111/917 Lasse Mårtenson: Laiskotellen (Finland 1964)

The Finnish Eurovision community (and the Finnish pop audience in general) got to her news of passing of two pop music legends in the final week of the Eurovision Song Contest of 2016. Although Riki Sorsa (FIN 1981) and Lasse Mårtenson (FIN 1964) represented two different styles and two different generations, both were popular and loved well beyond their Eurovision appearences.

Lasse Mårtenson had tried to represent Finland already in 1963, when his Kaikessa soi blues (written by Toivo Kärki & Reino Helismaa, the most popular and productive song writing team in Finnish pop music history) narrowly lost the bid to Laila Halme's Muistojeni laulu. In 1964 he was already an established and experienced songwriter and singer and his own composition Laiskotellen (words by Sauvo Puhtila) faced no real challenge in the Finnish selection, on his second attempt Lasse Mårtenson was chosen to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest held in Copenhagen.

There's no existing video recording of the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest, but the soundtrack suggests that he was well at ease on Copenhagen stage, even though he got mixed up with the lyrics at one point. Laiskotellen has never been a particular favourite of mine,  but one cannot be but proud of his relaxed and professional performance. According to the result, 7th place among 16 participants, the juries agreed. Laiskotellen became one of Lasse's favourite songs and he recorded the song in addition to the finnish version at least in his maternal language swedish and italian (Cara Domenica). You can watch a television performance of the swdedish version and a snippet of a 1992 performance of the finnish version on YLE's Open Archive.

At the time of his Eurovision participation Lasse Mårtenson was married to his Swedish Eurovision collegue Siw Malmkvist, who had represented her home country in 1960 before their marriage and would take part again in 1969 for Germany when she and Mårtenson were already divorced. Tove Mårtenson is probably the only person in the world who can claim to have parents having represented three different countries in Eurovision in three different languages.

Already a year after his Eurovision participation Mårtenson wrote and sang a song with Marjatta Leppänen in scandalous 1965 Finnish selection.  Their song Iltaisin won the public vote but this was overruled by the so called Nordic jury, which chose Aurinko laskee länteen instead (sung by Viktor Klimenko and written by the same team that had penned Lasse's entry 1963). In 1967 in Vienna he took part as a composer of the song Varjoon suojaan, and he would continue to take part in the finnish selection as both composer (1966, 1967, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1977), artist (1966, 1967, 1971, 1973 and 1977) and host (1987, you can watch the 1980's Finnish selections Yle's Living Archive).

Pop music was not the only field Mårtenson used his talent. He performed and recorded jazz and blues, and in 1967 he topped the Finnish album charts with a gospel album Voisiko sen sanoa toisinkin. In the late 1960's he started acting and composed music for movies and films, most famously for a tv drama Stormskärs Maija (or Myrskyluodon Maija in finnish). The exquisite theme of the series became his most loved and most performed song, which Anna Järvinen chose as her walk in music in Melodifestivalen 2013.

Lasse Mårtenson was a multitalented and loved musician right until his death at the age of 81 in 14. May 2016. The only sour note came in 2006, when a group of young musicians made a tribute album and concert on his honour. Surprisingly Mårtenson disapproved and loudly voiced his dissatisfaction of the new versions of his work.

My points 3/5.

119/917 Sabahudin Kurt: Život je sklopio krug (Yugoslavia 1964)

Yugoslavia provided soothing series of balkan ballads during the 1960's without notable success. The quality of these songs ranged from moving to pleasing but rather forgettable. The Eurosong number 119 falls in the latter category.

I cannot help but to feel warm when I hear this song chosen by the Bosnian branch of the Yugoslav television to represent the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest. The singer Sabahudin Kurt is on the top of his game, singing the entry with tender yet strong voice, and the arrangement makes the good use of the orchestra (the live version of the song is almost complete replica of the studio version).

The song falls down because of its melody and the lack of any real substance in it. For this blog entry I've listened to the song several times trying to get a hold of it, but without success. Very soon after listening to the song, it slipped from my memory.

The juries didn't catch the song either, it received the dreaded null points in the contest and shared the last place with three other countries.

My points 2/5.

113/917 Rachel: Le chant de Mallory (France 1964)

As I've told couple of times earlier, André Popp is one of my favourite songwriters ever to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. And his entry in 1964, the 113th song ever to take part in the contest was one of his great entries.

Chant de Mallory is a very traditional French love song that there was abundance of during the first decade of the Eurovision Song Contest. Somehow the song written by the same team (Popp and the lyricist Pierre Cour) as the 1961 winner Tom Pillibi and the 1967 evergreen L'amour est bleu manages to rise above the others.

I find the song touching and the arrangement makes it go forward even when the melody repeats the same verse. The song's success (4th in the final results) is partly due to the faultless and sincere delivery of the singer Rachel (no video recording of the 1964 contest exists, but she can be seen singing the song here). I think that this song is an example of a conventional French eurovision ballad at its best.

Chant de Mallory became the biggest hit of Rachel's career. She did record some other singles during the 1960's but apparently her singing career did not carry her to the 1970's. Pity.

My points 4/5.

116/917 Romuald: Où sont-elles passées (Monaco 1964)

This time I drew from the hat number 116, which leads us to year 1964 (one of two Eurovision Song Contests that there is no video recording available) and the song from Monaco.

French singer Romuald (né Romuald Figuier) was a minor star, who took part three times in the Eurovision Song Contest twice representing Monaco and once Luxemburg. He was (and I guess still is) a strong singer, but for some reason if you search for him in the Internet or Spotify, not much information can be found. It seems that he left his marks in some other field than music.

Instead, the composer of the Monegasque entry from 1964 is one of the most succesful (if not the most succesfull) composers ever to take part in Eurovision. Francis Lai is primarily known as a movie composer and his best known score is the music for Love story ("Where do I begin...") which he won a Golden Globe and Oscar for. In Finland his theme for the film Un homme et une femme is often heard in the commercials of a ferry company Silja Line.

Où sont elles passées may not be Francis Lai's best composition, but an ok ballad. In the first part of the 1960's there was no shortage of French ballads in Eurovision, so this song was very much forgotten, even though it came third (out of in the 16 entries).

My points 3/5.