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.

165/917 Östen Warnerbring: Som en dröm (Sweden 1967)

Dramatic ballads were hardly Sweden's main area in the Eurovision Song Contest (and it still isn't). In 1967 they tried in that genre and resultwise they succeeded. Performancewise I am not so sure.

After several, more or less joyful songs Sweden changed the pace in 1967 with a pompously arranged ballad sung by Östen Warnerbring. The recorded version of Som en dröm is masterfully arranged and the toneful voice of the singer fits the mood perfectly.

In Vienna, for some reason, the song is nowhere as convincing. Maybe there was something in the sound mixing of the television broadcast, or the orchestra was not up to the task but the overall package just does not work on stage (in front of the dreadful rotating mirrors). The melody is there and Östen sings his heart out which makes the entry plausible, but the orchestra sounds lazy and dull compared to the passionate recorded version. It could have been so much better.

The juries didn't seem to mind and the song finished in the middle of scoreboard with plausible 8th position. One can only wonder how it would have fared with better sound.

Östen Warnerbring tried many times after 1967 to get to Eurovision Song Contest again both as an artist and a composer. My favourite of these entries is the 1983 song Se, which he wrote for Karin Glenmark to sing. But in 1983 it was impossible to beat certain miss Häggkvist.

My points 3/5.

175/917 Sean Dunphy: If I could choose (Ireland 1967)

Ireland is famous for the high number of ballads sung by a male artist in Eurovision Song Contest (19 out of 48 between 1965 and 2015). Of these 19 four were sung during the first consecutive four years that the country took part in the contest. Looking back at those years it is hard for me to distinguish these four entries from another. The third Irish Eurovision entry is the best of these four.

The Irish entry from 1967 is a nice song. Not too slow and not too syrupy, but a positive love song dreaming of a home and a future that the protagonist wishes to build with his loved one. Nothing more. Sean Dunphy was a good singer and sympathetic enough to reach the romantic hearts watching the contest. If I could choose reached the glorious second place in the final results beating for example the more somber French ballads (like L'amour est bleue which later became a world wide best seller.)

I quite like the song. Among the staggering number of 33 different Eurovision ballads from the Green island this is among the best, but still not worth more than three points from me.

Four years prior to the preview videos (and during the era when music videos were a novelty) one was created for this song. See it here. Can't you sense the sparks flying between Sean and his sweetheart?

My points 3/5.

800/917 Lydia: No quiero escuchar (Spain 1999)

In the 1990's I developed a notorious touch of death. Not once or even twice but four times a song that I had pointed as one of my absolute favourites crashed at the dreaded last place in the final results. In 1999 I had a very good prediction that Spain would do well, and then what happened?

Four years previously Spain had done all but win the contest with their magnificent entry Vuelve conmigo. The 1999 Spanish entry was for me a clear follow-up to that song and sure to do at least as well. The elements were very much the same. An enigmatic melody with tasty arrangement which with a good singer and spanish lyrics (among songs mostly sung in english) created a enchanting package, at least on its recorded version. With, for the first time, no orchestra but a backing track the song did sound very much the same in Jerusalem.

At the time I didn't see much wrong in the performance. Lydia Rodríguez Fernández had couple of flat notes here and there, but otherwise she managed to keep her voice in control and delivered the song all right to the audience. Later I've realized that the small faults in the performance ruined the overall impression. Still I think that the last place was far from deserved.

My points 3/5.

491/917 Izhar Cohen: Ole ole (Israel 1985)

In 1985 Israel used a seemingly perfect recipe to create a perfect eurosong. Put together the singer who won the contest in 1978 with the composer who made the winning song of the 1979, add some singing dancers and make the song and the choreography emulate the two preceeding and higly succesful Israeli entries. In the preview video the song looked and sounded like a given winner. What could go wrong?

Quite a few things actually. Olé olé (written by Kobi Oshrat, who had composed Hallelujah six years previously) surely was a irresistibly catchy song and Izhar Cohen was still, seven years after his Eurovision victory, charismatic performer. Although the singing and dancing worked well together for Israel in 1982 and 1983 (Israel did not take part in 1984), this time the elements fitted together with unease. With a breath taking dance steps the backing group had hardly time to sing their few lines in tune, and the result sound more like shouting than singing. The wide white smiles that the group was able to present during their other activities did not look genuine anymore and the feeling "do we have to this again" could be read on their lips.

Watching the Gotheburg contest today the overall performance by the Israeli enseble seems ok, but I remember that in 1985 my reaction was quite similar,  "the same thing again?". I may not have been the only one who thought that too much is too much, and that the entry was far from the perfection I was expecting after seeing the preview video. The song finally settled at 5th position, which must have been some kind of disappointment to the Israeli delegation, which was looking for the victory by the team that had secured the two previous victories.

I find the song a bit dated but still an enjoyable track, of which I prefer the studio version.

My points 3/5.

569/917 Live Report: Why do I always get it wrong (United Kingdom 1989)

After its fourth victory in 1981 the United Kingdom seemed to lose (at least for a while) the ambition to present interesting and memorable Eurovision entries. Still, for some reason it had become a habit for the international juries to give the UK high votes no matter how dispensable their song was. While not their worst song of the 1980´s, the 1989 English entry is a good example of that.

Actually the melody of Why do I always get it wrong is quite good and the soloist of Live Report Ray Caruana was one of the better singers of the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest. The jury seemed to agree and awarded the UK their 12th silver medal in this contest.

Still something is wrong with this package. The artists lack completely any enthousiasm whatsoever and even the singer seems to want out of the stage as soon as possible. The arrangement of the song is another lost opportunity. With tasteful use of the orchestra the song could have risen over the mediocrity to something special. Now the well built melody is buried under the 1980's most unimaginative synthesizer pling plong sound. Really a lost opportunity here.

The UK audience lost interest in this song very quickly. In the UK's singles chart the song rose no higher than at #73. Not many people kept the song in their memory after that.

My points 3/5.

523/917 Halla Margrét: Haegt og hljott (Iceland 1987)

During the last 20 years we've had new countries flooding to the Eurovision Song Contest, but in the 1980's it was a completely different story. During that decade only two new countries debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest, Cyprus and Iceland. It took a while for Iceland to establish themselves in the Eurovision family, but from the beginning they took part with ambition and, most importantly, with good artists and songs.

Iceland's second Eurovision entry ever was a tender ballad sung delicately by 23 years old Halla Margrét. I considered this song as a nice but forgettable piece of music, but since 1987 it has grown on me and I believe that the juries (or the televoting audience) would have treated the song better 10 or 20 years later.

In 1987, when the eurovision songs did not circulate in the Internet for months before the contest, the song was not given the chance to grow and it was awarded the 16th place in the final results (among the record busting total of 22 songs).

The song was more or less forgotten after the contest held in Brussels, but I remember having a surprising encounter with it 7 or 8 years later. While visiting London I heard the loudspeakers of a fast food restaurant blasting out the english version of this particular Eurovision entry. How a UK restaurant ended up playing an english version of an almost ten years old Icelandic eurovision entry remains a mystery to me. Maybe there was a eurovision geek working in the restaurant that day.

According to some information found in the Internet Halla Margrét moved from popular music to classical music and had an operatic career. Could someone confirm is the soprano in this video singing Puccini actually the same Halla Margrét that represented Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest 22 years earlier?

My points 3/5.

792/917 Mélanie Cohl: Dis oui (Belgium 1998)

The 792th eurosong brought on stage a french singing girl with a baby face and voice of a teenager. For some reason it always reminds me of some entries sung in french of the 1960's.

I am not quite sure what in Dis oui makes me think of the entries from 30 years ago. It sounds quite contemporary for 1998 and the singer, 16 year old Mélanie Cohl is dressed very unlike the young vedettes of the 1960's. Still her young face, innocent performance and the song itself remind me of for example the Monegasque entry from 1965, the Swiss entries from both 1966 and 1967 and the Luxembourg entry from 1971, which all were sung by a newcomer artists (in French) aged just under or slightly over 20 years of age.

The young age of Mélanie Cohl (her real name being Mélanie Picron) is present in her performance on Birmingham stage in both good and bad. Her performance certainly is fresh and to some extent she seems to enjoy being on stage. On the other hand her inexperience is both shown and heard which, to me, is a little uneasy to watch.

I liked the 1998 Belgian entry very much 16 years ago, but it hasn't aged that well over the years. Despite of her 6th place in the final results, the representation in Eurovision didn't grant young mademoiselle Picron a steady career in the francophone, or even Belgian showbusiness. She made one album, sang on couple of Disney movies but then concentrated on other matters in life. According to some sources she took her chance at the French version of "The Voice" as late as in 2013, but without success.

My points 3/5.

328/917 The Swarbriggs Plus Two: It's nice to be in love again (Ireland 1977)

If you are looking for a quintessential Eurovision pop song of the mid 1970's, the 328th Eurosong is a good candidate.

Tommy and Jimmy Swarbrigg had represented Ireland already in 1975 coming 9th in the overall results. Two years later the Swarbriggs were joined by Nicola Kerr and Alma Carroll and equipped with slightly better song they received only 17 points less than Marie Myriam and ended up at in the third position.

Thirty seven years later the whole package with banal choreography looks very old-fashioned and even comic, but in the latter half of the 1970's the good result was quite expected. The song It's nice to be in love again (written by the brothers themselves) was catchy, pleasent, and well sung (with some nice harmonies) and it was a perfect opener to the contest. No wonder the juries were pleased.

Nowadays I prefer listening to the song to actually seeing the performance. The 1970's was in my memories the golden era of Eurovision with catchy and melodic songs being in the majority. It's nice to be in love again is one of them, not one of my biggest favourites, but an ok song from Ireland.

My points 3/5

472/917 Maribelle: Ik hou van jou (Netherlands 1984)

What is a perfect Eurovision ballad like? It should start quietly, preferably with only a piano backing, which gives the singer (preferably a female singer) to show her tender side. More instruments should join in in about 30 seconds and by the middle of the song the full ochestra should be blasting from the stage. After a short return to the sparser instrumentation should follow the overblown finale where both the orchestra and the singer can give their all. If possible, the title of the song should include the words "I", "you" and "love". Here I give you a perfect Eurovision lovesong, the Eurosong numer 472.

The Dutch Eurovision entry from 1984 certainly stood out as a song you were expecting. The song was pompous, it was well arranged to suit the Eurovision orchestra and the melody was all one could except from a Eurovision love song. On top of it all stood 24 year old Marie Kwakman (renamed rather unispiredly as Maribelle), who could really belt out the highlights of the song as well as whisper the tender parts.

With a slight reminiscense of Carly Simon Maribelle, standing alone on stage, had a total control over the cameras and caught the eye both at the Grand Théare de Luxembourg and at home. With a title translated simply as "I love you" you could have thought it would have been a pefect performance of a perfect song.

However it didn't really go that way. In 1984 the juries preferred the bouncy pop-songs (Sweden, Ireland and Denmark in particular) and more somber ballads (Spain, Belgium and Italy) rather than a positive, heart winning love song. The Dutch entry ended in the disappointing 13th place in the results with mere 34 points.

A shame really, after watching again Maribelle's performance, I can see nothing wrong with it and she would have deserved a better place in the final results. If nothing too spectacular, the song was definately better than shaky performance by the host country (10. place), the screeching ladies from the UK (7. place) and the second rate love song from France (8. place). But the world, let alone the Eurovision Song Contest, is not fair.

My points 3/5.

94/917 Carmela Corren: Vielleicht geschieht ein Wunder (Austria 1963)

Although Israel first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1973, already in 1963 not one but two israeli singers took part. Both these singers had made an international hits prior to their Eurovision appearances and secured a steady career in European showbusiness.

Carmela Corren had been discovered by American tv personality Ed Sullivan in the late 1950's, and since had appeared in both television and in films. In the 1960's she became famous in the german speaking countries, so it was no surprise that she was chosen to represent Austria in the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest.

And she filled her task beautifully. Her well trained voice gave meaning to each syllable she was singing and made the song stand out more than it would have with a less shining star.

Unfortunately for Corren, that was not enough in 1963, which in my opinion was the first really good quality Eurovision Song Contest ever. Austria did not have a chance in a contest filled with quality entries and international stars (like Nana Mouskouri, Françoise Hardy and Ester Ofarim). The change of language in the middle might have gathered one or two extra points, but to my mind it makes the song lose its authenticity and sincerity.

While the Carmela Corren never had a chance of winning the contest, it secured Austria the 7th place in the final results (among 16 participants), the arguably best result for the country before Udo Jürgens took over the Austrian representation in 1964 and finally won the contest two years later.

My points 3/5.

858/917 Natasha St-Pier: Je n'ai que mon âme (France 2001)

Sometimes a small, tiny, almost unnoticable thing can make a firm favourite fall. Sometimes the expecations are so high that when the reality comes in, the disappointment is too hard to bare. This happened to my relation with the Eurosong 858.

Natasha St-Pier was to change the gloomy streak of French eurovision entries in 2001. The preceding five years had given the country only one top 5 song and the rest didn't even reach the top 15 in the final results. For France, one of the most succesful countries in the contest, this was disasterous and so an established canadien singer and succesful french songwriter were called to help.

Robert Goldman has written international hits for f.eg. Céline Dion, Florent Pagny and Patricia Kaas under the pseudonyme of Jean Kapler. The song he wrote for Natasha St-Pier was a well crafted ballad starting quietly and growing towards the end of the song. The arrangement is masterly and in the recorded version St-Pier is well up to the task. When I saw the preview video and heard the studio version of the song, I was sure this song was going to win. A sure five pointer from me.

In Copenhagen something changed, I don't know what. There is nothing really wrong in Natasha's performance, slight insecurity at some points and maybe a little tense presence on the stage, but that is only to be expected for a young singer on such a big stage. She sings well and manages to touch the audience enough to reach the fourth place in the final results.

Still, for me the magic of the studio version was gone. The song didn't gel like on record, and the small imperfections in the performance all but ruined the song for me. After high expectations I felt disappointed by the French entry and song fell from my favourite position to somewhere in the middle. To kill the song in my mind Natasha St-Pier decided to do what no other French representative had ever done before, sing the last verse in English for no apparent reason else than wanting to please as much audience as possible. Maybe it helped the song to gain more points, but this calculated change of language was the last straw.

Natasha St-Pier has continued her career succesfully for over 10 years in the francophone music business. Good for her, but her name reminds me for always of the disappointment of the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest.

My points 3/5.

127/917 Ulla Wiesner: Paradies, wo bist du? (Germany 1965)

This is a unfortunately usual story. A young competent artist performs well a challenging song on the Eurovision stage making also a terrific recording out of it. However, the juries (or the televoters) don't get the song and it goes nowhere and the artist is never heard of again. Such was the case also for the song performed 127th in the Eurovision history.

The song Paradies wo bist du is a not your usual Eurovision entry of the mid 1960's. The song combines in an unorthodox way German schlager and latin rhythms with an interesting melody line. The song was the first but also the most unconventional of four great Eurovision entries written by well known composer Hans Blum.

The recording of this song is excellent with arrangement and production way ahead of its time. Especially notable is the use of the wordless female vocal which is used  more like an instrument than a backing vocal. Young 24 year old Ulla Wiesner does a immaculate job following the complicated melody line managing to add some personal interpretation in the recording. The arrangement of the live version on Naples Eurovision stage is much more conventional losing the enigmatic ambience of the studio recording.

Still the song in its live version would have deserved better fate. The voting system of the mid 1960's did not do favours for songs like this. Each country gave points to maximum three songs (out of 18) they deemed best, so it was no surprise that a song so different and exotic would not receive any points at all.

For poor Ulla Wiesner the drawn last place in the 10th Eurovision song contest meant abrupt end for her singing career. In the Internet very little (if any) information can be found of her singing activities after the 1965 Eurovision song contest, although the bad result was by no means her fault. The song itself disappeared and the studio recording can be found only on German Eurovision compilations that are currently sold out. I tried in vain to find a link to the studio version on Spotify, YouTube and GrooveShark.

Hans Blum wrote another three entries for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1967, 1969 and 1985. With less adventurous songs he managed each time reach the top ten.

My points 3/5 (I make my judgement according to the live version. The studio version of song would easily receive 4 points from me or possibly the full fiver)

p.s. This song was suggested for me by a fellow blogger Tobias Larsson. If you have a song, a decade or a country you want me to write about, please send me a comment or tweet me to mikko_suhonen. I'm looking forward to your contribution.

399/917 Maggie MacNeal: Amsterdam (Netherlands 1980)

The Eurosong 399 was requested by my french friend Sebastien Berteaux. The song Amsterdam was performed by 30 year old Sjoukje van't Spijker under her stage name Maggie MacNeal. The song that represented the host country Netherlands came fifth after a very tight race.

Maggie MacNeal was known internationally as the other half of a "Beauty and a beast"-type of pop duo Mouth and MacNeal, which had had some big hits around Europe and their biggest hit How do you do made the charts even in the United States. The duo split up soon after their 1974 participation in the Eurovision song contest singing I see a star. Spiker has continued her solo career until the beginning of the 21st century.

Amsterdam was a big ballad very much different from the ditties sung by her former group. MacNeal took the stage wearing a glittering evening gown and singing a very traditional Eurovision ballad.

More than the song I remember the tight voting which gave the MacNeal and the Netherlands a convincing lead from the beginning and she was looked very much like the winner during the first third of the voting. After that, however, both Germany and Ireland stole the lead from the host country and Maggie MacNeal could later see herself driven over by Switzerland and the United Kindom as well.

Today I see the Dutch entry from 1980 an OK song, not a killer but certainly not one of the worst ballads ever sung in the contest. Not one of my current favourites anyway.

My points 3/5.

144/917 Michèle Torr: Ce soir je t'attendais (Luxembourg 1966)

During the first decades of the Eurovision Song Contest the French artists had more exposure to the European audiences than others. Apart from the French television, the French artists were usually asked to represent also Monaco and Luxembourg, and sometimes even Switzerland and Belgium. Several upcoming and already established French stars tried to enhance their careers or prepare themselves for the forthcoming stardom by taking part. One of these artists was  Michèle Torr, who took part in the Eurovision Song Contes twice representing both Monaco and Luxembourg.

Torr was part of the Yé-yé generation, a singer under 20 years of age singing mostly uptempo songs. Other famous yé-yé singers were France Gall, Françoise Hardy and Sylvie Vartan. A 19 year old Torr gave a confident performance in the 1966 edition of Eurovision Song Contest representing the host country Luxembourg.

I find her performance and the song one of the best in the 1966 contest, which was not of the highest quality contests in the 1960's. The result, 10th place among 18 participant was surprising and disappointing. I still like the song even though it hasn't aged as well as some other entries from the 1960's.

Michèle Torr was already a star and she returned to the Eurovision Stage in 1977 representing Monaco with a song Une petite française, which she preferred to her 1966 entry and which improved her result finishing fourth. She is still continuing her career performing regularly and releasing new material occasionally.

My points 3/5.

66/917 Lale Andersen: Einmal sehen wir uns wieder (Germany 1961)

This time the random number generator picked me a singer who had started her international known career earlier than anyone else ever in the Eurovision Song Contest. The singer of the 66th Eurosong is none other than the singer who made Lili Marleen a hit on both sides of the frontier during the second world war.

Lale Andersen was 34 years old when she recorded this war time classic in 1939. At first the nazi officials banned the recording, but after the song had became immensely popular among the German troops it was allowed to be played again. The song made Lale Andersen popular also on the other side of the frontier, as the sad story about a soldier and his lover separated by the war was understood everywhere during those years.

After the war Andersen's career stopped for a while, but in the 1950's she continued her career. In 1961, at the age of 56, she was chosen to represent Germany in the Eurovision song contest with a very traditional German schlager Einmal sehen wir uns wieder.

The dark and enigmatic voice was still there and the song was an excellent vehicle for the experienced singer. With a perfect performance, beautiful tune and the international fame of the singer, the 13th place among 16 participants was rather disappointing. It is possible that the juries did not like the long passages of spoken text in the song. I, too, prefer the recorded version with more music and less talking.

With a long and succesfull career behind her the poor result in the Eurovision did not do her harm. She continued to tour Germany, Europe and even United States until her death in 1972.

It would take 47 years and a Croatian disc jockey and rapper of 75 years of age before anyone older than Andersen would perform on the Eurovision stage.

My points 3/5.

439/917 Bill van Dijk: Jij en ik (Netherlands 1982)

The Dame Fortune draw me the Eurosong 439. A song, that not lot of people remember, but at least to me is a happy re-encounter. The Dutch entry from 1982 was jolly, well performed and good composition, that just failed to stand out from the crowd.

A brief visit to Wikipedia.org did not make me much wiser about Bill van Dijk, the singer that represented the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982. Apart from singing this entry, he has done some voice acting for childrens tv series, and portrayed Cyrano de Bergerac in the musical version of the legendary tale, both in  Broadway and the Netherlands. Apparently he has been more active in theatre than in the music business.

The composer Dick Bakker is much more familiar to the Eurovision fans, as he had composed the 1975 winning entry Dinge dong and served his country as an arranger in 1978, 1980 and 1984 and a conductor from 1996 to 1998.

Jij en ik was no Dinge dong, however, and after receiving only eight points it ended 16th in the final results (among 18 participants). To me this song was better than I remembered, a good song with competent arrangement (apparently by the composer himself) which made the live performance much punchier than the recorded version. With his actor skills Bill van Dijk makes the song fun to watch and easy to listen to. This was not enough for the song to stand out from the other entries, so it was mainly forgotten.

The 1982 Dutch entry is like an old friend that you are happy to meet again with some guilt that you haven't been contact with him for a long time. I'm sure I will come across much more songs like this in the near future.

My points 3/5.

545/917 Scott Fitzgerald: Go (United Kingdom 1988)

The 1988 Eurovision Song Contest is remembered for being one with the tightest and most exiting votings ever in the Eurovision history. Right until the last jury the UK and Switzerland were head to head, and even though the UK at some point seemed to run away with the victory, Switzerland came back from the behind. Before the last jury the UK were only five points ahead, and when the Yugoslav jury gave six points to Céline Dion and none to Scott Fitzgerald, the UK saw the victory flee from their hands by just one point.

Unfortunately the voting thriller of the 1988 has overshadowed both the songs in question. Céline Dion would become one of the best selling singers of all time, but few fans of hers even know the song Ne partez-pas sans moi. Scott Fitzgerald suffered crueller fate. Go reached only 52th place in the UK singles charts, and his career never recovered.

I've never really understood how such a unremarkable ballad ever got so high in the contest. It has been only recently that I have understood and started to like the song, which to me is not the kind of Euroballad to do well in the contest. Scott Fitzgerald delivers the song professionally and the string arrangement of the live version makes it much better than the blunt studio version. Definately not one of the best songs in 1988 and not worthy the second place, but still a pleasent ballad that should have been treated better.

My points 3/5

881/917 Malene Mortensen: Tell me who you are (Denmark 2003)

In my book it is seldom a good idea to change the language of the song before the grand final. It is ok to present the song from the beginning in English, but if you first choose a song in your own language and then change it, you usually lose more than you gain. That happened to among others to the eurosong 881, which represented Denmark in 2002.

When I first heard the song Denmark had chosen as their representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2002, I liked it a lot. Vis mig hvem du er was a mystical ballad with good performance by Malene Mortensen. The danish lyrics made the song even more enchanting. The song was a favourite for many Eurovision fans like me.

But Denmark had the song re-written in English for the final in Tallinn as Tell me who you are. Gone was the mystique of the song, which turned out to be your usual love song with nothing to make it stand out from the others. To make matters worse, Malene Mortensen seemed not at ease on stage and her performance was far from perfect.

I was not the only one to spot the difference. Against all predictions Denmark finished last among 24 countries. The song was not that bad to have such a faith. But still, there is a lesson to learn here.

My points 3/5.

303/917 Semiha Yanki: Seninle bir dakika (Turkey 1975)

For the next song you can thank a Eurovision fan Antti Salmela. He chose the Eurovision Song Contest entry 303, which would be the first song ever for its country. The song did not become a big hit nor did it receive many points, but Eurovision fans still remember this song fondly.

17 year old Semiha Yanki took the big responsability to be the first artist to represent Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest. Her young age did not affect her perfomance, which combined vulnerability and strength with the traditional type of Turkish melody and lyrics.

Once again the juries were not interested in new, strange and exotic. Only the monegasque jury awarded Seninle bir dakika three points while most of the juries preferred a typical eurosong à la Dinge dong from the Netherlands. It would take more than 20 years before the Eurovision juries started to appreciate the Turkish music, when Dinle raised Turkey up to the third place in 1997.

This song has however become a firm favourite among the Eurovision fans, and the single release of the song is one of the most sought after Eurovision gems for the collectors. To me this song has not aged so well, I think it is ok, but not one of my favourite songs from 1975.

My points 3/5.