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.