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In a post about a contest that Germany won, there’s no better time to mention that I’ll be in Germany from September 9 to 18! I’m extremely excited about this trip and might write a bit about it on my blog.

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Introduction

In the months leading to Eurovision 1982, it seemed like the contest was declining in popularity and prestige. Italy was absent just like last year, and France skipped because their broadcaster TF1 considered Eurovision a “monument to insanity”. This era was rough for Greece too. They withdrew from 1982 and 1986 with a song ready, and 1984 without a song ready, with no transparency or forewarning from their broadcaster. If you’re a pretentious fan who says things like “back in (insert decade before 2000 here), Eurovision was about REAL music”, plenty of people were just as dismissive about the era that you romanticize. You’re just blinded by nostalgia. (Thankfully, France returned in 1983 with a new broadcaster and hasn’t missed a contest since.)

In this sense, you may consider Eurovision 1982 like a party where the two most awaited guests couldn’t make it, and thus the others have to make do without them. It’s also like a party where your friends chose a bizarre location: the small spa town of Harrogate, England. The broadcast of this contest embraced the bizarrity of this choice by putting a “Where is Harrogate?” sketch at the start.

This year was most famous for Germany’s first victory, which was by a landslide. This meant Belgium would be the last of the original seven participants to take the crown. Since this was 17 years before I was born, I would say “I can only imagine what it was like to be German and see your country finally win”, but I actually have a story to tell about it. I’ll tell it when I review Germany’s entry, at the end of this contest.

I wanted to watch this contest with German commentary, but I’m sorry, Ado Schlier’s style of commentary (1980 to 1986) is so boring. So instead, I watched it with Luxembourg’s commentary from a woman named Marylène Bergmann, who was almost 25 years old. Her younger age should provide a fresh perspective on this competition, as well as train my French listening skills. From 1987 to 1991, Germany had a different commentator every year, and that should be more interesting.

Dear god… all this commentator talk made me realize that eventually, there will be a Eurovision commentator younger than me. That’s assuming there isn’t already one, but I didn’t find any from a Wikipedia search. Being 24 years old is weird, guys.

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Portugal: Bem bom

Artist: Doce, a female quartet

Language: Portuguese

Key: D major

Gonna be real, this is pretty much a nothing song. The lyrics are about nothing, the instrumental does nothing for me, and neither does the singing style. I would have thought it got last place, but instead it got 13th out of 18. Were the other songs really bad? We’ll have to see.

Luxembourg: Cours après le temps

Artist: Svetlana (Claire de Loutchek)

Language: French

Key: C major, and near the end, D major and E major

I love the little moments before the postcards where we zoom into each commentator above stage. The Luxembourgish commentator smiled and waved her hand, which was cute.

This is a very 80’s sounding romance ballad that ticks all the checkboxes for this genre: a guitar riff, alternation between lead and backing singers, a slow drum beat, and of course the key changes. The main thing setting it apart is that Svetlana hits a lot of high notes, especially towards the end when she goes opera mode. This style of song feels fresh to me now, but it might start to grate on me if we get more songs like this in the 80’s.

Norway: Adieu

Artist: Jahn Teigen (returning from 1978) and Anita Skorgan (returning from 1977 and 1979)

Language: Norwegian

Key: C major

Another Norwegian entry, another postcard with skiing. There’s other stuff too (like Jahn handing Anita a rose, which she sniffs extra close), but the skis came first. Jahn and Anita would later be married from 1984 to 1988.

This song is about two lovers who must say goodbye to each other, staged in a memorable way: Anita plays piano while Jahn sits to the right of the piano, facing towards her. As I’ve said before, romantic duets are always most genuine when romantic couples sing them. Both have great voices, and it’s refreshing to hear Jahn Teigen sing for real after his infamous performance four years prior. For some reason, Norway sent returning singers more often than not in this era. Maybe they felt that if they sent returning artists enough times, they’d strike gold and win the contest. Three years later, that would prove correct!

United Kingdom: One Step Further

Artist: Bardo (Sally Ann Triplett and Stephen Fischer)

Language: English

Key: E major, F♯ major, A♭ major

In the commentators’ booth, Terry Wogan held a sign saying “Hello Mum”. Ray Moore next to him held a sign saying “Cosmic Superstar Next Door”. You have to love their British sense of humor.

The Luxembourgish commentator said the UK sent a super fresh and upbeat song, but it didn’t translate to orchestra well at all. I checked out the song’s studio version, and it’s just as I thought: a fast pop song heavy in synths that blatantly wasn’t designed for an orchestra. The complex dance routine was memorable, but it impeded the singers’ vocal performance. I think this song would have fit better with a partly pre-recorded track. That would have made for a hype performance that I’d have loved to see. All these problems knocked a potential winner down to 7th place. Ah, well… even in this watered down orchestra performance, the chorus is supremely catchy. And the studio version is certainly a banger.

One strange commonality with Luxembourg’s song is that both the key changes are up a whole step (as opposed to the more common half step) and towards the end. Additionally, the first key change is brief and has stripped instrumentation. Maybe I’ll just have to accept it as an 80’s Eurovision trope.

Turkey: Hani?

Artist: Neco (Tahir Nejat Özyılmazel)

Language: Turkish

Key: B♭ major, B major

“One Step Further” made me wonder if it simply wasn’t possible to translate upbeat 80’s pop music to an orchestra, but this song did it well! To be fair, the studio version was already heavy in strings, but they did a much better job preserving the pumping energy. I dig this song a lot; the energy and string instrumentation remind me of Turkey’s earlier entry, “Sevince”, but a bit more disco-like. They even adapted the funky guitar chord interlude near the end well.

Songs like this are exactly what I was hoping to discover from binging 80’s Eurovision. Full of energy, recognizably 80’s, and bonus points if it’s in a language whose music I’m unfamiliar with. It’s my favorite of the Turkish funk entries so far. I have to admire Turkey in the 80’s for doing their own Turkish thing, regardless of how low they’d score (15th place here).

This contest has a strange commonality with Eurovision 2010. Both times, Germany won, and I’m obviously happy about that, but Turkey’s entry is a strong contender for my favorite. It’s not a random pair of countries, because Germany is known for its large Turkish diaspora. Note that I haven’t heard most entries of any contest after this (except 2023 and most of 2022), so I could well discover a totally different gem from 2010.

Finland: Nuku pommiin

Artist: Timo Kojo

Language: Finnish

Key: D major

This song is written as a protest against nuclear bombs, though compositionally it’s just a messy attempt at a punk rock song, again muddled by the orchestra. Protest songs are best when they have some scorn or satire baked into the music (think “Tourada” from 1973), which this song doesn’t. Maybe the title, which means “oversleep”, is meant as a pun on “nuclear bomb”? It’s not bad or anything, but I can see why it got zero points. Also, the slowdown at the end annoys me.

Switzerland: Amour on t’aime

Artist: Arlette Zola

Language: French

Key: C♯ minor in the verses, E major in the chorus, then F major

Another Swiss singer, another commentator who points out how many languages they’ve sung in. The Luxembourgish commentator said Arlette has recorded discs in French, German, and Spanish.

I was hoping the whole song would be in minor key, because this would subvert what you’d expect from a song titled “love, we love you”. However, the choruses are in major key and yet again less interesting than the verses. The singer is super expressive on stage, reminding me of Anne-Marie David’s dramatic gestures, which makes me enjoy the performance more than I otherwise would. It feels like an early 70’s Eurovision entry.

This song got third place, but given how overwhelmingly Germany won (161 points), and that the second through fourth got 100 to 96 points, how much does that really mean? Not a lot if you ask me.

Cyprus: Móno i agápi (Μόνο η αγάπη)

Artist: Anna Vissi, who represented Greece in 1980

Language: Greek

Key: B♭ minor

This is more Greek sounding than Anna Vissi’s last entry. It’s somewhat like what the last entry could have been: the title means “only love” and it’s a ballad firmly in minor key. The lyrics say that love outlives all human life and watches over everything else. It’s got a good singing voice, a strong melody, and a solid title hook. What more could you ask for?

The bridge before the final verse is super interesting because it teases the listener with a potential key change. The chord progression sounds like the song is turning into B♭ major, including the last chord of the section: F major 7th. Since that chord is a fifth above B♭, it leaves the listener questioning whether it would lead into major or minor key, since both are plausible. It’s resolved by leading back to minor key, finishing the song in the mood it began with. If it instead led to major key for the final verse, the whole song’s message would shift.

Sweden: Dag efter dag

Artist: Chips (Kikki Danielsson and Elisabeth Andreassen)

Language: Swedish

Key: D♭ major, D major

Yes, Chips. That’s the name of this duo. At the start of the postcard, the Swedish commentator pointed to an album of theirs, which proves they weren’t a one-off group. In 1985, both members of Chips would return to Eurovision, but pitted against each other. Kikki represented Sweden solo and got third place, while Elisabeth teamed up with another returning singer to represent Norway and won.

I expected this to be a major key swing song heavy in saxophones, and I was right. However, it’s slower than I expected. The inspiration from ABBA’s “Waterloo” is clear, but it hasn’t quite reached the energetic dance style that Nordic countries would soon excel in. You could think of this this song as a proto-“La det swinge”, like how some of Sweden’s early 70’s entries felt like proto-ABBA. It’s slower and more relaxed than the bouncy girl songs that Norway and Sweden loved to send in the 80’s.

This is the only time Elisabeth Andreassen represented Sweden, but it’s far from the last we’ll see of her in Eurovision. As I said, she won as part of a duo in 1985, was in another duet in 1994, and got second place as a soloist in 1996. In all three of those contests, she represented Norway.

Austria: Sonntag

Artist: Mess (Michael Scheickl and Elisabeth Engstler)

Language: German

Key: C major

Most songs in this contest have been upbeat or gloomy, not much in between. This is firmly on the upbeat side, almost overwhelmingly so. Much like the UK, the performers dance so elaborately that it gets in the way of their singing, which is about how great Sundays are. At least their harmonies are nice.

Belgium: Si tu aimes ma musique

Artist: Stella Maessen

Language: French

Key: B minor in the verses, B major in the chorus, C major in the final chorus

For some background, Stella represented the Netherlands in 1970 as part of Hearts of Soul, and Belgium in 1977 as part of Dream Express. The first time, she sang in Dutch, the second in English, and the third in French. Yep, for some reason, a singer from the Netherlands with negligible French skills represented French-speaking Belgium. The executives from the broadcaster RTBF weren’t happy about that.

Knowing the controversy about Stella’s selection, I’m pleasantly surprised by her French singing skills. She sings in it far better than all those English speakers representing Luxembourg did. I’m not a fan of the major key choruses, especially how they eventually dominate over the more interesting verses. I’d rather have “bad verses, good chorus” than “good verses, bad chorus”, because the chorus usually dominates at the end of a song. Otherwise, this is a nice little 80’s sounding song heavy in synths.

Spain: Él

Artist: Lucía (María Isabel Lineros Rodríguez)

Language: Spanish

Key: E♭ minor, E minor

Random fact: “Cabeza” (head) and “interesa” (he/she interests) is a slant rhyme in European Spanish, but an exact rhyme in Latin American Spanish. Less random fact: This song is filled with slant rhymes.

Wow, it’s been way too long since we last had a song that screams Spain! After all the perky pop songs and ballads, this is a real standout to me, but apparently not to the juries since it got only 10th place (out of 18). It’s a full-out tango song full of guitars and castanets that owns the genre so hard, in composition and lyrics and staging. The lyrics are about a coy and mysterious man who toys with the singer’s heart, putting her in a romantic dilemma. Lucia gives a strong vocal performance while being expressive on stage, something that other performers struggled at. She saves the extravagant tango dancing for an instrumental break, and it’s otherwise done just by the background dancers.

I’m starting to understand why some Eurovision songs, especially in recent years, have dance breaks. They’re put in to so the singer can give it their (usually her) all on stage without compromising their vocal skills. Come to think of it, I can’t name a male Eurovision singer off the top of my head who’s done a dance break.

Denmark: Video-Video

Artist: Brixx

Language: Danish

Key: C major

The lyrics of this song are about a man who proudly watches TV all day and doesn’t see why his friends are annoyed about it. Is it supposed to be social commentary, or an earnest song about the joy of turning off your brain? It’s another 80’s rock song heavy in synths, but with minimal orchestration, contrasting against “One Step Further”. This band might have wanted to replicate the energy of ABBA, but instead they sounded more like “Euro-Vision”. (I’m thankful that song’s name has a hyphen in it, because otherwise it’d be confusing to talk about.)

Rock music in Eurovision is interesting, because it tends to either score extra high or extra low. This song, for one, got second last with only five points. It’s not bad at all compositionally, but it doesn’t really hype me up. I think the score of a rock song depends on whether it crosses the threshold of appealing to non-rock fans, because otherwise they’ll be turned off. Or… maybe it just comes down to luck, like so much else in Eurovision. Sorry, my mind diverted to Germany’s inexplicably low score in 2023.

Yugoslavia: Halo, halo

Artist: Aska. Lots of groups with short names here.

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian)

Key: D♭ major, D major, E♭ major

I didn’t expect Yugoslavia of all countries to send a Nordic-style swing pop song; usually they strayed from that genre. This song is OK, but it’s missing some of that extra punch. They did have the right idea putting a key change at the start of the second verse; the winner three years later would do the same.

If you remember how much my brain would try to convince me a Yugoslav entry was in a different language, like French or Italian, this time my brain’s trying to tell me it’s in Swedish. Obviously it’s because of the genre, but this doesn’t happen when I listen to any other country’s entries. Only Yugoslavia. Speaking of which, 12 of this song’s 21 points came from Sweden, which is both amusing and logical.

Israel: Hora (הורה)

Artist: Avi Toledano

Language: Hebrew

Key: F♯ minor, G minor

We’ve now reached the narrow runner up! I find it amusing that the runner up in this contest was a far closer match than the winner.

The Luxembourgish commentator helpfully told us the hora is a traditional dance of Israel, and unsurprisingly it’s featured in this song. This is a characteristic 80’s Israeli entry, which I mean as a compliment. All these upbeat minor key dance songs are just so much fun, and you can immediately tell they’re from Israel. I can easily see why this got second place, but I wouldn’t have expected Belgium and Switzerland to be such close competitors. Both of those songs have exactly the same problem of “good verse, boring chorus, boring key change”.

Netherlands: Jij en ik

Artist: Bill van Dijk

Language: Dutch

Key: D major in the verses, F major in the chorus

If there’s one thing that people associate the Netherlands with, other than windmills and stroopwafels, it’s probably flowers. Indeed, those feature prominently in the country’s postcard, as does a picture of a windmill.

This song once again went for the synth pop vibe, with what may or may not be a pre-recorded track. It makes me wonder why the UK didn’t do the same. In this era, it must have been a tough decision whether or not to adapt a synth-heavy song to orchestra. Both sides have their benefits and drawbacks; either you risk sounding flat, or you risk sounding muddy. The biggest problem with avoiding orchestration is that the song may seem flat compared to its neighbors, but maybe that’s a matter of whether the song itself is well produced.

Oh yeah, what do I think of the song itself? It’s decently composed but kind of flat and ends abruptly, plus the singer annoyingly over-enunciates the Dutch G sound. Not bad by any means, but no winner vibes. I want to skip to Germany so badly, but I still have to review one more song:

Ireland: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Artist: The Duskeys

Language: Irish

Key: C minor

Interesting fact: Both the French-language songs ranked higher (3rd and 4th place) than the English-language songs (7th and 11th place). That must have been satisfying to French-speaking fans!

This is another moderately funky disco song with an elaborate dance routine. The singers look like they’re having fun on stage, but unfortunately the song lacks much direction.

Germany: Ein bisschen Frieden (the winner)

Artist: Nicole Seibert (née Hohloch)

Language: German

Key: F♯ major, G major

(Note: This song was originally released as “Ein bißchen Frieden”, but I’m using the spellings of the 1996 reforms. That’s how you know I can actually speak German!)

My mother was 13 years old when her country won Eurovision for the first time. She has told me that she didn’t expect this song to win at all, but was quite pleased that it did, which proves that Eurovision unlocks the viewer’s patriotic side. She found the song a little cheesy but very sweet, and I have to agree wholeheartedly. I can’t say whether I would have expected it to win, if I was alive in 1982. I would have definitely wanted Germany to win, but I’d have probably been nervous that something would go wrong.

Now, 41 years later, it’s my turn to watch Germany win the contest, even though I’ve already heard this song, and analyze what makes it work so well. In order, I’ll discuss the composition, the lyrics, and the performance.

The composition of the song (both the instrumental and the vocal melody) is a perfect example of “simple but effective”. The melody is super easy to sing or hum along with, it’s clearly designed to be sung in German, and most of all, it just feels German. Most of the instrumental uses only two chords, I and V, plus an IV leading into each chorus. But that never makes the song feel overly simplistic or watered down; in fact, the simplicity fits perfectly with the song’s theme.

As you may already know, this song’s lyrics ask for peace in the world. They don’t mention or reference a particular real-world conflict, just the general feelings that come with war and strife. This means the lyrics are timeless and can be applied to any conflict in today’s world. In fact, it’s hard for me to listen to the lyrics without thinking about the conflict I’ve learned most about over the past year: the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It makes me wish there could someday be peace between those two countries. The lines that tug at the heartstrings the most are: “Ich weiß, meine Lieder, die ändern nicht viel / Ich bin nur ein Mädchen, die sagt, was es fühlt”. (I know that my songs won’t cause much change / I’m just a girl who says what she feels). This section is so modest and so sincere, which brings me to how it was performed.

17-year-old Nicole sang this song seated on stage, while playing an acoustic guitar—an instrument emblematic of sincerity—surrounded by a backing band. She did not compose or write this song, but you can tell from her delivery that she feels every word of it. She sang the lyrics crisp and clear, so that a non-German speaker would have an easy time singing along. You can tell that she wanted to bring this message to as many people as possible from her multilingual reprise, which she thought up on the spot, and the huge amount of alternate language versions.

This song was recorded in the obvious choices of English, French, Spanish, and Italian, plus some unusual picks: Dutch, Danish, and even Russian. This was in an era where alternate language releases were becoming less common, but the various releases boosted the song’s popularity throughout Europe. Each version adapts the lyrics excellently, and I’m impressed at Nicole’s ability to sing in them all. German and Spanish speakers aren’t normally good at singing in each other’s languages, but Nicole did it better than usual. As I expected, the Dutch lyrics are closest to the German lyrics. The Russian version is shorter than the rest, and I’m not sure if it was released in the Soviet Union or intended for Russian-speaking immigrants. There are many languages Nicole didn’t sing it in, but plenty of other singers filled in the gaps to spread its message even further.

I hope I don’t seem biased by giving Germany’s first winner such a long review. Believe me, I did not expect to have this much to say about it! Just as much as my mom did not expect this song to win. This song is special among Eurovision winners. It’s not just a call for peace, but also a tribute to the power of sincerity.

Greece: Sarantapénte kopeliés (Σαρανταπέντε κοπελιές) (withdrawn)

Artist: Themis Adamantidis

Language: Greek

Key: G minor

Ouch, it really hurts that this song was withdrawn from the competition. It’s incredibly funky with a lot of great piano parts and percussion plus some traditional Greek sound, and it appeals to me more than any previous Greek entry. The lyrics tell a story of forty-five girls (the title) and six mermaids who broke the singer’s heart in the style of a Greek myth. However, since it was never performed on stage, it’s entirely possible the orchestra wouldn’t have done it justice. That’s the odd thing about rejected Eurovision songs: your mind drifts to what could have been and creates an idealized version of how it would be performed. The same goes for all the 2020 entries—no one knows which of the seven singers in the music video of “Uno” would have been eliminated for the stage.

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Who’s my favorite?

Exactly like last year, my favorite is extremely obvious: Germany, Ein bisschen Frieden. That song is just on a different level from anything else. Turkey, Spain, and Israel’s songs were pretty good, but nowhere near as good as Germany.

• Austria, 1
• Belgium, 1
• Denmark, 1
• Finland, 1
• France, 1
• Germany, 4
• Ireland, 2
• Luxembourg, 2
• Netherlands, 6
• Norway, 2
• Portugal, 1
• Sweden, 3
• Turkey, 1
• United Kingdom, 1
• (13 winners)

I’ve picked three winners in a row! In some contests, the winner really is head and shoulders above everything else.

General thoughts:

“Ein bisschen Frieden”, the winner of this contest, is such a wholesome and sweet song, and my inner patriot finds it so satisfying to see it sweep the competition. Most of the other entries, I can already barely remember, but maybe a few will grow on me. In a contest where most entries were either slow ballads or tried too hard to be flashy, it makes perfect sense that a relaxed song about peace would win.

The voting had a hearty mix of obvious votes and surprises. I’m not surprised Sweden gave 12 points to Yugoslavia, given their song’s genre, but it cracked me up that right after, Austria gave only one point to Germany. I think Germany and Austria have a similar relationship to the United States and Canada: they’re very similar culturally, but the less populous country doesn’t want to be seen as too similar to the bigger one. On the other hand, given historical events and the song’s theme, I find it heartwarming that Israel and Germany gave each other twelve points. The other two lowest scores also came from Germany’s neighbors: six from the Netherlands and none from Luxembourg. Everyone else gave them eight or more.

I had a big dumb smile on my face as I watched the winner’s reprise, especially when she switched to English, French, Dutch, and back to German. I know I mostly talked about the winner in these thoughts, but that’s because it really was the highlight of this contest. Three more countries would win for the first time in the 1980’s: Norway, Belgium, and Yugoslavia. All three should be exciting to watch, personal bias notwithstanding.

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See you next time for Luxembourg’s most recent victory, hosted in Germany.

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