Intro Post

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Introduction

After Lenny Kuhr won Eurovision 1969 in a completely deserved landslide, her home country of the Netherlands hosted Eurovision 1970 in its capital city of Amsterdam… wait, why are there only twelve countries? Were some of them mad about something that happened last Eurovision? Oh right, there were four winners that year due to a tie, and several countries were so pissed about the result that they dropped out of the next contest. Norway, Sweden, and Finland up north all dropped out, Austria had originally planned to return in 1970 but joined the Nordic boycott, and Portugal skipped too but still organized Festival da Canção that year. Clearly the Portuguese just loved that annual festival too much.

Out of the four winners of 1969, one of them had to be chosen to host the show. Spain and the UK, as the hosts of the last two years, were out of the running, so a random draw was held between France and the Netherlands. This meant that the Dutch broadcaster NOS put on the show this year, which conveniently matches my headcanon that Lenny Kuhr is the rightful winner of 1969.

The opening film starts with a series of graphics captions with text welcoming the audience to Eurovision 1970 in Dutch, English, and French. It’s set to some eccentric dissonant music, which I feel is more of what the 1969 interval act should have been, because it’s weird and surreal but still sounds like music, then stops being dissonant as it progresses. We get a view out of a plane, some exploration of canals and cyclists and all that fun Dutch stuff. I have a soft spot for those old touristy opening films, they just make me feel good.

After the opening act concludes, the presenter Willy Dobbe gives an introduction so absurdly short (just saying “welcome to Eurovision 1970 in Amsterdam” in French, English, and Dutch) that it almost feels a little rude, but maybe that’s just my perception. Immediately after her introduction begins, we get the postcard for the first entry. Since this contest had only 12 countries participating, to fill the time we get little opening films called postcards to introduce each singer. Eurovision in the 1970’s and early 80’s would feature postcards on and off, then every year from 1984 onwards used those things in many different formats. I love Eurovision postcards and even once did a blog post ranking them all up to 2024.

I always thought this contest was only archived with Irish commentary, but the Dutch commentary is on YouTube as well. I’m still watching with Irish commentary though, because I remember the RTÉ commentator Valerie McGovern being absolutely hilarious, and because I don’t speak Dutch. She is the “female Terry Wogan” referred to in this post’s title. It’s a shame this is the only year she ever commentated Eurovision, but she was lucky to have commentated when her country won. While 1968 and 1969 are fully available in color, the archived broadcast of this year has a few sections in grayscale. I wonder if the majority of this broadcast being in color would make the grayscale portions easier to colorize?

Oh yeah, this year is the first of seven times Ireland won Eurovision. They won with 32 points, the UK came second with 26, and Germany third with 12 points—all three were women singing cutesy upbeat songs. There was one zero-pointer, Luxembourg with a song I remember nothing about.

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Netherlands: Waterman

Artist: Patricia and Hearts of Soul

Language: Dutch

Key: E♭ major, D major, F minor

My ranking: 7th. If that seems high, remember it’s out of 12.

My round 1 review said that “Hearts of Soul mostly released songs in English and sang in Dutch only for this contest”. Thanks past me for this point of trivia! Even back in 1970, the Dutch were already resistant to acknowledging their own language. Also, here’s a fun fact: this year is the last time the host entry was performed first in the grand final, until Malmö 2024 with Marcus and Martinus.

As I said in round 1: “It’s a relaxing little ballad with some good vocal harmonies, but the lyrics are so tacky. I can’t take anything related to astrology seriously, I’m sorry.” I pretty much hit the nail on the head here: astrology is complete nonsense and I’m lucky I can’t speak Dutch, but I always try to learn what the lyrics of each song are about anyway, and my lack of understanding the lyrics is compensated for by the annoying title repetitis. In some Dutch-language songs, I can understand the lyrics quite easily with my knowledge of related languages (e.g. “Iemand als jij” by Barbara Dex, or “De diepte” by S10), but this isn’t one of them. The song gets a little nicer in the bossa nova outro, but it’s still very meh to me.

Valerie McGovern’s commentary doesn’t seem to be archived in the intro of the show; we don’t hear her until right after this song ends.

Switzerland: Retour

Artist: Henri Dès

Language: French

Key: F major, F♯ major

My ranking: 6th

Obligatory mention that the postcards for Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Monaco were all filmed in Paris for some reason. That’s sort of cheating, isn’t it? But to be fair, these were the first ever Eurovision postcards.

Ah, god bless you Valerie McGovern for explaining what this song means to people who don’t speak French. It’s about a man who leaves behind his girlfriend on a trip around Europe to hang out with a bunch of random women, then promises to return to his girlfriend when back home. It’s a sleazebag anthem with morally wrong lyrics very much like “N’avoue jamais”, except this song is actually pretty decent musically. It’s nice and upbeat and has a catchy ba-ba-ba-ba-ba hook complete with boing sound effects. Absolutely nothing to keep, but a pleasant enough ditty. The sleazebag lyrics mean I can’t rate this more than a five.

 “Well, he sounds very happy about saying goodbye to his girlfriend, doesn’t he?” Female Terry Wogan is just the best.

Italy: Occhi di ragazza

Artist: Gianni Morandi

Language: Italian

Key: G major

My ranking: 11th

These postcards are just so postcardy, how can you not love them? Look at Gianni having an absolute blast exploring all those ancient Roman ruins! He’s having an unreasonable amount of fun doing so, and who can blame him?

Unfortunately, this guy comes off as another sleazebag, or maybe more like a dude who thinks he can use his Italian charm to win over any woman. Foreshadowing of Toto Cutugno, perhaps? He shakes around too much and sings too many drawn-out notes, and the instrumental is nothing remarkable. It’s somewhere between meh and bad, so 3/10 is the right rating for this.

Yugoslavia: Pridi, dala ti bom cvet

Artist: Eva Sršen

Language: Slovenian

Key: B♭ major, B major

My ranking: 9th

Oh my god, this girl looks so goddamn adorable throwing snowballs in the postcard. This is still one of my favorite individual postcards in Eurovision history, because it just puts me in a good mood. It helps that I love snow and winter in general.

Unfortunately, Eva betrays us on the Eurovision stage by having a weird poofy hairstyle, a fairly bad orange dress, and a creepy look in her eyes. Plus an annoying squeaky voice, but admittedly it’s not as bad as I remember, and neither is the song. This song has potential to be good or at least decent, but there are just too many things wrong with it. Well OK, the creepy look probably isn’t her fault; it’s more likely she was nervous to perform on stage. I’ll give the song this: as someone who doesn’t speak a word of Slovenian, I can tell from the music that it’s dreamy and romantic, and that’s a good thing.

This song attempts to be a “young innocent girl” tune, but it clearly didn’t work too well. Ireland at the end would show us the right way to do this kind of song. As the song’s composer Mojmir Sepe would recount decades later in an interview: “When I came to the rehearsals and heard the Irish entry, I knew we had lost. There was another innocent girl with a sweet little song – admittedly, better than our song!”

Belgium: Viens l’oublier

Artist: Jean Vallée

Language: French

Key: E major

My ranking: 12th (last). Technically this is the same ranking I gave “Milkshake Man” from 2025.

Some years I have a begrudging winner, but this year instead I have a begrudging last place. It’s not bad enough to feel like a proper least favorite, but I have to put one song at the bottom. It’s interchangeable with all the other male romantic ballads this year, but it’s slightly more annoying than the others, I guess? I like it much better when my last place is a song that I hate the fuck out of, or one that clearly has the most things wrong with it. Like 1962 with that godawful opera song, for instance.

Why the hell does this year have so many smug men singing about romance? This time, we have a guy singing to his girlfriend that she should forget her ex-boyfriend existed, with the hidden implication that he thinks he’s the hottest most charming man in the world. He’s too shouty and the music is just a low-energy 70’s ballad, so I don’t like this one at all.

France: Marie-Blanche

Artist: Guy Bonnet

Language: French

Key: F minor, F♯ minor

My ranking: 2nd

I wonder what city the French postcard was filmed in? Could it be Paris by any chance? Oh, if only that four-legged metal tower gave me a clue. OK, maybe I shouldn’t be so snarky, these are the first ever Eurovision postcards anyway. And it’s nice to see the most famous sights from each country before their songs begin.

Take notes, the other Romance-language countries: this is how you do a male romantic ballad. In round 1, I critiqued this song for having overly positive lyrics over a gloomy instrumental, but I no longer have a problem with that. It’s a lovely little piano ballad by a man who expresses himself vocally and on the piano. He looks properly romantic instead of smug. I don’t come back to the song much because it’s a bit restrained, and it’s still not my winner of the year, but it’s a very nice song regardless.

This song got a decent enough fourth place, but it deserved more than just 8 points. This year still used the system of “each juror gives their favorite one point”, so how wasn’t this more juries’ number one?

United Kingdom: Knock Knock, Who’s There?

Artist: Mary Hopkin

Language: English

Key: D major

My ranking: 3rd

The UK this year sent exactly the kind of song I would’ve expected from them: an upbeat female pop song that sounds a little dainty, and you can yet again see that the singer looks a bit begrudging. Despite all this, I actually think this song is rather cute (though the studio version is much better than the orchestral one). I think I was too harsh on this in round 1: it’s a pleasant little tune, especially because of the “knock, knock, who’s there?” hook. I like the way the music pauses when she sings “knock knock”.

The song tells a cute little story about a woman who waited long for love to come to her, till a handsome man showed up at her door. I chose this one to do an 8-bit cover of for 1970 and I think it’s one of my weaker covers, but nice enough for what it is. Erica pointed out in her review that it almost sounds like she’s singing “take off your clothes and come inside” instead of “take off your coat”, and now I can’t un-notice it.

Luxembourg: Je suis tombé du ciel

Artist: David Alexandre Winter

Language: French

Key: E♭ major, E major, F major

My ranking: 10th

Is this gonna be another smug Frenchman anthem? Well, this guy is actually Dutch, but he’s singing in French here. He’s not that smug anyway, his song is just meh. I said in round 1 that this sounds like it would fit in grayscale Eurovision, and I was totally right. It’s a 1950’s sounding jazz waltz that sounds like it’s trying to be Christmas music, but not really succeeding. I don’t hate it but I don’t really like it, so in that sense I can see why this got zero points. It’s not too bad of song, it’s just no one’s favorite.

Spain: Gwendolyne

Artist: Julio Iglesias

Language: Spanish

Key: E♭ minor

My ranking: 8th

I absolutely hate Julio’s blue suit, and it’s not even for a rational reason. It’s so unbearably bright blue, I get an uncanny feeling from it, because I feel like suits in this color should not exist. As I said in round 1, “With his bright blue suit, Julio Iglesias almost looks like a cartoon businessman, or the kind of guy you’d see on corporate art. You might see someone wearing a suit of this color in an animation explaining COVID-19 safety measures or airplane emergency exits, not a real-life businessman, and certainly not a singer on stage.”

I know this guy is a really famous Spanish singer, but I’m not at all familiar with his music and this song doesn’t do much for me. It’s a minor-key 70’s ballad that sounds like any other ballad, but it has less things wrong with it than the ones I ranked lower.

Monaco: Marlène

Artist: Dominique Dussault

Language: French, plus some German and English at the end

Key: E major (mostly, probably), F major at the end

My ranking: 4th

According to Valerie McGovern, this girl was only sixteen years old and had spent five of those years confined to bed, but still enchanted everyone with her songs in those years. Think about that: five years of her childhood spent entirely hospitalized. I do not want to imagine what that’s like.

This song is weird as hell, but in a subtle way, not an over-the-top 2000’s joke entry sort of way. It’s an interesting composition that keeps me on my toes with its musical curveballs. I do love musical curveballs, so I have a small soft spot for this, but I’m also annoyed by the talk-singing parts and the random changes at the end, especially the abrupt conclusion. Still, in its own way, the song is kind of cute. I don’t get why she sang a tribute to Marlene Dietrich, but that’s what I mean by being kind of cute.

Wow, only two songs left already!

Germany: Wunder gibt es immer wieder

Artist: Katja Ebstein

Language: German

Key: E major

My ranking: 5th

Ah, here’s another one of the best postcards! As I said in round 1: “I have to wonder if any children watching this postcard thought Katja was teleporting. She sure looks like she is, what with all the camera cuts in the same location. I will pretend she was teleporting because I think that’s hilarious.”

Hey, this song isn’t half bad. Nice outfit too, it’s ultra-seventies in a good way. This is a much better use of toothpaste blue than Julio’s disconcerting suit. It’s a very German-sounding pop song with a blues piano and some nice backing “ah-ah-ah”, plus some dramatic “da-daaaa” parts in the brass. It’s just missing that spark of greatness we’d get in later German entries. Maybe it would’ve benefited from a faster tempo or bigger instrumentation.

Ireland: All Kinds of Everything (the winner)

Artist: Dana Rosemary Schallon

Language: English

Key: B♭ major, B major. Same keys as Yugoslavia!

My ranking: 1st

Ah, Dana Rosemary Schallon. Doesn’t that name roll off the tongue so well? I should note her last name at the time was not Schallon but Brown, because she was 19 years old and not yet married.

Anyway, we’ve now reached the final song of this short contest, and it’s still my favorite entry this year. Normally my favorite song in a Eurovision year isn’t a sappy dreamy love song, but there’s nothing I truly love this year, and this song does what it aims to do so perfectly that I’ll happily keep it on top. I’ve changed a lot of my winners in other Eurovision years, but I’m not gonna change this one. Note that there are a few upcoming reviews where I do plan on changing my winner. I’ll repeat my analysis of this song from round 1, since I don’t have much to add to it:

In a contest where most songs were dull, and the last one is a memorable sugar-sweet waltz about love in English, I’m not surprised it won. It’s well composed, supremely well sung, and easy to remember how it goes, especially with the hook “all kinds of everything remind me of you”. It easily has the most wow factor of anything in this contest.

Among romantic ballads in Eurovision, we haven’t gotten any with lyrics quite as dreamy and heartfelt as this. The lyrics say that everything she sees around her in daily life, whether in nature or in human activities, reminds her of her love interest. It’s an earnest love song whose lyrical style feels like poetry.

I’m thinking once more about Yugoslavia this year, who sent the same type of song as this but were totally outclassed. The Yugoslavs must have felt as if they entered a cake baking contest only to find out somene else made the same type of cake and did it better.

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My full ranking

You can see from my ranking how dull of a year this is. Nothing particularly great and nothing particularly bad. Everything below the Netherlands is more or less interchangeable. I’m a bit annoyed that this year has no songs I can rant about how bad they are. Also, don’t be misled by all the top three getting a seven: Ireland is my clear favorite. It gets a higher seven than the other two do.

Rest of the show:

Midway through Ireland’s song, the archived broadcast turned into grayscale, then came a harpsichord tune as we waited for the interval act. I don’t know why this year was intent on having the host talk as little as possible, but I suppose Hilversum 1958 did the same. The interval act was a crew of dancers from Amsterdam set to groovy brassy music which keeps changing keys, and it works well to keep you entertained while watching the show on TV.

The voting sequence was so short and no-nonsense, and once again there’s a nice and simple scoreboard. It has the cool feature of showing how many points each country has received from the current jury, to prevent voting mistakes and keep the show efficient. Ireland got in the lead early on and kept it for virtually the whole sequence, so it wasn’t too exciting except for the guy from Monaco with the hilarious voice, and “this is a very cheerful Dublin calling” near the end. The UK had 23 points and Ireland 32, so Ireland could’ve only lost the contest if their jury gave all ten points to Mary Hopkin. They didn’t, so Ireland was the winner.

The Irish commentator got more and more excited near the end of the voting, so much that a tiny bit of her Irish accent slipped through when her country won. Apparently TV commentators not only in Britain, but also in Ireland, were supposed to speak in Received Pronunciation back then, though 1970 is right around the time RP began to fall out of fashion. Lenny Kuhr appears on stage in a lovely purple dress (the color looks so good on her!) to pass Dana her trophy, looking proud of this happy Irish girl, and it’s set to a brief jazzy arrangement of “De troubadour”. Now that I think of it, I wish the opening film this year had an orchestral arrangment of Lenny Kuhr’s song. How cool would that have been? Maybe the producers thought that would’ve been too self-indulgent. No words needed, the audience in the concert hall and at home know that the winner’s reprise is next. If you wondered why people say the Dutch are no-nonsense and efficient, their hosting this year should prove why.

During the credits, Valerie McGovern went off about how happy she was about her country winning, and praised Dana for being such a talented professional performer. She told a few stories about how positively received their entrant was at the dress rehearsals.

General thoughts:

The presentation style of this year is extremely Dutch: straight to the point, no dilly-dallying, but with some cool touches in the show to make the viewer feel welcomed. I’m talking about the opening film and postcards for the most part. I absolutely love that this year introduced postcards to Eurovision and it’ll be fun revisiting each host broadcaster’s take on the contest. I wasn’t too big a fan of the presenter though: she came off as dry, as if she was just doing this because she had to. The next Dutch presenter, Corry Brokken from 1976, I remember being more friendly. I should also say, it’s impressive that even with all the dilly-dallying the show is now required to have, it’s impressive that the hosting of Rotterdam 2021 still feels no-nonsense in that Dutch way.

The quality of the preserved broadcast shows that Eurovision 1970 is a rather unloved year. Chunks of it are in grayscale, there’s a lot of weird jumping and cutting, and very few countries’ commentary are preserved. I bet that if Norway hadn’t boycotted the contest, we’d have a nice full-color copy of the broadcast, because NRK are true pros at keeping their Eurovision content archived.

I’m fond of the presentation of 1970 (for the most part), but the song lineup is one of the most boring in Eurovision history. The theme this year seems to be male ballads, most of whose singers come off as smug except for Guy Bonnet. On the plus side, it’s always nice the winner is clearly the best song of the bunch, and that’s the case with “All Kinds of Everything”.

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See you next time as Eurovision revamps its voting system to lure the Nordic countries back in.

>> 1971: A Duet That Slowly Won Me Over