Intro Post

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Introduction

Eurovision 1956 went by without any hitches that I know of: the show ran smoothly and the winner was a song that the audience in Lugano clearly loved. So it’s no wonder that the EBU decided they should do this again in 1957. I have to wonder why the date is so different this time: the first Eurovision was on May 24, whereas the second was on March 3. Maybe the contest was normally supposed to be in March, but the setup of 1956 ran into delays? I wonder if anyone knows the answer. Another mystery is why Frankfurt, Germany was chosen to host the 1957 contest. It’s sometimes believed that the EBU was originally going to rotate hosting duties between all the participating countries, until the next year when the rule was changed so that last year’s winner will host.

All seven countries that participated in Eurovision 1956 came back this year, and three new countries expanded the map: Austria, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. This time, each of the participating countries sent only one song. The show was hosted by a German actress of Armenian descent, whose name is a nightmare to spell: Anaïd Iplicjian. She did the whole show in German, except for the voting sequence which was done in a mix of German, English, and French.

That’s right, this is the first ever Eurovision contest to feature a live voting sequence. The EBU got this idea from the BBC, which ran a TV show from May to October 1956 called the Festival of British Popular Songs. This festival was heavily criticized for the low quality of the songs, but the voting sequences were seen as very entertaining, since they featured the host calling representatives of jury members throughout the UK to deliver their points. So the EBU copied this exact idea into Eurovision 1957. Personally I think Eurovision should’ve had the juries in person back then, because the show often ran overtime with many different types of voting mishaps. But the tradition of the host calling juries on the phone soon became one of the most iconic parts of Eurovision—so much that when the EBU tried an in-person voting system starting 1971, they went back to the host calling each country by phone just three years later.

The voting system of 1957 was simple: each country had ten jury members who could each give a vote to one song, so long as it wasn’t from their own country. I like this system personally: it’s very transparent and no-nonsense. But unfortunately, this system didn’t last too long, probably because some of the hosts and spokespersons didn’t get the numbers right. Even though it should be very easy—it’s really not that hard to make sure numbers add up to ten.

This contest was supposed to have a length rule limiting songs to three and a half minutes, but for whatever reason, the EBU didn’t actually enforce it, which led to a controversial Italian entry. Another new change is that duet performers were now allowed, but only one country chose to do that and their song also has a bit of controversy.

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Belgium: Straatdeuntje

Artist: Bobbejaan Schoepen

Language: Dutch

Key: B♭ major and E♭ major, in alternation

My ranking: 1st. I forgot to retcon my 1957 winner in this side post, but now I’m doing that.

Oh boy, I did not give enough respect to this song the first time around! When I first reviewed 1957, I immediately picked “Net als toen” as my winner because I thought it was the most complex and musically interesting song. I’ve changed my mind now, because the composition of this cheerful little waltz is the definition of simple but effective.

I started really appreciating this song when I made an 8-bit cover of it a few months back. My main reason for covering this song for 1957 is because I thought it would be easy, and I was right, but I gained new appreciation for it in the process. The lyrics tell the story of a man who hears a tune following him wherever he goes on the streets, but the song stands out no matter which language you speak, thanks to the whistling and all the tra-la-las. These gimmicks actually fit the theme of the song, so it’s the right way to do a gimmick entry.

Plus, Bobbejaan Schoepen is a clearly experienced performer who easily convinces us on stage. When I watch him, I feel as if he really is walking down the streets and hearing a tune follow him. It’s a shame this song landed as low as eighth place and only got five votes; I personally think it deserved better. I guess the juries have always preferred slow, serious songs.

Luxembourg: Amours mortes (tant de peine)

Artist: Danièle Dupré

Language: French

Key: B♭ major

My ranking: 5th

Damn, I really wasn’t respectful to this one the first time around. I’ll admit, it was Karina’s review that made me reconsider this song. Maybe I was biased against this by reading on Wikipedia that Danièle never pursued much of a singing career, but now I think it’s a shame she didn’t. This lady has a very distinctive style of singing: her voice is full of sadness, yet she doesn’t do the annoying cry-singing so common among singers these days. Heavy is the word I’d use to describe her voice.

In round 1, I complained that she doesn’t look very excited while singing this song, and I don’t get why I said that. This is a sad song, she’s not supposed to look excited. I also complained that the instrumental is too cheerful to match the lyrics, but now I feel it’s a good combination. This song comes off to me as if she broke up with her boyfriend just a few days ago and still has a lot of residual love for him inside her. She puts on a convincingly sad performance and I don’t know why I didn’t appreciate it the first time.

That said, this song is too much of an old-timey ballad for me to want to frequently revisit, so it’s not getting more than a 6/10. Still, it’s a much better effort than I had initially claimed.

United Kingdom: All

Artist: Patricia Bredin

Language: English, but I find it weird that this is the language’s debut

Key: F major

My ranking: 10th (last)

Now this, on the other hand, is a total piece of crap. The UK put together an elaborate national selection with three semifinals this year, so I wonder how this dull opera song with an ear-piercing soprano voice landed on top. It didn’t do well in Eurovision, scoring only six points. At least it’s blissfully short—it was actually the shortest song in Eurovision history until 2015. I’m not just saying that I’m glad this song is over quickly—even if I didn’t hate opera, I would feel that keeping the song short and sweet was the right decision. I’ll give Patricia Bredin this, she stays on key very well, and that does take technical skill.

The UK would skip the next Eurovision for whatever reason, but the year after that, they’d return with a much better song than this hideous drivel.

Italy: Corde della mia chitarra

Artist: Nunzio Gallo

Language: Italian

Key: G minor and G major in alternation

My ranking: 9th

I think this song is the tipping point where the presenter got comfortable hosting the song—she was stiff in the intro. When she said “es singt Nunzio Gallo” (it’s sung by Nunzio Gallo), she gained a burst of enthusiasm, which is fairly cute.

Also, speaking of hideous drivel, why would Italy insist on subjecting us to five minutes of self-indulgence when the EBU explicitly put in a rule forbidding songs above 3:30 minutes? And why did the EBU not even enforce the rule? If I didn’t know better, I would assume the guitarist was spending the first minute tuning his guitar. Then the song delves into male opera singing that drags on way too long, which at least doesn’t hurt my ears as much as female opera singing. This whole song just comes off as completely self-indulgent to me, like the singer and guitarist want to make the whole show about themselves and have no respect for others’ time. The lyrics are really selfish too: they’re basically just “I’m the best guitarist in the world, why doesn’t any woman love me?” And to top it all off, the ending is way too drawn out—the song keeps sounding like it’s about to end but doesn’t.

That said, this song at least doesn’t hurt my ears as much as the UK, so it’s my second last place instead of last place.

Austria: Wohin, kleines Pony?

Artist: Bob Martin

Language: German

Key: D♭ major

My ranking: 3rd

See, unlike the last two countries, Austria knew how to have fun this year. They got last place with just three points, sure, but that means three jury members had this as their favorite of the year! One juror from the Netherlands, and two from the United Kingdom. This is an uncomplicated happy jazz tune about a man who wants nothing more than to ride a pony. He’s smiling his way through the song and knows how silly this tune is, but he doesn’t mind at all. I share his happiness when I listen to this song, especially since I can actually understand the lyrics. Austria will send an even better comedic entry two years later, just you wait.

Netherlands: Net als toen (the winner)

Artist: Corry Brokken (returned from 1956)

Language: Dutch

Key: A♭ major

My ranking: 2nd

To me, it’s pretty easy to see why this won. It’s easily the most complex and ambitious composition of the year, for one. It comes around the midway point of the show, after viewers have gotten comfortable and settled. After two divisive songs and one comedic entry, this one slams viewers in the face with a classy tune and expressive singer. Maybe it’s because I listened to my personal winners sequentially many times as I wrote round 1 of my Eurovision blog, and familiarity tends to make one like a song more, but I still think this is a pretty damn good song. It plays around with tempo changes in a way that works and makes good use of the four minutes it’s been allotted. The violinist behind Corry adds some extra flavor to the song, especially in the instrumental bridge. I think he’s a much better addition than the guitarist was to Italy’s entry.

I’m even tempted to say this song is what “Corde della mia chitarra” should have been. It’s quite long but doesn’t overstay its welcome, since it has actual progression and tells an interesting little story. The lyrics are about a woman whose marriage has become dull and wants her husband to resume being as charming as he once was. At 25 years old, she was a bit young to be singing about this topic, but personally I don’t mind this too much.

At this point, Belgium narrowly beats this as my winner of the year—I find both to be very likable songs. I was expecting not to like the song as much in round 2, but I still do. It was very much a deserved winner, it’s just not my winner anymore.

Germany: Telefon, Telefon

Artist: Margot Hilscher

Language: German, with brief phrases in English, French, Italian, and Spanish

Key: C major, D♭ major

My ranking: 4th

Ah, now we have this famous German actress! I’m not familiar with her because she’s long before my time and I don’t live in Germany, but I bet my mom and her parents (one of whom died when I was little) were familiar with her growing up. This lady has an insane amount of charisma on stage and is perfectly in-character when she performs this, as well as her second song next year. This song is slow and dreary, so normally it wouldn’t be for me, but I can’t but find it charming.

As I said when I first reviewed 1957, the lyrics of this song are surprisingly timeless: almost 70 years later, people still rely on telephones too much for happiness. Her using a phone as a stage prop is clever because it helps give people who don’t understand German an idea what this is about. The camera work makes this song stand out too: she’s pictured from a diagonal angle, perhaps as if she’s calling from bed or a couch. I also like the little skit she does at the end: she gets a phone call but says she can’t talk anymore, because her song is over.

This is a rare Eurovision song that rhymes words in different languages: in the intro, “how do you do” is rhymed with “merci beaucoup”, and “grazie, sì sì” rhymes with “nada por mi”. I have a soft spot for inter-language rhymes, especially because the same is done in “Europapa”, a song that I will never stop loving the fuck out of.

France: La belle amour

Artist: Paule Desjardins

Language: French

Key: B♭ minor and B♭ major in alternation

My ranking: 6th

I can see why this romantic waltz got second place, because this lady sings it very well and the juries back then loved songs in French. Unfortunately, I also find it generic as far as chansons go. I think I’d like it better if it had more of a sense of buildup, instead of keeping the same level of energy throughout. I tend to like songs that are heavy in buildup.

Denmark: Skibet skal sejle i nat

Artist: Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler (first duet!)

Language: Danish

Key: D♭ major, D major, E♭ major

My ranking: 8th

Oh god, now I have to watch this song again. As if I didn’t have to hear the chorus of it enough times in all those “my winner of every Eurovision year” videos. Why does everyone and their mom have this as their favorite of 1957? Is it because there aren’t that many good picks? I don’t get it! This is a slow, dull attempt at a romantic song where the singers look like they’re waiting the whole time to get into each other’s pants. It repeats the same melody for almost the entire song, it has two key changes near the start which is just overkill, and most of the time when these two sing together, they aren’t harmonizing. Instead they sing an octave apart, which is just so lazy. They do briefly harmonize in the last chorus, but then they go back to singing an octave apart. Basically that means they sing the same notes at different pitches.

And worse yet, can we talk about how annoyingly sappy these two are on stage? They stare at and touch each other this entire time, as if they would much rather get into each other’s pants right now than be on stage. There’s no connection with the audience to be found in this song. And they end this song with a kiss that lasts way too fucking long. Crazy enough, there are two other songs that annoy me more than this, which is why I have it third last place.

Erica is absolutely right about this song—she finds it just as obnoxiously sappy as I do. You’ll find that my tastes line up with hers a lot in this blog. If you want to see someone who actually likes this song, I’ve got you covered. And just to be clear, I don’t automatically hate all sappy romantic duets. Two years later, the UK will show us the right way to do it.

Switzerland: L’enfant que j’etais

Artist: Lys Assia, returning from 1956

Language: French

Key: B♭ major, C major

My ranking: 7th

The final song of the night got only five points, so it shared second last place with Belgium. I’m not quite sure why, this seems like exactly the kind of flowery French chanson that the juries would eat right up. My best guess is that they all felt that Lys Assia didn’t deserve to win twice in a row.

Anyway, if you’re wondering what I think of this, it’s another generic chanson with too many slow sections. I guess it’s not appealing enough to my 21st century ears.

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My full ranking

Because it was so short and the songs were on varying levels of quality, this was an easy year to rank:

Weirdly enough, this list of songs is sorted by language in a way. The two songs in Dutch are on top, then below we have the two in German, then the three in French, then one each in Danish, Italian, and English.

Oh yeah, I’ll retcon my list of winners real quick. Here’s what it looks like now:

• Belgium, 3 (1957, 1976, 2003)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2 (2001, 2006)
• Denmark, 2 (1963, 2000)
• Estonia, 1 (2009)
• Finland, 4 (1983, 1989, 2010, 2023)
• France, 3 (1977, 1990, 1991)
• Germany, 5 (1956, 1968, 1979, 1982, 1999)
• Greece, 1 (2013)
• Hungary, 2 (2005, 2019)
• Iceland, 1 (1992)
• Ireland, 3 (1970, 1980, 1994)
• Israel, 1 (1987)
• Italy, 1 (1958)
• Latvia, 1 (2002)
• Lithuania, 1 (2022)
• Luxembourg, 4 (1965, 1972, 1973, 1988)
• Monaco, 1 (1960)
• Montenegro, 1 (2015)
• Netherlands, 8 (1959, 1964, 1967, 1969, 1975, 1998, 2014, 2024)
• North Macedonia, 1 (2020)
• Norway, 5 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995, 1996)
• Portugal, 3 (1971, 1984, 2017)
• Serbia, 4 (2004, 2008, 2011, 2012)
• Sweden, 2 (1974, 2018)
• Switzerland, 2 (1986, 2021)
• Turkey, 2 (1978, 1997)
• Ukraine, 2 (2007, 2016)
• United Kingdom, 3 (1961, 1962, 1981)
• (20 winners)

The Netherlands is down from nine to eight personal winners of mine, but they’re still easily in the lead. I don’t think I’ll retcon winners too often in round 2, because I already retconned a lot of them in this side post.

Rest of the show:

I’ll note something about the opening right here. The presenter refers to all the entries as “chansons or schlagers”, which makes me wonder, which entries are chansons and which are schlagers? My best guess is the songs in Germanic languages are schlagers, and the songs in Romance languages are chansons. But then again, it doesn’t make much sense to call “All” or “Net als toen” schlagers, does it? I don’t know, the definitions of genres are strange.

The voting sequence is full of early installment weirdness. First off, it was the only one where the juries gave their votes in languages other than English or French. Some gave their votes in German, and in fact the host seemed surprised when it turned out the Danish spokesperson couldn’t speak German, so they had to switch to English. Also, the countries were contacted in reverse order, which was the norm in the first few years, and each country announced their points in descending order. It’s also worth noting that the scoreboard showed the names of the songs rather than the countries; there was less emphasis on which country sent which song back then. This is a fairly clumsy voting sequence, but charming in its own way. It’s clear that the EBU was more interested in making the voting sequence entertaining (and showing off their technology) than making sure it went without a hitch.

After Corry Brokken was announced as the winner, the man who hosted the venue gave a little speech in Dutch, and Corry was caught off guard and responded with a “dank je wel”. But the prize got handed to the composers in the end; I suppose that was normal back then.

General thoughts:

For me, the strength of a Eurovision year is not determined by the average quality, but the amount of songs I like. This year had only one song I liked enough to give 8/10, whereas last year had three, so this is without a doubt a weaker year than 1956. This time around, most of the songs that tried doing something different (Italy, the UK, and Denmark) ended up annoying me. I personally think the Netherlands is a good winner of the year; it proves that winners don’t always have to be in the most trendy language.

I’ll also talk a bit about the stage design: each song had a different backdrop put on, which I assume the EBU did so that they could showcase technology. But the only backdrop that I think fit the song was the brick wall behind Bobbejaan Schoepen. The others didn’t really add much to the songs. Still, it’s nice to see the contest experimented with staging since the beginning.

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See you next time for what might be the most illogical winner ever.

>> 1958: The First Song to Stand the Test of Time