Intro Post

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Introduction

1956, 1964, and 2020 are the “lost years” of Eurovision because you can’t watch a full video recording of any of these contests. The first two because most of the video footage is lost media; the third because COVID-19 forced the contest’s cancellation. Fortunately, the audio of this contest is preserved entirely, and we know exactly who voted for who. This time, countries gave five, three, and one points to their top three songs. This led Italy to beat its nearest rival by almost three times, the most crushing victory in Eurovision history.

Sweden skipped this contest due to student protests, while Portugal made its debut, which kept the number of countries at 16. Since 2017, Portugal has been the most recent first-time winner of Eurovision. Many fans weren’t happy about including Portugal, since back then it was a dictatorship like Spain. Protests against these countries’ inclusion caused the first ever stage invasion in Eurovision history.

Anyway, this contest was hosted in Copenhagen, Denmark, the northernmost and easternmost host city thus far. The presenter spoke mostly in her own language, as was the norm back then. I understand Danish less than Dutch, but more than the other North Germanic languages.

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Luxembourg: Dès que le printemps revient

Artist: Hugues Aufray

Language: French

Key: E major, F♯ major

Right at the intro, where we hear a mix of trumpets and guitars, I can tell this contest will have more musical variety than any before. This instrumentation style continues for the whole song, plus a few strings. It’s a love song whose title means “as soon as spring returns”. Unfortunately, Hugues Aufray sounds like his throat is sore, which prevents me from enjoying the song that much. The backing singers’ voices are much smoother.

Netherlands: Jij bent mijn leven

Artist: Anneke Grönloh, the first contestant of Asian descent (specifically Indonesia)

Language: Dutch

Key: D major, E♭ major in the final chorus

While Luxembourg’s song was decent musically, this song is the first that truly wows me. Compared to what we’ve seen in prior contests, it’s a huge burst of energy. It’s very poppy and bubbly, a tone we hardly heard in any previous entries.

The repeated chorus of this song has something interesting: F major chords mixed with D major chords. Because of the relationship between these keys, this gives a tinge of minor key and makes the song sound a little mischievous. It matches with the tone of this song, which is basically “I know you lie and backstab me, but screw it, you are my life (the title of the song) anyway”. The rest of the song uses more conventional major chords to show her prevailing love. The slow section lasts just enough to give listeners a breather, before it goes back to being bouncy.

Obviously, if a song I enjoy this much has a low score (only two points), I have to speculate why. My best guess is the curse of being placed second, plus the changed scoring system. Under the 1963 scoring system, it would have gotten at least six points, since it was two countries’ third place, and the average song’s score would have been 15 instead of 9.

Norway: Spiral

Artist: Arne Bendiksen, a name we’ll encounter a lot in this contest

Language: Norwegian

Key: B♭ major

Wow, I am not used to the variety this contest has given me. It’s like these songs are all screaming at me to give them their undivided attention, but that just means I’ll have to put them under higher standards. Strangely, this means I don’t feel an instinct to listen to each song twice before the next. One listen is usually enough for me to give plenty of thoughts, but of course I’ll relisten through these songs as I continue this review.

This is an upbeat, floaty jazz song about a balloon used as a metaphor for happiness. When hearing it, I can imagine a man floating from a balloon and watching over a bustling city. It doesn’t stand out as much as the Netherlands, but it’s still a fun, bouncy tune. It gives me similar vibes to “Frauen regier’n die Welt”, Germany’s last Eurovision song in German back in 2007. Both songs are even in the same key. The singer is a big name in Norway, and he composed four later Eurovision entries.

Denmark: Sangen om dig

Artist: Bjørn Tidmand

Language: Danish

Key: E major, E minor, back to E major, F major

An old-timey waltz whose title means “the song about you”, though my knowledge of German makes me think it means “singing about you”. I guess that’s not a huge difference.

This waltz starts out pretty standard except that it uses an accordion, but then a dramatic loud chord turns the song into minor key. After the minor key section, it moves back to E major for the instrumental, then the key moves up for the final chorus. This song might be a little more distinct if it used more accordion, but I appreciate the increased variety in instruments either way. The exceptionally long applause was probably because it’s the host entry. I know from experience that following Eurovision awakens your inner patriot.

Finland: Laiskotellen

Artist: Lasse Mårtenson

Language: Finnish, ending with a phrase in English

Key: A♭ major

A calm jazz song about relaxing on a Sunday, this one goes in the “it would have scored way better in English” pile. It’s easy to imagine this song with the rhythm of English, or another Germanic language, because it doesn’t feel like it’s designed for the Finnish language. This would make sense because the singer’s native language was Swedish. I’m a little surprised Finland didn’t try singing in Swedish more often. Either Finland’s representatives didn’t know it was an option, or they weren’t interested in winning.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a cute song and I think Finnish is one of the coolest sounding languages in Europe. It just doesn’t fit the same lyrical rhythm as Germanic languages. By the way, here’s a tip on identifying spoken Finnish: look out for those long, emphasized “L” sounds. That’s also a characteristic of Italian, but everyone knows what Italian sounds like.

Austria: Warum nur, warum?

Artist: Udo Jürgens, who would win two years later

Language: German

Key: B♭ major, B major at the end

A dreary ballad whose title means “why, just why?” It’s about a man whose love just left him and bemoans the impermanence of all things good. While this contest has had some of the liveliest entries I’ve seen yet, it’s also given us one of the gloomiest, which is this one.

The song gets happier and more triumphant in the bridge section, where Udo sings that he believed when his love said they would last forever. It shows him clinging to hope before he goes back to despair.

France: Le chant de Mallory

Artist: Rachel Ros

Language: French

Key: E♭ major, E major

Yep, this is another romantic ballad, but less sad than Austria’s. The singer tries to remember what her lover named Mallory sang to her under the blue of the Irish sky, which you could take as foreshadowing the next country to join Eurovision. It doesn’t stick out much to me, but if it was in a duller year like 1961, it would have been one of the most enjoyable.

United Kingdom: I Love the Little Things

Artist: Matt Monro

Language: English

Key: A♭ major, A major, B♭ major

Another 60’s British entry with a title lending itself to catchy hooks. The chord progression almost sounds like it’d fit in a country song, and I mean this in a charming way. This especially holds for the fast chord progression when he sings “I love the little things you say”. It almost feels like this is an orchestral cover of a country song, by a man whose voice sounds smoother and more neutral than a typical country voice. I find it a rather sweet song.

Germany: Man gewöhnt sich so schnell an das Schöne

Artist: Nora Nova, Bulgarian by birth

Language: German

Key: A minor, B♭ minor

Two years in a row, Germany sent a song that sounds completely like a stage play. It starts with a percussion-free intro, and the rest sounds like a fairy tale folk song with tons of flutes and oboes. It progressively gets more dramatic and complex, then ends with a jazzy slow-down. The lyrics are about how quickly people fall in love and how hard it is to pull yourself away, and the increasing complexity of the instrumental reflects this. All around, it sounds very theatrical. It unfortunately got no points, maybe due to its surrounding songs.

Monaco: Où sont-elles passées

Artist: Romuald Figuier

Language: French

Key: A♭ major, B major, C major

Yet another bass, piano, and strings ballad in 6/8 time—there seems to be at least one of these in every early contest. It varies the composition by delving into minor key, uses that to transition into a different major key (G♯/A♭ minor to B major), then does a more conventional key change to C major. The lyrics are about losing every girl he fell in love with, comparing them to forbidden fruit. I like the composition and key changes, but it blends with the rest otherwise.

Portugal: Oração

Artist: António Calvário

Language: Portuguese, the prettiest sounding language in Europe

Key: C minor, C major

I can’t overstate how much I love the sound of Portuguese. While Brazilian Portuguese sounds super cool too, in this blog I’m talking about European Portuguese. It mixes Spanish vocabulary with French-like phonology and a Slavic-esque cadence to splendid effect, and it sounds adorable and sexy at the same time. I’m super glad that when Portugal finally won Eurovision in 2017, they did it in Portuguese. They still send songs in Portuguese almost every year.

So, how does Portugal’s first Eurovision song stack up? It consists of a prayer to let God forgive his mistreatment of his love, and it’s a melancholy ballad first in minor key, then in major key. The transition to major key sounds like God has forgiven him after all. It’s an OK song that I don’t have strong feelings about. It’s the first of three songs to get zero points in this contest, and unfortunately, Portugal would continue being unlucky for the next few decades. They did quite a bit better in the 90’s.

Italy: Non ho l’età (the winner)

Artist: Gigliola Cinquetti, the youngest winner at the time

Language: Italian

Key: F major

As the first Eurovision winner from one of its biggest-name countries, it’s no surprise that this song is a pretty big deal. The title means “I’m not old enough”, and the lyrics are about being too young to love someone. It could also be translated as “I don’t have the age”, which would make the song understandable by more age groups. Part of its first performance has surviving footage, and it looks like someone holding a camera in the 60’s thought, “oh shit, this song is gonna win! I have to film this! But there’s not enough space in my camera for the whole thing!” The reprise also has some missing parts.

As far as the ballads in this contest go, this commits to the ballad style more than any other, and helped by the language, the audience probably viewed it as classy and romantic. I’m just trying to guess why it had an INSANELY long applause at the end, and why it crushed all the others so heavily. It didn’t stick out to me at first, but the emotional factor of this song grows on me after multiple listens. Still, I’m surprised it won by a margin that huge.

Gigliola recorded a lot of foreign-language versions: in English, French, Spanish, German, and surprisingly, Japanese. As with Dansevise, the instrumental in these foreign versions is more moving than the live performance. Her English voice reminds me of other non-native singers in English, especially from southeast Europe. The French version sounds like it could’ve been the song’s original language, and it had the best pronunciation. The other three versions butcher the pronunciation too much.

Yugoslavia: Život je sklopio krug (Живот је склопио круг)

Artist: Sabahudin Kurt

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian)

Key: B♭ major

Yet another song that my brain keeps telling me should be in French. It’s a regular ballad with depressing lyrics about the end of life and turning into stone. It keeps sounding like it’s about to change keys, except it doesn’t, so it feels a bit disjointed. It also had the misfortune of following an insanely well-liked song. That’s probably why it got zero points.

Switzerland: I miei pensieri

Artist: Anita Traversi, returning from 1960

Language: Italian

Key: F major

As far as romantic ballads go, this one is the right degree of melancholic for me to enjoy it quite a bit. It feels more dreamy than gloomy, especially since the lyrics are about trusting her love to a cloud. It’s romantic with a trace of whimsy. I can think of two reasons this song got zero points. Either it fell in the shadow of the other Italian tune two songs earlier, or the juries forgot about this song due to the stage protesting incident right after.

Belgium: Près de ma rivière

Artist: Robert Cogoi

Language: French

Key: E major

I have no idea what to say about this romantic ballad in a sea of ballads, so instead I’ll point out that this contest was the opposite of the last two years in terms of early songs’ performance. This time, the early songs did better than the late songs, except Italy and Monaco. The only explanation I can think of is that the late songs were overshadowed by Italy.

Sorry Belgium, as much as I love “Because of You” from this year, you’re the most boring country in early Eurovision. At least the major 7th chord at the end is nice.

Spain: Caracola

Artist: Los TNT, an Italian-Uruguayan trio (Nelly, Tim, and Tony Croatto)

Language: Spanish

Key: E♭ major at the start, A♭ major, A major

Why did so few contestants use the opportunity to put in backup singers? I’ve found that Eurovision songs interest me more if they have multiple singers, like this one. Most of the vocals are from the female singer, whose voice sounds overwhelmed with emotion, and the two men accompany her in the chorus. It’s one of the most complex compositions this year, and it alternates between sounding unusual and normal for this contest. I wish it leaned harder into the unusual side, since the lyrics are about an eccentric theme: a conch shell and the sea.

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Who’s my favorite?

Oh, that’s easy. One song wowed me by far the most, just as Italy won with by far the most points. That would be Netherlands, Jij bent mijn leven.

• Denmark, 1
• Germany, 2
• Luxembourg, 1
• Netherlands, 3
• Norway, 1
• Sweden, 1
• (4 winners)

If you found it boring how quickly I chose the winner, I would’ve been just as bored if I was watching the voting results as Italy steamrolled everyone else. They sent a good song, but it takes away the excitement when one country is obviously going to win.

General thoughts:

My main takeaway from this contest, aside from realizing that we take media preservation for granted, is that Eurovision’s evolution is incremental. A few songs in this contest felt more modern than anything before (like the Netherlands), a few stuck to the same styles we’ve known since the start (like Italy). I do wonder why they kept changing the voting system so much. It’d only be for three years that Eurovision kept the five, three, one points scoring. Maybe it’s because no matter which voting system is used, some fans will be pissed off, so changing it is how the Eurovision organizers see what works best.

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See you next time as Luxembourg gives us the most iconic Eurovision song of the 60’s.

>> 1965: The Victory of a Puppeteer