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Introduction
Although the Netherlands didn’t want to host again two years after their last time hosting, France was willing to do so just two years after hosting in 1959. The now defunct broadcaster RTF brought Eurovision to the same location as two years ago, the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, and brought back Jacqueline Joubert as the presenter.
Three countries made their Eurovision debuts this year: Spain, Finland, and Yugoslavia. This gave the contest a nice, even 16 countries, so it was the first Eurovision year with more entries than 1956. Spain would start a perfect attendance streak that continues to this day, beaten only by the UK who has participated every year since 1959. Luxembourg earned their first victory with a song that we now know is about a gay relationship, the UK came second with a joyful duet, and Switzerland came third with an old-timey waltz.
The intro makes it clear this show is something of a rehash of the 1959 contest: once again we get an outdoor look at the Palais with flags on top, this time sixteen of them from l’Allemagne to la Yougoslavie. And once again we have Jacqueline introducing all the contests, but this time they start off positioned on a little building on stage, then they exit the stage one by one. Jacqueline says the name of each country, then each contestant says their own name into the microphone, presumably so that the host would avoid any pronunciation mistakes. The Allisons from the UK are the only duo here; they start off on opposite sides of the stage, then they approach the microphone together. John says “The Allisons”, then the two of them say their own names.
The scoreboard design is pretty similar to 1959, except it uses a cute handwriting font this time, and there are more countries so the scoreboard is way too tall to fit in a 4:3 aspect ratio. This means I have to brace myself for lots of annoying scoreboard zoom-ins.
This contest has been archived with French, Dutch, and British commentary. I watched with British commentary last time, so this time I’ll watch with French commentary. That way, the host won’t be talked over so much. The commentator Robert Beauvais said he served as the commentator for all of French-speaking Europe—not just France, but also Luxembourg, Monaco, and the francophone parts of Belgium and Switzerland, which is unusual and seems unique to this year.
Spain: Estando contigo
Artist: Conchita Bautista
Language: Spanish
Key: G minor (verses), G major (chorus)
My ranking: 2nd
Wow, just wow—now THIS is how you make a debut. Everyone watching Eurovision already knows what Spanish music sounds like, so this song has less of an effect of “holy shit, is this actually Spain?” and more of “hey bitches, it’s me” like how Vlad described Armenia’s debut.
This song is exactly what you’d imagine old timey Spanish music to sound like. It’s upbeat and dancey, a little mischievous, and the singer beams with passion and charisma. She sings about how amazing it feels when she’s with her love interest in this fiery, dramatic, and utterly Spanish way. I mean this both in terms of lyrics and vocals. Her singing is a little warbly and full of romantic passion. Conchita Bautista looks a little intimidating when she sings, but I promise I mean that in a good way. She’s totally engaged in the song as she performs.
Normally I hate when songs have minor key verses and a major key chorus, but I absolutely love the way this alternates between the two. That’s because the verses and chorus are both musically interesting, and the song transitions between them naturally. The verses are flirty and mischievous, whereas the chorus wholeheartedly embraces the joy of being with the man she loves. I love the rapidfire lyrical rhythm in the verses and the repetition of hooks in the chorus (contigo, te miro)—they’re the perfect way to make use of the Spanish language. I just love this overall and it’s still one of the best entries Spain has ever sent. Because let’s face it, Spain’s Eurovision catalogue is an extremely mixed bag.
Uh let’s see, what result did this get? Surely something respectable like fourth, right? Oh wait, this only got ninth place with just eight points. Below a whole bunch of dreary ballads, seriously? Come on juries, this deserved so much better. I listened to this multiple times while writing this analysis and enjoyed myself each time, which is a very good sign. I saw in her face that Jacqueline Joubert quite liked this too.
Monaco: Allons, allons les enfants
Artist: Colette Deréal
Language: French
Key: B♭ major, B major
My ranking: 5th
Now we have the first of the upbeat kids’ movie songs this year. They’re all nice enough, but none of them have all that much staying power. This is one of the better upbeat songs this year because it’s not too twee and has a very catchy hook in the title. The main reason it avoids being too sugary is because Colette has quite a mature voice, which makes her sound somewhat like a teacher. Vlad said in his review that this song would’ve more interesting if it had an instrumental break, and I think he’s totally right. I’d have loved to hear brass and string instruments play the “allons les enfants” melody.
Austria: Sehnsucht
Artist: Jimmy Makulis
Language: German
Key: C major
My ranking: 15th
And now we have a dreary 6/8 ballad that makes me want to sleep. For most of 1960’s Eurovision, there were more and more such ballads each year. If I wasn’t unemployed right now, I would absolutely not have the patience to go through these grayscale years again. Also, I’m distracted by him swaying around when he isn’t singing.
Finland: Valoa ikkunassa
Artist: Laila Kinnunen
Language: Finnish
Key: B minor, C minor
My ranking: 6th
Oh Finland, poor Finland… This country had astoundingly bad luck throughout 20th century Eurovision. Back in the grayscale years, they had to try harder than most other countries to appeal to the rest of Europe, because of the language barrier. While the Germanic languages all have common ground among each other and so do the Romance languages, the only other European language that’s closely related to Finnish is Estonian, and back then Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. But after a certain point, it got ridiculous how little love the juries would give to Finland. Be prepared for some rants when I reach my favorite 20th century Finnish entries.
Luckily, these days Eurovision fans aren’t so biased against songs in Finnish, because the contest has a much greater pool of languages to choose from so Finnish isn’t as much of an oddball. It’s worth noting that Finland had the option of singing in Swedish this entire time, so I’m surprised they didn’t do that more often.
This song makes me realize the language barrier between me and Finnish is much thicker than for any Germanic or Romance language. I don’t mind that at all, especially because it’s such a lovely sounding language. With these old Eurovision songs in Finnish, if the performance doesn’t make it obvious what the song is about, I’m content in sitting back and enjoying the music. This is a minor key ballad that tries to be like “Ce soir-là” but is nowhere near as good. While I can see some good inside this song, it’s just too restrained to click with me. The studio version is a little better because of the minimalist instrumentation, but the song is still restrained. Compared to Spain’s entry, I find this to be a rather shy debut.
Yugoslavia: Neke davne zvezde (Неке давне звезде)
Artist: Ljiljana Petrović
Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian)
Key: G major
My ranking: 13th
Now for the last of the debuting countries, and the only country to have participated in Eurovision that no longer exists. We have all the newcomer countries early this year—kind of the opposite of Eurovision 1993, where the debutants were all near the end.
A recurring pattern with the old-timey Yugoslav entries is that many of them are way too depressing for me, and this is a perfect example. This is a super-sad and slow ballad with too many drawn-out notes and it’s really not for me, though she does perform with emotion. The thing with depressing entries is, the song needs to have some cathartic factor to make up for the sadness, or else listening to it just makes me needlessly sad, as is the case with this entry. Eurovision fans who speak Slavic languages tend to like these entries, since all Slavic languages seem to be at least a little mutually intelligible, and because this type of music is more familiar to them than it is for me. Karina is enamored with this entry, so if you want a more positive take on this song, you can read her review.
Netherlands: Wat een dag
Artist: Greetje Kauffeld
Language: Dutch
Key: G major, A♭ major
My ranking: 7th
Now for something more palatable to me. It starts as a slow ballad but then turns into a classic example of an upbeat kids’ movie tune. It’s much preferable to a dreary ballad and I enjoy listening to it well enough, but I don’t like the slow intro and it’s a shade more twee than Monaco, so it goes a bit lower in my ranking. I know “dag” means “day” in Dutch, but the word sounds exactly like “Dach” in German which means “roof”, so I can make myself laugh a little by pretending she’s singing about a really nice roof.
Sweden: April, april
Artist: Lill-Babs (Barbro Margareta Svensson)
Language: Swedish
Key: B♭ major, but it somehow ends in D♭ major
My ranking: 9th
Jacqueline Boyer pronounced most foreign languages well enough, but she butchered the phrase “god afton, Sverige” in the funniest way. She pronounced it as something like /gud aftɔn svɛɐ̯dʒ/ in the IPA. The pronunciation of “god afton” was decent enough (though she could’ve omitted the D), but she really messed up “Sverige”. An better approximation that fits French phonology would be /svɛʁijɛ/.
This is a bit like a Swedish counterpart to of “De vogels van Holland”, especially at the start. You don’t need to speak Swedish to know that Lil-Babs in the intro is singing about the different sounds animals make. This song is cutesy enough, but it’s also rather repetitive so I can’t say I’m too big a fan of this. I feel like the song doesn’t have enough variance beyond the upbeat “april, det gör ingenting…” melody and the drawn-out “en vår är här igen” melody. Karina is absolutely right to say the performer is more charming than the song.
Also, the fake key change by one semitone that leads to a key change by three semitones doesn’t make much musical sense to me. It leaves me scratching my head: why did the composer write it this way? As far as old-timey upbeat Swedish entries go, this one I’m afraid is a miss.
Germany: Einmal sehen wir uns wieder
Artist: Lale Andersen, an unusually old contestant at 55
Language: German, with one verse in French
Key: E minor in the verses, G major in the choruses; these have the same key signature
My ranking: 16th (last)
This lady’s performance drives me absolutely crazy, because she’s clearly an experienced singer but comes off like she purposely put no effort into her performance. I’m not sure if that’s her usual style of performing, or if she was grumpy and didn’t really want to go to Eurovision. She spends half the time talk-singing in a weird deadpan voice and the other half singing with a tinge of talking. The song itself is a low-energy 1950’s sounding pop tune that may or may not be a ballad and has no sense of progression. The melody is more interesting and memorable than Austria’s, but her performance annoys me so much that I’m putting this at the bottom. Why did I say this was one of the better songs in round 1?
It’s also really weird that Lale put a French verse into this song. I suppose that’s the early Eurovision equivalent of throwing an English verse into a native-language song, but it still just sounds out of place.
France: Printemps, avril carillonne
Artist: Jean-Paul Mauric, who sadly died at 37
Language: French
Key: E major, F major
My ranking: 10th
France has decided to go to the twee upbeat route, which is a surprise for this country, and unusually had a man sing it. Jean-Paul (who looks like Fud Leclerc’s cousin) is clearly having fun on stage, but the song is yet again too twee for me, and his voice gets pretty badly off-key at the key change. It’s hard to decide whether this is better or worse than Sweden’s song about April, but his vocals are worse so I’ll rank this lower.
Switzerland: Nous aurons demain
Artist: Franca di Rienzo
Language: French
Key: C major
My ranking: 8th
An old-timey francophone waltz, there’s nothing wrong with this one but nothing to love about it either. It sounds exactly like something I’d hear in Eurovision 1956, and it has the same songwriters as “Refrain” and “L’enfant que j’étais” from the first two Eurovision years so that must be why. I guess I’m not surprised this got third place, since the juries always loved a French romantic waltz.
Belgium: September, gouden roos
Artist: Bob Benny, returning from 1959
Language: Dutch
Key: F major, with short sections in F minor and A major. I’ve chosen a different interpretation this time.
My ranking: 4th
This sentimental ballad tied with Austria for last place; both got just one point. I can see why this got one point, because the song is an acquired taste and doesn’t have an immediate impact, but it’s quite a shame this did so badly.
Vlad and Karina both chose this as their favorite entry of 1961 (which proves that they have similar tastes) and their reviews convinced me to start liking the song as well. I don’t love it as much as they do, but I do have a soft spot for this. Bob Benny delivers the song with the same hopeful sincerity that he did with “Hou toch van mij” in 1959. In some ways, this reminds me of “Ce soir-là” from 1960, because it has a bongo beat and sort of bossa nova bassline, and the music pauses sometimes to emphasize his voice. His singing is softer than François Deguelt’s voice, but he gets dramatic when the song demands it. The music cleverly builds up in a subtle way, which I don’t even notice until the song has neared its end. And then the dramatic finish feels properly rewarding.
There are three entries this year that I like more than this, simply because they’re catchier and stickier. But I’m glad two other reviewers gave this song so much love, because otherwise I’d never have learned to appreciate it. It really does get better the more times I listen to it.
Norway: Sommer i Palma
Artist: Nora Brockstedt, returning from 1960
Language: Norwegian, with a repeated phrase in French
Key: F minor
My ranking: 12th
It’s not just the Germans who love traveling to Mallorca, as this song proves. It’s a popular tourist destination for the entire northern half of Europe, but the Germans are particularly known for it because there’s so damn many of them.
Anyway, Nora Brockstedt, what the hell are you doing to me? From a title like this I’d have expected a happy summer tune, so why is she singing a boring depressing ballad this time? Especially considering she looked so happy singing an upbeat mischievous song. The song has traces of haunting moodiness deep inside, so it’s not the worst ballad of the night, but it’s still way too depressing. This kind of song obviously doesn’t suit her at all, and neither does her weird new haircut. I can’t even tell if she got a new haircut or if she’s wearing a blonde wig.
Denmark: Angelique
Artist: Dario Campeotto
Language: Danish
Key: A major
My ranking: 14th
This is a total nothingburger of a ballad, which is rather out of character for Denmark, because back then they’d usually make an effort to make their song transcend language barriers. For those who don’t speak Danish, this song comes off just a man singing about… some girl named Angelique, I guess. It’s not too bad, it’s just dull.
Wait, did this really tie with Italy for fifth place and score twelve points? That’s four points more than Spain, crazy enough. Have the juries gone mad?!
Luxembourg: Nous les amoureux (the winner)
Artist: Jean-Claude Pascal
Language: French
Key: A minor
My ranking: 3rd
Ah, now here’s the undercover gay anthem whose story is well known today, but was kept secret at the time. I already discussed the lyrics in round 1 (to recap, they’re about a man who has to keep his romance with a lover of unspecified gender a secret), so this time I’ll focus more on how good this is musically.
As a song, this is a quality French chanson spiced up by a nice little swing rhythm. It starts bombastic but then transitions smoothly into the bulk of the song. Jean-Claude Pascal has an expressive voice and I love the touch of the rolled R’s in the back of the throat; that makes his singing stick out. I like how the song is mostly in a mischievous sounding minor key, but the choruses seep into a bit of hopeful major key, as he sings that he hopes someday he could love his boyfriend without becoming the topic of gossip. It’s got a really good melody and by this point sounds familiar to me, since I originally selected this as my winner and would often listen to all the songs I had chosen as winners in sequence. But by this point, it’s fallen down to my third place because two other songs are way more appealing.
United Kingdom: Are You Sure?
Artist: The Allisons (Bob Day, John Alford)
Language: English
Key: A♭ major
My ranking: 1st
And now, we have my new winner of the year, which I had already declared my winner in this side post. I’m so glad the UK decided to send something actually sounds like a 1960’s pop song, instead of dirgey film music. The song also sounds extremely British, so it makes a great old-timey Eurovision entry. As was so common with British entries, this scored second place.
This is the first ever male/male duet in Eurovision history and these guys knock it out of the park. The Kessler sisters’ duet two years back was a bit underwhelming, whereas this is a same-sex duet done to perfection. John and Bob take turns singing for a few small parts of the song (goodbye (goodbye), farewell (farewell)), but they spend the bulk of the song harmonizing and it sounds absolutely beautiful. Bob and John’s harmonies make me smile so hard, I can’t help myself. No other entry this year makes me smile so easily, so this is without a doubt my favorite of the year, entirely because of the harmonies. Erica has this as her winner for the exact same reason as me, and suggested I do an 8-bit cover of it which I did.
This isn’t a very complicated song in composition or structure; it just has a short verse and short chorus repeated a bunch of times. And yes, the lyrics are douchey especially by today’s standards—they’re about a guy who wants to convince his girlfriend not to break up with him and they would make any woman break up with him even faster. But I can forgive this song because those harmonies are so utterly delightful.
Side note: This song contains the only foreign language words of any British entry in Eurovision history, and they are… drumroll… “au revoir”. Fitting for a contest in France, I suppose.
Italy: Al di là
Artist: Betty Curtis
Language: Italian
Key: A♭ major
My ranking: 11th
Bleh, and now we’re back to super dull slow ballads that belong in a grayscale movie. It alternates between being slow and freeform, and, uh, slow and not freeform I guess. She’s actually a good singer and has a rich-sounding voice, but this song still isn’t for me at all, and she gets shouty at the end. I’ll rank it the highest of the sleep-inducing ballads.
My full ranking
Here’s my ranking of 1961. It’s quite bottom-heavy:
This ranking once again shows I prefer upbeat songs over ballads, but the divide isn’t quite as sharp as that of 1960. The toughest part of this ranking was my 12th to 14th places, which all are pretty much interchangeable. It’s always the 3/10 and 4/10 songs that cause me the most trouble.
Rest of the show:
This contest has an interval act while the viewers waited for the votes to be counted, which is great, I love interval acts! More specifically, I love the old-school type of interval acts where there was one act per show, not so much the current endless slog of interval acts and skits. The interval act was a joyful little performance of two ballet dancers, so it’s perfect for keeping the audience entertained till the voting begins—both the TV viewers and the guests in the arena. And it shows off the host country’s culture, exactly as an interval act should do.
And then we have the voting sequence, which has way too many zoom-ins to the scoreboard and thus was a bit tough to follow. I just checked the next few contests, and it won’t be until 1963 when we get a scoreboard that comfortably fits on one screen again. I’m really not a fan of the scoreboard design this year, because you can’t comfortably read it unless it’s zoomed in. I suppose that’s why the arrow showing who’s in the lead was helpful. I’m not a fan of the scoreboard having a semi-transparent overlay over the host either. Hm, what else is notable about the voting sequence? All juries except the UK and Austria announced their votes in French, probably out of convenience for the host.
The voting was yet another case of the UK being in the lead at first until another country catches up and takes the prize. After Austria delivered their votes, it seemed that the UK and Austria were tied for 25 points, but then the scoreboard operators made a correction and knocked Britain’s score down to 21. From there on, Luxembourg easily remained in the lead till they won with 31 points. For whatever reason, the interval act dancer Tessa Beaumont was the one who gave Jean-Claude Pascal his prize. If the previous winner isn’t available, then why not have the hosts do it, like when Duncan Laurence caught COVID in 2021?
General thoughts:
I have a few nitpicks with the production of Eurovision 1961. For one thing, it bugs me that Jacqueline Joubert says the song titles only translated to French, not in their original language. Maybe she just didn’t want to risk misponouncing the titles, but she did introduce each entry by saying “good evening, (country)” in each nation’s language and got a few of them wrong. There’s also barely any time between each song for the commentator to introduce each entry. The French commentator had to talk over the start of a few of the songs. But other than that, the French did a good job hosting this show, and I especially appreciate the inclusion of such a fun interval act. If I’m not mistaken, every single Eurovision contest from here on out would include at least one interval act.
As for song lineup, this is one of those years where most entries are unpleasant dirge, but a few songs really stand out. There’s two songs I gave 8/10 and two I gave 7/10, so four out of sixteen that I actually like. It’s quite lucky that the show starts off with an upbeat Spanish entry, because that kept me in good spirits through the stretches of ballads.
See you next time for one of the most boring years in Eurovision history.
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