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Introduction
Hosted in London, England for the fourth and last time, Eurovision 1977 had a lineup of 18 countries like last year. Yugoslavia skipped out, not to return until 1981, and Sweden returned, starting a streak of attendance unbroken to this day. It was almost going to be the first Eurovision with an Arab country participating, namely Tunisia. However, Tunisia withdrew before selecting a song. Despite many of them being in the European Broadcasting Union, Arab countries have been reluctant to join Eurovision due to Israel’s presence. Lebanon almost participated in 2005 and had a song ready, but withdrew for the same reason. The only Arab state to participate was Morocco in 1980, in a year where Israel skipped out.
In this contest, the language rule was brought back with an asterisk. If a country selected a song before the change was announced, it was exempt from the language rule. That’s why Germany and Belgium sang in English this year.
This contest was delayed by a month because the technicians were on strike. It was held in May instead of the then-usual April. Because of the strikes, there were no postcards this time; shots of the audience were put in their place, which just isn’t the same. I wanted to watch this contest with French commentary due to the winner, but I couldn’t find it, so I settled for German.
In the intro, when the German commentator mentioned Prince Charles of Wales, I realized that up to 2022, Eurovision took place within Elizabeth II’s reign. If only Eurovision ended before her death, it could be like the famous fact that Homestuck ran entirely within Barack Obama’s presidency.
Ireland: It’s Nice to Be in Love Again
Artist: The Swarbriggs (returning from 1975) Plus Two
Language: English
Key: A major, B♭ major
If I close my eyes during the applause before this song, it sounds exactly like rain. Then again, if someone lives in a dry country and frequently attends concerts, they’d think rain sounds like applause.
To begin this contest, the Swarbriggs imitate ABBA and Brotherhood of Man by adding two women to the mix and wearing matching 70’s outfits. It worked well for them, since they scored third place behind France and the UK. It’s a relaxed, feel-good pop song that suits its title well, but it’ll probably be overshadowed in flashiness by a later entry. The high score was probably because its running order made people think “wow, this is a strong start!” Even though I know a mixed bag of songs will follow, this song subconsciously makes me think the rest will be strong too.
Monaco: Une petite française
Artist: Michèle Torr, who represented Luxembourg in 1966
Language: French
Key: D minor
Wow, Michèle’s voice got a major glow-up since her last entry! It sounds so much more passionate now. This is a nice little minor key pop song, set apart from the others by the tempo changes between the verse and chorus. In the song’s lyrics, the singer tells her lover that she’s not a superstar idol, just an ordinary French girl. As a possible coincidence, the singer (both in the lyrics and in reality) is from Provence, the region of France that contains Monaco.
Netherlands: De mallemolen
Artist: Heddy Lester, who died in January 2023
Language: Dutch
Key: B♭ major, B major
So far, this contest’s songs have been nice and comfy but not something that blows me away. This is a positive but reflective pop ballad comparing life to a merry-go-round. The most notable thing about this song is probably Heddy’s dress which, in the spirit of Dutch bluntness,* looks like complete shit. Considering the title, the song’s composition could have done more to match the merry-go-round theming. But not too much, or else the song would have sounded too dainty. Same goes for the staging and outfits. There’s another thing ABBA did right: the singers’ outfits match the title “Waterloo” while also looking stylish and memorable.
* Pretty much every Dutch person I know is like that. I admire it about them.
Austria: Boom Boom Boomerang
Artist: Schmetterlinge
Language: German, plus a surprising amount of English
Key: D♭ major in the intro, then G major, then A major at the end
I think these guys would be proud of Austria’s 2023 entry, “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” Both songs are jabs at the music industry and its greed for money, but they do it in different ways.
The song begins with the lyrics “music is love for you and me”, sung by four guys in white suits and a woman in a reddish-pink dress, in the style of a barbershop quartet. This is the setup—then comes the reveal. They sing “music is”, then the guys turn backwards, revealing black suits and masks on the backs of their heads, and sing “money for the record company”. This is a moment of pure satirical genius, but the juries didn’t seem to appreciate it considering it got second last place. There’s no denying it—novelty acts will always appeal to televote more than juries. This year’s “Mama ŠČ!” is a perfect example. That song is similar in spirit to “Boom Boom Boomerang” too, since both are by bands that make outlandish political satire.
The rest of the song is upbeat on the surface, but it has a few minor key sections and dissonant chords to give it a scornful edge. This is very much like “Who the Hell Is Edgar”, which is also a careful mix of bouncy and scornful. The lyrics continue to alternate between the joy of music and the greed of selling music, conveyed whenever the costumes flip. Basically, the message comes off as “The music industry is run by a bunch of greedy corporate executives, but look! Here’s fun music to distract you! But they’re still a bunch of bastards.” This reminds me of the executive meddling that a lot of British representatives from this era were put through, especially women.
All in all, this is a super fun novelty act, but far from the wildest I’ve heard. Later entries would perfect the novelty act formula further.
Norway: Casanova
Artist: Anita Skorgan. We’ll see her in multiple later contests.
Language: Norwegian
Key: A major, B♭ major
The 1970’s were a poor decade for Norway in Eurovision—their highest rank was 7th place in 1973. This song got 14th place out of 18, so it wasn’t their worst result. Still, in this era, it must have sucked to be a Norwegian Eurovision fan.
The lyrics say that the singer is married to a charming casanova who disappeared last Friday, and she wants someone to find him. It’s a cute storytelling tune combining stage play music with blues, but it suffers a little from awkward lyric rhythm. Take the line that opens the chorus, “for han er den store Casanova”, which translates word for word to “for he is the great Casanova”. The syllables “store Casa” are sung so fast the singer has trouble keeping up. I’m sure the rhythm could have been adjusted to solve this problem. The speedy lyrics are also in the English and Swedish versions, so this isn’t just a problem of language adaptation.
Another problem is that the song runs out of lyrical ideas quickly. We get a verse with two stanzas, a chorus, a second verse with one stanza, then the chorus three times. That makes the song more repetitive than I’d like.
Germany: Telegram
Artist: Silver Convention
Language: English
Key: A major
Unlike other German-speaking countries’ entries in English, this song actually feels designed to be sung in English, which is relieving. It’s sung by a female trio over an early disco instrumental. The lyrics are about a woman wanting to send a telegram to get her love interest back, and it has a telegram playing Morse code notes as a gimmick. Again, it’s cute but repetitive. The chorus with the repeated word “telegram” almost feels like it belongs in a commercial.
Luxembourg: Frère Jacques
Artist: Anne-Marie B.
Language: French
Key: B♭ minor, briefly B minor and C minor at the end
This song is based on a French nursery rhyme but with a new, bizarre spin. It’s about a woman who is afraid of a bunch of named men that want her and asks Frère Jacques (possibly her brother?) to wake up and protect her, then sleep with her. All this is put over a disco beat with a funky bassline and that disco guitar I don’t know the word for, with two key changes at the end, the first of which is very brief. It scored third last place, so either the juries found it too eccentric or had a vendetta against disco (like the ABSOLUTE TRAGEDY of Slovenia 2022).
Personally, I think the song is quite strange but hard to forget. Her voice is shaky at the start but gets better.
Portugal: Portugal no coração
Artist: Os Amigos
Language: Portuguese
Key: C minor in the intro, then A♭ major, B♭ major
I love the word “coração”, which means “heart” in Portuguese. It’s so fun to say and easy to recognize. But it’s not nearly as fun to type. This song contains another one of my favorite Portuguese words, “saudade”, which means, well… It means “saudade”. I can’t speak Portuguese at all, but I’ve encountered the language so much on the Internet that I’ve picked up on quite a few words. Plus, I recognize a lot from Spanish.
This song is yet another reflection on the end of the Portuguese dictatorship. The lyrics say that Portugal has killed beloved people like the singer’s brother, but it’s their cherished homeland that will now see better times. This is reflected in the pace of the song, which starts as a slow vocal solo, but then becomes a band piece that sounds like the bittersweet credits to a movie. It has a key change and slows down at the end. It’s patriotic in such a sincere, Portuguese way.
I predict that Ukraine’s entries over the next years will tell a similar story about their turbulent history, just like Portugal. The story has begun with “Stefania” and “Heart of Steel”. Interestingly, Spain never had entries about the fall of their dictatorship; they seemed more interested in showcasing Spanish-speaking musical culture, which is still true today.
United Kingdom: Rock Bottom
Artist: Lynsey de Paul and Michael Moran
Language: English
Key: G major
Normally, the BBC gave British entries a huge amount of support, but this song was an exception. They didn’t want this fan favorite song to win because they didn’t want to host two Eurovisions in a row. They could pass on the hosting duties to another broadcaster, but that’d be unbecoming of the broadcaster that usually fills in. So the BBC avoided giving the song too much support, and it seemed to work! The song got second place behind France, but knowing the UK, that might have happened anyway.
The German commentator warned us that this song will get stuck in your head easily. Knowing British entries of this era, I’m not surprised. It’s a duet with a memorable staging gimmick: first Lindsey reads a newspaper titled “Rock Bottom”. Then she and Michael take turns singing while playing two pianos on one bench, their backs facing each other. The section that starts with “can you tell me” begins in the song’s relative minor key (E minor), then uses diminished chords in an extremely British way. The rest is very much in major key and has a distinct blues sound.
The song’s lyrics are memorable too. They’re about working through a troublesome situation, even if you’ve hit rock bottom. Viewers drew parallels with the contest itself, which almost didn’t happen in 1977 because of worker strikes. Can you imagine being a Eurovision fan today and finding out the contest was delayed to June or July? If COVID-19 only lasted a few weeks like initially thought, that might have happened in 2020.
We’re now in an era where alternate-language releases of Eurovision songs started to decline. This song only had one in German, called “Für immer” (forever), and it’s more about a romantic relationship than getting out of a tough situation. It still suits the instrumental well.
Greece: Máthima solfege (Μάθημα σολφέζ)
Artist: Paschalis, Marianna, Robert, and Betty
Language: Greek
Key: C minor
I was never a huge fan of the solfege. By which I mean, I threw a tantrum in elementary school when I had to learn it. I had already learned from piano the names of notes as letters, so this alternate system of naming notes after arbitrary syllables seemed like the stupidest thing ever. Later I learned the solfege is used to name notes relative to the root note instead of exact pitches, but I have perfect pitch so my brain doesn’t work that way. Much later, I learned that some countries always use the solfege to name notes, and Greece is one of them. That makes sense now that I think of it, since most Greek letters’ names have multiple syllables.
This song is Greece’s take on the two men, two women formula. They wear matching violet outfits and dance extensively, in a performance that seems intended to win. Their heads wiggle like a metronome at the start, and in the chorus they do conducting gestures. They got fifth place behind two songs in French and two in English, which is pretty damn good!
As for the lyrics, the verses are about the joy of playing music that’s impossible to grow out of. The chorus sings the names of the notes within the solfege, but in a minor scale. I didn’t know you were allowed to use the names for a minor scale. The songwriter did a good job choosing a melody that flows well with the note name lyrics. I love the contrast in energy between the chorus and verses too.
Israel: Ahava Hi Shir Lishnayim (אהבה היא שיר לשניים)
Artist: Ilanit (Hanna Dresder-Tzakh), returning from 1973
Language: Hebrew
Key: E major
This is pretty much an alright ballad I don’t think much about. Come to think of it, Ilanit’s entry four years prior wasn’t that different from this, but I was more wowed by it, perhaps because this style of ballad wasn’t as common then. It seems the jury felt this way too, because it didn’t score as well as “Ey Sham”—11th place compared to 4th place.
Switzerland: Swiss Lady
Artist: Pepe Lienhard Band
Language: German, with a few English phrases
Key: A♭ major, A major
After dominantly sending French-language chansons, this song is a huge change of pace from Switzerland. It combines rock and roll music with traditional instruments like a flute and alphorn plus some yodeling, sung by a bunch of guys in white suits. A lot of fan favorite Eurovision songs blend a country’s traditional music with a contemporary genre, so I’m sure fans at the time loved this song too. This song is so different from previous Swiss entries, it almost feels like if the UK were to send a traditional Celtic song in 2024.
Opposite to Switzerland’s previous entry, this seems to be a German adaptation of a song in English. I don’t know that for sure, but considering the English phrases in the lyrics, I would be surprised if it wasn’t true. The adaptation into German is much better done than “Djambo Djambo” to English.
This song has the shortest genre switch in any song I’ve ever heard. When the singers say “Dixieland”, the instrumental switches to a country style for only one second. I find that touch amazingly charming, especially when performed live.
Sweden: Beatles
Artist: Forbes, the anti-ABBA
Language: Swedish, begrudgingly (at least, I assume it was begrudging)
Key: B♭ major
Three years after sending one of the most famous bands in the world, we’ve reached a song about one of the most famous bands in the world. I like to think of Forbes as the polar opposite of ABBA, because they’re extremely obscure and are the only time Sweden has ever had last place all to itself.
This song about how great the Beatles are got two points from Germany and nothing else. Probably because when you forget that it’s about the Beatles, it’s a pretty boring song. As TV Tropes would put it, this song is so okay, it’s average. Some people consider it Sweden’s weirdest entry, but “Nygammal vals” was definitely more out there.
Spain: Enséñame a cantar
Artist: Micky (Miguel Ángel Carreño Schmelter)
Language: Spanish
Key: E major
This guy was 34 years old in this contest, but he looked a bit older. Maybe it’s the receding hairline.
We’ve got another country sending a genre I wouldn’t expect from them! I had never imagined a country song with tons of banjo sung in Spanish, but it works well. It’s a short love story about a man who wanted a woman on the banjo to teach him how to sing, and she did. It’s an example of the message Eurovision likes to brand itself on, that music brings people together.
Italy: Libera
Artist: Mia Martini
Language: Italian
Key: D major, E major, F major
In a contest with a song about the corrupt ways of the music industry, it’s heartbreaking to read about what Mia Martini was subjected to. She was pushed around by executives throughout her career and died of a drug overdose in 1995, at 47 years old. Even this song was the subject of executive meddling; it was originally a ballad, but it was repurposed into a disco song which Mia didn’t like.
The story behind this song makes it ironic that it’s about freedom to be yourself and pursue your dreams. Her strong, dramatic singing style seems like it would best fit a ballad, but it’s like the Schmetterlinge said: Music is money for the record company. This song got 13th place and probably would have scored better if it was a ballad. Mia Martini would return in 1992 and score much higher.
Finland: Lapponia
Artist: Monica Aspelund
Language: Finnish
Key: F major, G major
Oh, Finnish language, how I missed you. This is an upbeat semi-folk song about a mysterious girl from the northernmost part of Finland called Lapponia. The song is best known for a shrill, ultra-high note near the end that lasted nine seconds. It’s impressive that she sang it this long, but it’s also a pain to the ears.
Belgium: A Million in One, Two, Three
Artist: Dream Express, who represented the Netherlands in 1970 as “Hearts of Soul”
Language: English
Key: E♭ major, F major
We’re almost done! This is the last fully English song we’ll hear from a non-Anglophone country until 1999, which happens to be the year I was born.
This song has a similar vibe to Germany’s entry: a non-Anglophone country singing in English, upbeat showy instrumental, and a title hook that sounds like it would fit in a TV commercial. It’s a little cheesy and goofy, but also a lot of fun. I like the rapid-fire chord progression before each chorus; it almost feels like leading into a key change. It’s not my favorite of the contest, but I can’t help but smile at it.
France: L’oiseau et l’enfant (the winner)
Artist: Marie Myriam
Language: French
Key: C minor, C♯ minor, D minor
Of the five French songs that won Eurovision, this is the last and best known by far. It’s often considered France’s most iconic entry, but their 1991 entry is also a contender. Unlike the last two years, the final song won this contest. Here are two surprising facts about Marie Myriam: her native language is Portuguese, and she was born in the Belgian Congo.
I had never heard this song in full before, and it completely blew me away. After a bit of instrumental, Marie sings a magnificent unaccompanied solo, then the song delves into the full arrangement. It’s just an all-around beautiful song. A confident singer, a clear consistent structure, easy to understand lyrics about a bird and child, a strong singing voice, backing singers that add harmonies but keep the lead in the center, what more could you ask for? The song gets more dramatic after every key change, so the key changes don’t feel like padding. Even if I didn’t speak a lick of French, I would still find it a gorgeous piece of music. It’s a perfect example of a song that everyone can enjoy, no matter which language they speak. That’s why I don’t care to listen to the alternate language versions, at least not for now.
Why is “L’oiseau et l’enfant” so much more famous than other French winners? I can give an answer. Their first three victories were in the contest’s formative years, in 1958, 1960, and 1962. Their fourth victory was part of the four-way tie in 1969. By elimination, it makes sense their fifth victory would be the biggest icon. This is doubly true considering how beautiful this song is. I think this song is so moving because it keeps a consistent direction throughout. It doesn’t break the pace with major key sections or bridges, so the powerful energy builds up from start to finish.
This song got so lucky being put at the end. It stole my heart and overshadowed everything else, but it didn’t totally sweep the competition. The UK and Ireland scored highly too, and both got more 12 points than France.
Who’s my favorite?
I spent half of this review debating with myself whether I liked the UK or Greece’s entries more, until my heart was swept by France, L’oiseau et l’enfant. This song is on a totally different level from everything else, and I bet the BBC was thankful France sent such a gorgeous song. Félicitations à la France !
- Austria, 1
- Belgium, 1
- Denmark, 1
- Finland, 1
- France, 1
- Germany, 2
- Ireland, 1
- Luxembourg, 2
- Netherlands, 6
- Norway, 2
- Portugal, 1
- Sweden, 3
- (10 winners)
Finally, France has a spot on my list! But the UK, Spain, and Italy still don’t. Others not on the list are Switzerland, Monaco, Yugoslavia, and the countries that joined in the 70’s.
General thoughts:
I’m still recovering from how awesome “L’oiseau et l’enfant” is, but I can whip up some thoughts. Aside from the winner, we had a fun variety of songs with a bias towards disco pop. Most songs had something to like about them, and even the weakest ones were harmless. Austria had a memorable novelty act ahead of its time, Greece sent a fun gimmicky song full of energy, and the UK sent an authentically British classic. However, I like Eurovision years best when there are a lot of super-strong entries, not one that sweeps far above the rest. Still a very fun year!
Some notes about the voting: This is the first scoreboard with flags on it. Unfortunately, the scoreboard didn’t indicate which country was presently giving scores, so viewers had to rely on memory. The flashing flag instead indicated which country was in the lead, which is much less useful. Also, the voting was a trainwreck of mishaps but ultimately the results stayed consistent. I’m scratching my head at how it’s possible the presenter misheard “deux” as “sept”. The presenter’s French was pretty good otherwise. She sounded like an someone with a graduate degree in French who still has an accent but takes the language seriously.
Once again, Charles Curran filled in for the previous winners in handing Marie Murian her prize. Compared to Brotherhood of Man’s proud optimism last year, Marie cried when she won. It seems that she didn’t expect to win at all! I got a little teary watching her reprise too.
See you next time as Israel wins with a song that screams Israel.
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