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Introduction

OK, so… I just got fired from my job shortly before my one-year anniversary. And while I apply for new ones, I need to find something to do during the cracks in the day. Since I’m done with all the 2025 national final reviews I wanted to write, I’ll do what my heart wants and restart my Eurovision blog post series! And do other projects when I need a break from this, like my large number site. The main change in round 2 of my Eurovision blog is: this time I will rank all the songs per year. I wasn’t up for the task of ranking all the songs in round 1, because I was getting to know most of these songs for the first time, but now I’m ready to rank.

In case you aren’t aware of how Eurovision came to be: shortly after they were founded in 1950, the European Broadcasting Union wanted to make a collaborative telvision program between multiple countries. All the European countries speak different languages, but the one language they all can understand is music. The EBU took inspiration from Italy’s annual Sanremo Music Festival, which began in 1951 and was first broadcast on television in 1955, and adapted its format into a competition between multiple countries. Italy sent the winner and runner-up of the Sanremo Festival to Eurovision this year.

Now to recap the basic facts about this contest: seven countries participated—the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Italy—and each of them sent not one, but two songs. Some countries sent the same artist singing two songs, others sent two different singers. Switzerland was given the duty of hosting in their Italian-speaking city Lugano, and most people believe that was because they’re closest to the center of the competing nations. In the early years, the show was hosted in the host city’s language, so the contest was presented entirely in Italian by the TV host Lohengrin Filipello. Luckily, his diction in Italian is very clear and easy to understand for those familiar with at least one Romance language, as is the case for me with French.

Switzerland sent Lys Assia to sing two songs, one in German and one in French, and her francophone song “Refrain” won the contest. Some people suspect that the only reason Switzerland won was because back then there was no rule against voting for your own country, and Switzerland had the extra boost of Luxembourg hiring Swiss citizens as their jurors. But this is nothing more than a theory, because the voting results of 1956 are lost to the sands of time. Plus, the huge applause at the end of “Refrain” is evidence against this theory. Also lost to time is the video footage of that year (except for Lys Assia’s winner reprise), and apparently even one of the interval acts. Luckily, we have audio footage of all 14 competing songs, which I’ll start reviewing right now!