< 1957 Review | 1958 Review | 1959 Review >
Introduction
The third Eurovision Song Contest set a number of firsts. For one, it’s the first Eurovision hosted in the country that won last time (Hilversum, Netherlands). This tradition would be followed about 75% of the time from 1958 to 1980, continuously from 1981 to 2022, and broken again in 2023. It’s the first Eurovision to feature Sweden, one of the contest’s power players. Since the UK skipped out that year, Sweden’s presence kept the number of countries at ten, and the number of songs in English at zero. It was the first Eurovision where the song length rule was enforced, specifically 3:30 minutes. And finally, it’s the first Eurovision to produce a song more famous than the contest itself—a song that makes people narrow their eyes and say “wait… that was from Eurovision?!”
When reading about Eurovision 1958, I constantly encounter Italy’s iconic entry, but I want to give every song from this contest a chance. Does this Eurovision have some gems hidden in Italy’s shadow? We’ll find out together.
Italy: Nel blu, dipinto di blu (better known as Volare)
Artist: Domenico Modugno
Language: Italian
Key: B♭ major
Looking at the order of this contest’s songs, I’m questioning whether it was intentional or randomized. We have the song that became iconic first and another Lys Assia song last, which would be logical choices. But we also have two French songs in a row with “amour” in their title, and I assume a deliberate ordering would have spaced them out.
Italy has a bumpy history in Eurovision with great successes and long absences, and it’s hard to talk about the 1958 contest or Italy’s participation without mentioning this song. It became popular worldwide and has tons of covers in tons of languages. Listening to it, I can see why this song got so popular. The singer is expressive with his arms and matches the song’s lyrics, which compare love to a blue painted sky. The song alternates between major key ballad sections and minor key jazzy sections, and the instrumentation reminds me of 50’s TV shows with its combination of piano and chimes. I feel like it was purposely chosen as a strong first song, but that may have prevented it from winning. Then again, he did sing it twice due to technical difficulties in some countries.
I can see why this song is popularly known as Volare. When I think of “volare”, my brain skips to the portion of the song with that word, but I can’t say the same about the song’s title—at least, not as strongly. Maybe the song could have won with a different title? Oh boy, I’m speculating about why a clearly superior song didn’t win, just like so many fans do today. This shows that Eurovision’s fundamental spirit hasn’t changed one bit.
Netherlands: Heel de wereld
Artist: Corry Brokken; it seems that sending last year’s winners was totally normal back then
Language: Dutch
Key: A♭ major, A major
This contrasts against Brokken’s winner last year in several ways. The lyrics are simply telling the whole world how happy she is over the same style of instrumental as most of the first two years of Eurovision. The song is decently varied and has a slower section, but it failed to stand out after the winner.
France: Dors, mon amour (the winner)
Artist: André Claveau
Language: French
Key: A major
France’s first victory was with a romantic lullaby waltz that sticks to the French chanson formula, in case you needed proof that they’re the Sweden of early Eurovision. I’m sure tons of fans in 1958 were salty that Italy didn’t win, but the lower popularity of this song goes to show that winning Eurovision doesn’t always mean much. “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” is far more iconic than the contest’s winner, and there’s tons of similar cases throughout Eurovision history.
Luxembourg: Un grand amour
Artist: Solange Berry, a Belgian this time
Language: French
Key: D♭ major, D major
This song sounds older-timey than what pops into my head when I think “old-timey”. The instrumental sounds like early 20th century classical music, and it has several parts that are just piano and voice. It doesn’t stand out too much, but I see some charm in its antiquated sound.
Sweden: Lilla stjärna
Artist: Alice Babs
Language: Swedish, which Sweden hasn’t sung in this century (but Finland has!)
Key: B♭ major
The title (Little Star), the composition, and the singer’s traditional dress all tell me that Sweden wanted a strong start in Eurovision. At the start, the call-and-response between the singer’s “la la la” and a melody from the orchestra is an adorable gimmick, and the rest of the song delivers too. This slow waltz manages to be peaceful and dramatic at the same time, not to mention a little jazzy, and all-around beautiful. This song ends with a dramatic major chord, which is so common in this contest that it almost feels tiring, but it works well here.
I think Swedish phonology is fit for a melodious song like this, because the language’s rich variety of vowel sounds makes lyrics sound colorful. This contrasts against languages like Spanish, which have only five vowels.
Denmark: Jeg rev et blad ud af min dagbog
Artist: Raquel Rastenni
Language: Danish, which really DOES sound like the speaker’s mouth is stuffed with a potato
Key: C major
After saying the song’s name, I think the Dutch commentator said “I hope I pronounced that right”. Danish is a fucking nightmare to pronounce, especially with that notorious soft D sound, but I can tell that he tried.
The singer first resolves language barriers by demonstrating the song’s title (I tore a page out of my diary), then goes on to the song. It’s another example of snooty breakup lyrics over a cheerful instrumental, which was more common in the 50’s and 60’s than today.
Belgium: Ma petite chatte
Artist: Fud Leclerc, returning from 1956
Language: French
Key: E♭ major
This song is so much happier than Fud Leclerc’s song two years prior, it’s like night and day. This song is about a man discovering the woman of his dreams, using a cat-related word with a sexual meaning—sounds like a certain English word, doesn’t it? I can already sense some differences in tone between 1958 and 1956 Eurovision. The musical styles in this contest are more focused and consistent.
Germany: Für zwei Groschen Musik
Artist: Margot Hielscher again
Language: German, plus a few English names of countries, if that counts
Key: F major, A♭ major
Like last time, Margot Hielscher performed an entry with a prop, this time music discs. Unlike her last song, this is an upbeat jazzy tune. The title, repeated throughout the song, means “for two dimes, music” (I didn’t know what “Groschen” meant until today). It’s basically about the joy of owning so many different types of music, with the quirky humor common in Germany’s early entries. Some of the lyrics match the music used, like the mention of minor key and chimes ringing.
Austria: Die ganze Welt braucht Liebe
Artist: Liane Augustin
Language: German
Key: B♭ major
Another German-language song with the old-timey rolled R’s. My problem is that most notes are sung a bit later than the rhythm, so that it sounds off-beat, even though I presume that was the intention. Her vocals would work much better if she sang them slightly earlier, and that drags the song down for me. Other than that, it’s an alright tune about the whole world’s need for love.
Switzerland: Giorgio
Artist: Lys Assia, one last time
Language: German and Italian—the first proper multilingual song!
Key: C major
Lys Assia caps off the contest once again with a showcase of her multilingual singing skills. This energetic tune smoothly alternates between two languages and mixes spoken and sung lines about spending time with a man named Giorgio. It’s less showy than Assia’s other songs, and I enjoy it more than her other two. It’s more focused and sticks to one mood throughout.
There are surely tons of alternate language versions of Eurovision songs I’m not aware of, but I did learn Giorgio has a French version and listened to it. French doesn’t fit as well with this tune, and I prefer it in Itallemand. (I made up that word based on the languages’ French names, and I hope you appreciate it.)
Who’s my favorite?
This time, it comes down to two countries: Italy and Sweden. They’re a fun pair since both have scored well in recent years, and both their languages are often described as singsongy. Who will it be—the jazzy Italian icon, or the Swedish melodious waltz?
It’s not a tough choice. Italy may have sent a memorable ballad with catchy hooks, but with the call-and-response theme and flowing vocal melody, Sweden’s song wowed me the most. Therefore, my winner of 1958 is Sweden, Lilla stjärna. The list now looks like this:
- Germany, 1
- Netherlands, 1
- Sweden, 1
- (1 winner)
It’s all Germanic countries so far! We’ll see how long that’ll last.
General thoughts:
When attending an annual event, I usually get comfy with all the patterns in year three, and that seemed to be the case with Eurovision 1958. The main takeaway from this contest is that the winner won’t always become its most popular song. It’s hard to say why Italy didn’t win, but I think it was just bad luck. France won with a song I didn’t find that memorable, but if the Danish juries had spread their points more evenly instead of giving nine to France, it would have likely been Switzerland, a more understandable choice. Lys Assia came very close to winning a second time. If she won, then I think bringing back prior winners wouldn’t be as controversial today.
As famous as “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” is, I encourage you to check out the contest’s other songs. Some of them might surprise you!
See you next time as the UK returns with a much stronger song and Monaco joins the show.
Cookie Fonster's stuff 