement generally. It’s not that different to Portugal (or Austria) in going for a musical line that seems at odds with the point of it all, but the difference is that Portugal seemed to be doing so just for the sake of making it more accessible.
V: Lynsey de Paul is clearly the weak link here, despite her fab hair and shoes. She adds a shrillness to the performance that takes away from it for me, and the character that’s layered on top of the music doesn’t really work; it just seems gimmicky, when the music itself would have sufficed.

10 Greece
B: I suppose I like the message of living with music as an integral part of your life, but...
A: ...the delivery is just such a no-brainer. The kind of Eurovision song I have very little time for.
V: Not even the girls’ outfits are flattering, and it’s as though none of them have ever worked with microphones before. Next.

11 Iis-raa-eel
B: At least it’s not an anthem of the sort they normally dish up.
A: Fairly predictable chords in places but that makes it approachable and easy to like.
V: Lovely vocals from Ilanit. Despite the pastel overload elsewhere, I’m not sure I would have chosen black as the predominant colour for this entry. It leaves a rather strange impression of the subject matter. And what’s with the vowel-laden transliteration of the Hebrew title?

12 Switzerland
B: I love the mind-boggling throwaway line “Und manchmal nahm er sie aus seinem Schrank” at the beginning that makes you wonder what the hell they’re on about.
A: ABBA had an influence on someone then, although it’s one of those songs that seems so typically... well, whatever it is that only Switzerland or Austria could produce at Eurovision. Oddly, it also sounds ahead of its time to an extent: more kind of ’80s.
V: Fantastic opening, and there are some flourishes to the music as well that come out in the live performance, but the German grates in the verses. And they all look like twats.

13 Sweden
B: Given it was only 10 years or so since the Fab Four were at the peak of their popularity, I’m assuming the line “Farfars far, kan ge svar vem de var” is designed to lament the fickle affections of music-lovers. If so, it was rather short-sighted.
A: If you’re going to do a tribute to the Beatles, wouldn’t it make more sense to emulate their style? The composition is quite lush in places, but I can see why it brought the Swedes their worst-ever result to that point.
V: The black outfits instantly drain any remaining colour out of this performance, which just feels slow and uninvolving when it should feel a lot bigger and brighter. The lead vocalist looks and sounds like his heart’s not really in it.

14 Spain
B: They didn’t waste much ink penning these lyrics.
A: Not exactly a classic year, is it. This is completely inconsequential, and the ‘la la la’ doesn’t even fit the point of the song. I’m glad they included the banjo though, since they mentioned one; it was lucky (for us) that the girl at the door wasn’t playing the spoons or something.
V: If it wasn’t pink in 1977, it was black shot through with silver. Micky looks like a dancing geography teacher.

15 Italy
B: I love what this is saying, and the “cosa c’entri tu” attitude.
A: I don’t like Ms Martina’s voice, but the song really gets you involved in it by the end. Thumbs up.
V: This gets to about three-quarters of the way to where it should be going for a song of its nature. Someone should have reminded Mia that of all the things she was free to do, two of them were to open her eyes and look like she was enjoying herself.

16 Finland
B: If I dissed Spain and Greece, this ought to lose points for its ‘ma na na na’ as well, but the lyrics are otherwise too good. I think you need to have some appreciation of Finland and the Finns to really, er, appreciate them.
A: Brilliant bridge and fabulous ending. Undoubtedly one of their best efforts.
V: At last some drama! After 15 other songs, this is honestly the first one which really feels like it’s alive to me. The squealy bit is not an unqualified success, but you’ve got to love the edge it adds to the song.

17 Belgium
B: Yay for the cheeky suggestiveness of “Think you’ve got some extra needs?”!
A: Great chorus. Again, it sounds very authentic. (I don’t know why I feel they shouldn’t.) The verses – and indeed the bits of it which aren’t the chorus – are more laboured and not as interesting, and the structure is quite odd. Excellent layered arrangement though.
V: Those trousers don’t even look flattering on the Maessens, so I’ve no idea why Luc Smet is wearing them. Otherwise, it’s hard to criticise this and praise Germany at the same time. So I won’t.

18 France
B, A + V: You know this is going to win, and deservedly so, within seconds of Marie Myriam opening her mouth. What else is there to say?


And so to the points...

1 point goes to Israel

2 points go to Monaco

3 points go to the United Kingdom

4 points go to Ireland

5 points go to Germany

6 points go to Belgium

7 points go to Italy

8 points go to Luxembourg

10 points go to Finland

and finally...

12 points go to...


France!


The wooden spoon is awarded to Spain.