After it got a mention on WIYE I dug this out and its a pearler.
All the women are wearing dresses that would cause a major fire if they stood near a radiator and David Vines commentary is just awful.
Personal favourites?
Spain – Just all of it. The days before radio mics.
Switzerland – “You wouldn’t think by looking at that face she used to work in construction”.
Yugoslavia – With their entry The Generation of ’42 (“But don’t be put off by the title, they sang it in English and it’s a very humorous song).
ABBA – David Vine helpfully explains the bands name comes from their initials. He somehow adds a 5th member and it ends up something like ABFAB.
But top of the pile is Dame Katie of Boyle introducing in French … “Madame et monsieurs, les Wombles” big Dave speculates how to say The Wombles in Korean. WTF?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p007x8b2/eurovision-song-contest-grand-final-1974
And here they are collecting litter outside the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.
Sacre bleu! What did the rest of Europe make of these fun-loving furries?
Wimbledon was my home town as a child, and they were the flag bearers for it, making it world renowned for something other than bloody tennis. I, for one, have certainly never let a day pass since without keeping in mind what a womble, womble, womble I am.
I was young enough to sort-of believe that we might have been seeing real footage of Wombles in the TV series. But when they appeared as a band, the game was up. They’re just blokes in costumes!
Which leads me to another thing…when you are a child, you absolutely know that someone dressed as Mickey Mouse isn’t Mickey Mouse. You know from a very early age it’s a bloke in a costume and if you’re too young to understand, you just burst into tears.. Adults will say “Ooh did YOU meet Mickey Mouse today??!” . Give me a break. I’m not stupid.
While I liked the dark one, rather than the blonde (I’m talking about Abba, not the Wombles), would anyone have noticed the difference between ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Remember Your A Womble’ if they’d switched them?
1974 really looks (ironically, given there are bleedin’ Wombles everywhere) rubbish… like some sort of runners-up prize.
It’s strange that the UK entry should be called ‘Long Live Love’ when the Sandie Shaw song with the same title is so famous. Why would you do that?
“I know, I’ll write a song tonight. I’ll call it ‘Hey Jude!'”
Not forgetting the audience.
A more sedate bunch than these days.
Agnetha is also wearing a Wombles badge in that performance given to her by Mike Batt.
There was something odd going on there. I noticed after each song certain members of the audience didn’t applaud at all.
Nice of Omar Sharif to show up in what must have been a hectic schedule.
After Zhivago he’d just rock up anywhere it was warm.
I read today that ABBA entered the Swedish Song for Europe in 1973 with “Ring! Ring!” but they lost out to The Nova and the Dolls with their smash hit “You’re Summer”.
Is the band conductor Gloria Hunniford?
When ABBA entered the Swedish Song for Europe in 1973, it was with “Ring Ring” with Swedish lyrics.
Nova and the Dolls’ song in the original Swedish was “Sommar’n som aldrig säger nej” (“The Summer that Never Says No”). The band was originally called “Malta”, but they weren’t allowed to use that name in the Eurovision Song Contest, because there’s also a country called Malta.
Quite right too.
Makes me wonder what they would have done if Europe (the band) had entered. I guess that would have been OK.
Israel and Australia might have complained.
According to the Radio Times one of the UK judges at the time said they sang the song in Swedish at the rehearsal but sang in English on the night. I must admit I find this a bit odd, they were allowed to sing in English at the time, and surely the song was written in English. Most odd.
The song was written in Swedish – the lyrics was famously written by a member of the Swedish Academy, which was a slight scandal…to use his poetic gift for pop lyrics! Tut, tut. And a line about breasts being like swallows in nesting – tut (or tit) indeed!
My my!
Was about to comment on that – but you beat me to it! 🙂
I think @Locust may be being a tad naughty as I can find no evidence of this. Though I must admit I love the idea of swallows in nesting.
Definitely there – at 0:35 or thereabouts. One swallow doesn’t make a summer – but two…
Ah I see now that my post was in the wrong place I was referring to Waterloo and not Nova and the Dolls.
It always gets confusing when responding to a specific post that others have commented on already…I was a little unsure but decided that you meant the Malta entry (I simply refuse to call them “Nova and the Dolls” – first time I hear that name!) since the ABBA song “Ring Ring” wasn’t in the ESC final, so what would the English judge know about it? Didn’t realise you were referring to “Waterloo”, since that song wasn’t mentioned in earlier posts in this – very confusing – chain of posts…
“Waterloo” certainly wasn’t written by a member of the Swedish Academy…it was co-written by the notorious Stikkan Andersson; a songwriter turned business savvy record company mogul. 🙂
Sorry @Locust I’m glad that’s cleared up.
I should have been clearer.
Sadly there is no video of Ring Ring from 1973. But here’s the song with some photos. This may interest you @Locust.
Reading the YT comments, I see that they weren’t called ABBA yet. And that Anni-Frid had made the girls clothes. Not quite as glamorous and glitzy as the later model. Agneta was pregnant at the time.
A year later on the Tommy Cooper show in 1974.
They’d found their look and were performing in English.
Here’s a ranked list of their UK singles:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/29/all-abbas-uk-singles-ranked
Incidentally, here are the lyrics for Sommar’n som aldrig säger nej (The summer that never says no) in English and Swedish.
https://lyricstranslate.com/sv/sommarn-som-aldrig-s%C3%A4ger-nej-summer-never-says-no.html
Ring Ring is a great pop song, seriously.
Top knowledge … in Swedens Euro competition that year there was also unsurprisingly a song called Ding Dong.
Sung by Leslie Phillips?
That rings a bell.
As does Quasimodo
and Anita Ward
This is supposed to be our big statement and you’re just saying “dung” all over it.
Et Les Compagnons de la chanson avec Edith Piaf
Yeah – that song “Ding Dong” was sung by – shudder – Lasse Berghagen.
You can find it on YouTube if you wish, but be warned: it’s bad. Really bad.
Oh god, that’s alerted KFD. Thanks for that.
You make me sound like Godzilla, Moose. A monster from the depths that has been awoken from its slumber and now plans revenge.
When the Duke is so mean about that Swedish national treasure, Herr Berghagen, I’m surprised that let him keep his passport.
Just watch this clip! The good folk of Sweden loved Lasse!
What a knees up!
… and then there was this…
Or this.
Quick question @Sewer Robot. Which year did Neil Innes win Eurovision with that wonderful song?
I’ve never heard it before, but which European country would not vote for it?
Jolly melody, brass band, happy dancing children, meaningless lyrics…
If Black Celebration asked AI to write a Eurovision hit, it could not improve on this!
Here’s some Swedish dinga linga.. Pugh Rogefeldt rocking along very nicely.
I’ll answer for Sewer as I posted the clip, alas it never troubled the Eurovision jury and only appeared on The Innes Book of Records.
Thanks for putting me straight, Hubert. My question was a little tongue-in-cheek. But it is darn catchy and a lot more memorable than many songs that do make it on to the ESC.
And that video must have cost a few bob to make. More than, for example, what Albania spends on their entries, I suspect!
They beat The Shadows! The vocalist sounds like Helen Reddy, I think. If the song had morse code noises instead of the diddley diddley bits, it could have been even better.
And the conductor is called Harry van Hoof! The Dutch equivalent of Harry the Horse? I know every note of Ding-a-Dong – it must have been a hit in the UK.
Yes I am familiar with the song too. I think Eurovision winners tended to do well in the charts in the 70s.
wonderfully covered by Edwyn Collins from the fabulous ‘Song for Eurotrash’ special
That’s gold! Wish it was longer. Edwyn and that song are beautifully matched..
That is wonderful @exilepj. He gets it just right and the dancers are magnificently Eurovision.
I discovered from YT comments that an album was released.
https://www.discogs.com/release/8055982-Various-A-Song-For-Eurotrash
Here is Saint Etienne’s version of Massiel’s 1968 winner.
That sequence with Antoine de Caunes and Katie Boyle is very funny.
Jackpot! I’ve found the entire Eurotrash Eurovision special.
Dubstar, Saint Etienne, Sinead O’Connor, Bananarama, Katie Boyle…. a galaxy of stars.
Douze points @exilepj! You did us proud,
@Kaisfatdad, i’ll take the douze points thanks ….somewhere have the CD (had to own it as rather a fan of Saint Etienne) one of my favourite bits is the clip of Sinead and Terry Hall , the coy smile on her face when he starts to sing is just lovely
I’m a big fan of Saint Etienne too. Not to mention Dubstar.
That clip of the complete programme is going on my Facebook page. Far too good to keep to myself.
And I have a new Eurosiony thread that I’ll be starting here later today.