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Introduction
If you thought the whole point of music concerts was to see the singer in person, Eurovision 1963 would beg to differ. For some reason, the singers performed in one room, while the audience watched the shows on a screen in a different room. This apparently caused rumors that the performances were pre-recorded, even though with the technology of that time, that sounded like more trouble than just broadcasting them live.
For the second time, the United Kingdom substituted for a multi-time Eurovision winner: France, which had just celebrated its third victory and didn’t want to host again. Once again, the contest took place in London, specifically the BBC Television Centre. After the bare bones staging in the last two years, Eurovision 1963 returned to fanciful stage shenanigans. This is clear as soon as the singers are all introduced, where they’re backed by recursive mirrors. Too bad the audience didn’t get to see them in color!
The voting system of 1963 was adjusted from last year. This time, countries sent five to one points for their top five songs, which decreased bias towards the second half.
Oh yeah, I guess I’m watching with Dutch commentary again! I can’t speak Dutch, but it’s close enough to German that I can understand some of it. We’re now 60 years till we’ve caught up with the present, which means my grandparents were roughly as old back then as I am today. (I know their years of birth, and one was slightly older than me, the other three slightly younger.)
United Kingdom: Say Wonderful Things
Artist: Ronnie Carroll, again
Language: English
Key: C major
We’ve reached the first song with backup singers, and the only one from this year! It seems like the UK realized, “wait, backing singers are allowed, why hasn’t anyone done that?” and other countries went “eh… I’d rather not”. With the three female backing singers in identical dresses and the steps they are resting on, this is starting to look more like the Eurovision we know today. A good song can stand on its own, but staging is a huge part of what makes Eurovision fun. My gut tells me their dresses are red, but who knows? One of the backing singers kisses his cheek at the end.
This is a ballad in 6/8 time signature, with an electric-sounding guitar playing alongside the orchestra in the verses. I like how the singers alternate between backing the lead vocals and humming chords, but otherwise, this seems like a standard love ballad. It’s a calm and fitting opener.
Netherlands: Een speeldoos
Artist: Annie Palmen
Language: Dutch, which sounds kind of cutesy when you get used to it. It’s an acquired taste.
Key: B major
Strange fact I read on Wikipedia: This song was originally going to be called “Geen ander” (Nobody else), but then the lyrics were rewritten and the song got its current title, meaning “A music box”. It didn’t pay off, since the song got zero points.
True to its title, this song starts with a music box, then it transitions to a calm orchestral piece, and it features spinning figurines as a prop. The singer tells a happy fairy tale that she insists is a true story. It sounds like it belongs in a kids’ movie, and it seems this isn’t the type of song people expected from Eurovision.
Germany: Marcel
Artist: Heidi Brühl
Language: German
Key: E♭ major
A lively, spunky tune that sounds right out of a Broadway musical, this is addressed at a man named Marcel who the singer wishes would slow down and treat her more kindly. While stage play style songs haven’t been my favorite in these contests, this one owns up to the style so completely that I can’t help but love it. This song knows exactly what it wants to be and doesn’t downplay it at all. It just feels so alive. With her energetic tone, snazzy presumably red dress, and showy gestures, you can tell the singer was also a famed television actor.
This song also has an English version, and I can sense a moderate German accent in her voice. Reminds me of “Satellite”, the second and latest winning song from Germany.
Austria: Vielleicht geschieht ein Wunder
Artist: Carmela Corrin, originally from Israel
Language: German, English, then back to German
Key: E major, E minor, then F minor
I like the little flashing dots on the map at each country’s capital before each song starts. It helps tease which country is up next and feels like a predecessor to the postcards we’d later get between songs.
I would like this song better if it was just the minor key sections. The major key parts sound like a standard romantic tune, while the minor key parts sound dramatic and mysterious. Whenever I start to enjoy the minor key parts, it shifts back to major key. With the major and minor key parts combined, it sounds like yet another unfocused stage play style song, and it doesn’t live up to the genre as well as Germany does. Also, this song threw in an English section before it was cool. It would be three years until Eurovision cracked down on language freedom.
Norway: Solhverv
Artist: Anita Thallaug, who died in March 2023
Language: Norwegian
Key: C♯ minor
I can’t decide if I want to interpret this as a classical style piece or a theater style piece. With the complex chord progression, the instrumental almost sounds like a movie score, so it’s kind of three genres at once. It definitely isn’t an ordinary 60’s pop song. The song is about a summer solstice with romantic metaphors, and I’d like it a little better if it knew what genre it wanted to be, like Germany’s song. It failed to stand out to the juries, since it was the second in this contest to earn zero points.
Italy: Uno per tutte
Artist: Emilio Pericoli
Language: Italian
Key: A♭ major, A major
The staging for this song almost feels like a music video, which is very ahead of its time. Each time he says the name of a woman he’s loved, the singer flips back a white board to reveal a picture of her. This hints at the song’s meaning even for those who don’t speak Italian, which is part of the value of staging. In the song, he’s attracted to all four women and wants to choose the first who says yes, and he’s unaware of how poorly this would go over.
Staging aside, this is an OK 60’s romantic song. It’s an example of how staging can elevate the experience of a Eurovision song. If he just sang into a microphone, I’d find it more boring.
Finland: Muistojeni laulu
Artist: Laila Halme
Language: Finnish. It’s so weird to type song names in this language.
Key: A major, B♭ major
I’ve always thought Finnish sounds like a European and Asian language had a baby. It has some influence from its neighboring Germanic languages, but when spoken, it has a peculiar resemblance to Korean. Both languages have a similar syllable structure, few consonant clusters, a complex vowel system, and a cadence I’d describe as stern and dramatic. This is especially obvious in Finnish rap, which I had never heard of before Finland’s entry this year.
Yet again, this song makes me think of old movies, but it’s a little distinguished by the marimba usage. The song starts and ends with repeated “la la la” and the lyrics are otherwise short, about memories of the singer’s lover. Eurovision had amassed enough countries that to get points, a song needs to make quite a splash, and this unfortunately didn’t. I do admire the slick key change, done through a subtle transition.
Denmark: Dansevise (the winner)
Artist: Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann, another Danish married couple
Language: Danish
Key: A minor
Denmark was the only Nordic country this year to get any points, and the first Nordic country to win Eurovision! It triumphed over four songs in French and one song in Italian, making an excellent underdog win. The song’s victory over Switzerland was controversial, since Norway had initially miscounted their votes, but today it’s seen as a Eurovision icon.
Grethe sang this song, while Jørgen played a lot of funky guitar chords. They have two separate English Wikipedia articles, but also a shared one for some reason. People say that this song’s score was boosted by the background visual effects, which are waves and spirals of lighting, but the song stands on its own too. It’s catchy and moving at the same time, and I can enjoy it without feeling a need to understand the lyrics. It feels like a hint at the fun, groovy songs 70’s Eurovision would inundate us with. Though it doesn’t blow me away, it’s an excellent song that earned its victory.
I’m obligated to mention this song has a German and English version too: “Der Sommer ging vorüber” and “I Loved You” respectively. The German version has the same vibe as the original, but I hear quite an accent in the English version, plus stilted lyrics like “the kisses I wanted were those that I wanted from you”. The instrumental in these versions consists entirely of guitars, and I find it more moving than the Eurovision performance.
English, French, and Italian are the prestige languages of Eurovision. They’re the languages that other countries love to borrow after the language rule’s repeal, and their home countries almost always use them. English is seen as widely understood, French as classy, and Italian as the pinnacle of beauty. Danish, on the other hand, is the brunt of jokes about potatoes and alcohol. If this song were in a “prestige language”, it would have won by a landslide. It only won narrowly in Danish—42 points over 40. I find this victory inspiring.
Yugoslavia: Brodovi (Бродови)
Artist: Vice Vukov, a philosophy student according to the commentator
Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian)
Key: A minor
The composition makes it sound like a dreary, reflective love song, but nope! It’s actually about ships and how great they are, and how the world wouldn’t sustain without them, complete with a spoken intro. The stage features a few model ship masts too. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ships were some sort of metaphor for romance in this song. After all, “ship” can also mean a romantic pairing between two characters.
Switzerland: T’en va pas
Artist: Esther Ofarim, another Israeli
Language: French. The storm of French songs begins!
Key: D♭ major
The Dutch commentator said Esther Ofarim can sing in Hebrew, English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German. That does happen to people who have lived in multiple countries with multiple official languages. However, Esther settled for the safest choice for the country she represented: French.
This is the narrow runner-up, which lost to Denmark by two points. Switzerland’s early entries tend to be quite showy and designed to win, especially if they’re in French. I can hear some odd detuning in the music, and I’m not sure if it was part of the orchestra or a result of the tapes slowing down. Otherwise, this is a well-composed ballad about a woman who doesn’t want her lover to leave.
France: Elle était si jolie
Artist: Alain Barrière
Language: French
Key: C minor, C♯ minor in the last chorus
This song starts seeming like it’ll be in E♭ major, but then it becomes dominantly minor. This matches with the theme of the lyrics: at first it seems to be about a man reflecting on a beautiful woman he loved, but it’s really about a woman too beautiful for him to be comfortable loving.
I’m scratching my head a little about the visual effects. An actress portrays the woman this song is about, and she fades in and out of the screen in a way that can’t have been performed live. I’m guessing the man and woman were filmed at the same time, and the woman’s camera faded her in and out. I don’t get why an audience would be more wowed by modest special effects on a black-and-white TV than seeing a singer in person. Maybe it’s because technology that seems antique today was mind-blowing back then. Sometimes, I watch videos going through technology or a video game series chronologically, and I get a mild wow effect seeing (for example) Super Mario Bros. compared to the Donkey Kong arcade games. Maybe it’s that type of effect. I almost wanted to say, “wait, this contest was like 30 years before Mario existed”, but I was wrong. His debut was only 18 years later, in 1981.
Oh fucking hell, I got sidetracked by Mario. As far as the French chansons in early Eurovision go, I quite enjoy this. It’s one of the most moving.
Spain: Algo prodigioso
Artist: José Guardiola
Language: Spanish
Key: G minor
Fun fact: Both the British presenter and Dutch commentator mispronounced part of the singer’s name. The presenter pronounced José as Yosé for some reason, and the commentator pronounced Guardiola with the Dutch G sound instead of the normal G sound that normal languages have.
The cadence and hand gestures of this singer remind me of Italian Eurovision entries, but the topic of the lyrics is Spanish to the core: a dramatic expression of love for his wife, with metaphors involving a million stars and watching over his baby. The song is in a harmonic minor key, so it almost would sound like a villainous song if not for the lyrics and romantic gestures. Parts of it also sound like a military march.
Sweden: En gång i Stockholm
Artist: Monica Zetterlund
Language: Swedish
Key: G major
This slow, peaceful song tells a story of a boat trip to the harsh winters of Stockholm, with love so strong that it makes winter feel like summer. The tone of the song evokes a quiet winter day to me, because of the simple instrumentation, heavy string chords, and wooden percussion. I guess the jury preferred something flashy, considering this song got zero points. Shame because I find this song very evocative.
Belgium: Waarom?
Artist: Jacques Raymond
Language: Dutch
Key: C major, D♭ major
A reflective ballad in 6/8 time, asking why love works the way it does. It’s kind of tedious to listen to. I’m asking myself why I keep thinking he’s about to sing in French, when I clearly hear Dutch. I guess all this Eurovision reviewing has made me associate this slow, dramatic singing with the French language.
I think I’ve realized why I’ve had so little to say about Belgian entries so far. Most of them have been slow-paced and sung dramatically by a man, four times the same man. Only one was sung by a woman, “Le plus beau jour de ma vie” from 1956. In 1965, we’ll get another female singer! Then we’ll see if a Belgian entry will inspire a gigantic wall of text.
Monaco: L’Amour s’en va
Artist: Françoise Hardy
Language: French
Key: D major
This singer was quite a big pop star in France, who boosted genres that we’d later hear in Eurovision like yé-yé. The Dutch commentator said she composed the song herself at 18 years old. With the alternation between straight and swing rhythms, and the chord progression carefully designed to prevent the song from sounding too gloomy, this might be the most modern-sounding song in every contest I’ve reviewed till now. I could imagine a song with this composition becoming a mainstream radio hit as late as the 2000’s.
Luxembourg: À force de prier
Artist: Nana Mouskouri, the first of two Greeks to represent Luxembourg
Language: French
Key: B major, C major in the last verse
As with Switzerland’s representative, this is a singer who’s done work in many languages but went with the safest choice for Eurovision: French. Once in a while, especially after the language rule ended, countries have sent songs in a smorgasbord of languages, and I’m surprised Luxembourg of all countries has never done that. It would suit the country well, considering its strong multilingualism. However, I’d be surprised if Luxembourg’s comeback entry next year is in anything other than French or English.
The instrumental is rather simple, mainly using bass and low brass instruments, but these are enough to make it sound moving. The song is about consistently praying to hope she will get love, and while it isn’t the biggest standout, I do think her glasses are cute.
Who’s my favorite?
For the first time in this post series, I listened to every song at least twice before moving to the next, then I relistened through all the songs just like in every review. I’m confident in which songs to pick from now. Germany gave us a refreshing burst of energy amidst slow ballads, Denmark is a Eurovision icon musically different from the rest, and France and Sweden’s slow ballads had the right degree of melancholy to evoke something in me. My gut is screaming at me to pick the intricately well-composed Danish entry, so that’s what I’ll do. It’s easily what I’d most likely go out of my way to listen to. This means my winner this year is the contest’s winner: Denmark, Dansevise. Welcome Denmark to this list:
- Denmark, 1
- Germany, 2
- Luxembourg, 1
- Netherlands, 2
- Norway, 1
- Sweden, 1
- (4 winners)
I have a hunch that my pattern of agreeing with odd-numbered years’ winners will continue in 1965. No one really talks about the rest of that year’s entries.
General thoughts:
My impression from this contest is that after the initial excitement of Eurovision’s existence, the staff tried new ways to keep the audience engaged, and this contest was the result. The songs’ staging ranged from plain old singers to sophisticated props and effects, and this formula prevails today. This contest had a strangely high concentration of ballads, so in other words, it was a perfectly normal Eurovision year. Denmark and Monaco’s songs were the most musically distinct, and if Monaco had won, Eurovision would have accelerated its evolution towards today’s pop music.
It took decades for Eurovision to become as zany as it is today, but the interval acts were quicker to whimsify (which is 100% absolutely a real word). The wacky bike and unicycle dance from the interval act is the kind of over-the-top zaniness that we’d later get in the songs themselves. After all, they needed something to entertain viewers while the votes were being tallied… though one country was a little slow to count them.
Norway’s jury had a notorious mishap. They initially gave the points before everyone chose their favorites, then they redistributed their points at the end. It seemed like Switzerland would win, but when Norway changed their points, Denmark won instead. This last-minute change caused some uproar among fans, plus conspiracy theories that the contest was rigged. This is a hilariously common pattern with fans of any media. If something happens in it that they don’t like, they’ll make crazy theories because they cling to the idea that their favorite creators would never make mistakes. That has not changed in the slightest today. Some fans think Sweden only won this year so they could host the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s win, even though they’d make basically the same complaint if Sweden won next year instead.
What can I say? It wouldn’t be Eurovision without a ridiculous screw-up. The married couple from Denmark looked delighted to win, and they deserved it. Unlike a certain other pair, they only did a quick kiss when their reprise ended.
See you next time for the year with a notorious lack of video footage. I’ll have to make do with what I have!
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