Welcome back to Luxembourg. We’ll be back several more times. No changes in the lineup this time, which is nice, there’s no need to introduce any newcomers.
There was a big change in the rules though - all countries were forbidden from singing in non-official languages, changing the direction of most of the 20th century forever.
Before being greeted by our host, we’re greeted by an instrumental rendition of Poupée de cire, poupée de son. I always enjoy this sort of thing, I wouldn’t mind it if a snippet from the previous year’s winner introduced current contests too.
Our host for tonight is Josiane Chen, who quickly greets all participants and the broadcasters on the Intervision network and we quickly move to our first entry.
I find this strangely compelling for some reason. I think the piano elevates it a lot, and the weird, almost speech-like singing makes it rather interesting. But, while compelling, I don’t necessarily find this great.
It’s really hard to rate this one in all honesty.
This is the kind of songs I like. I’m glad Denmark deviated from their usual style of slow ballads and sent something in the style of musical theatre. There’s a big musical intro that gets your attention before transitioning into a slow first verse. I was prepared to be disappointed by the rest of the song after that, but the chorus picks up back again and we never get another slow part again.
Also, backup dancers! How fun! Who would’ve thought that Eurovision has been using backup dancers since 1966.
Well, this is the first song from RTBF that I genuinely love. There have been several that I’d consider decent or good enough, but this is easily the best one they’ve sent so far. It has a very catchy melody with bells and brass in addition to strings, a grand instrumental break, clever, funny and whimsical lyrics and some “choreographed movements”.
The lyrics are especially memorable, telling a story of a girl going to a sorceress to win the love of a boy and then gives him a herbal tea, and “everything changes”. Now, maybe some could interpret that as a metaphor for date drugs, but I disagree, it clearly isn’t anything serious, just some whimsical fairytale-like story.
And here’s another great song, wow. This year is starting out really strong.
This song is about waiting for your love, but more about the anticipation and excitement of waiting, which is a pleasantly unexpected direction. Once again, it’s very contemporary for 1966, with a wonderful instrumental and was a pleasure to listen to.
No, Eres tú didn’t plagiarise this. Outside of slight similarities in the chorus, the songs are very different. But then again, people always tend to overestimate how similar songs really are. “OoOoOoH, pLaGiArIsM,” you’ll hear someone say about songs that only vaguely share the same chord progression.
But enough about this, let’s talk about the song. I love it. I absolutely love it. It’s a ballad done right. It’s moody, but not dreary, the instrumental flows really well. But most of all, it’s very beautiful lyrically (but then, I’m a Slav and kinda biased towards Slavic languages). It’s about something most people can only dream of - being able to understand the person you love without any words. They’re very melodic and beautiful, very meaningful and rich. It’s my favourite Yugoslav entry up to this point by far.
Now, here’s another entry I absolutely love (and one of many reasons why I consider 1966 to be one of my favourite years of all time). Åse is genuinely one of the best performers so far, actually playing her guitar (being only the second performer to play an instrument on stage while singing), since using a backing track wouldn’t be allowed until 1973.
She has a very distinctive resonant voice that fits this song really well. The vocals definitely feel more impactiful because of it.
Speaking of the song, it’s in 5/4 time, which is always fun to see. This immediately makes it stand out from the use rest and so does the guitar. Up to this point, the only other entry that had the guitar as an important part was Dansevise and we all know that I loved it.
And I love this one as well for the reasons I’ve already stated, but also for her outfit. Åse is the first woman to appear in trousers on stage instead of a dress. I imagine this would’ve caused a lot of outrage in some moralists, so props to her.
This is a fun upbeat jazzy song with a nice flow and rhythm. The lyrics are about a woman who, unlike “society ladies” and “wealthy ladies”, doesn’t want to date “pretty” and “rich” playboys, she “can live without [them]”.
I enjoyed this much more compared to the usual ballads Finland has sent up to this point.
Unlike a lot of songs up to this point, this doesn’t interest me a lot. It’s nice and pleasant, but ultimately forgettable. I much preferred two of the Portugal’s previous entries.
And Udo is back for the third time in a row, successfully winning it this time. I think that having a hook in French may have helped him this time because of the francophone bias, but I don’t think it’s as good as his previous one.
While the singing and the instrumentation are as on point as before, the lyrics don’t feel as nice and it’s all because of the addition of French. I’m rarely a fan of language changes because different languages have a different feel and it’s no different here. The changes feel about as nicely as they can, Udo did his best at blending the two languages together, but they still just don’t feel great. Also, the repetition does start to feel slightly annoying.
On the other hand, the parts that are in German are still as good as ever.
This is a weird entry in the best way possible. Sometimes, wacky entries are annoying because they aren’t good songs, but this is a song first and foremost, melodic and musical, with pleasant harmonies and compelling jazzy instrumentation.
As a lot of Nordic entries in the 60s, this tells a story. Unlike a lot of Nordic entries from the 60s, the story is extremely bizarre, but in a good way. They’re about a princess meeting a pig breeder, insulting him at first and then being so enchanted by him playing on some saucepans that she trades places with him and he becomes a princess instead.
All of this is something that makes me not only like the song, but respect it too.
Also, fun note. 15 out of its 16 points came from Sweden’s neighbours Norway, Finland and Denmark. And some people say bloc voting is a new thing.
You can always count on Spain to bring drama to the competition. This time, it’s the sort of desperate pleading with someone you love. To my taste, it’s just way too overdramatic and I can’t really connect with it. But I really do appreciate having it in the contest.
Sadly, this song doesn’t measure up to others in this contest. It’s fine, but that’s all I can say about it. It’s hard to find positives to say about it. Though it’s also hard to find a lot of negatives as well, it’s just a song that exists with fairly cliché lyrics about romance.
Another fairly indistinct romantic song, this time with lyrics about two lovers loving each other, instead of just one person loving another one. At least we get plenty of key changes to keep us interested here.
The French commentator actually misread his notes and announced Italy instead of Monaco at first.
And here’s the only Italian entry that has scored 0 points, and, as it often is with entries that have scored a zero, it was completely undeserved. This is one of many entries that got murdered for daring to be experimental.
I love it though, it’s an amazing example of experimentation and it should’ve been rewarded appropriately. The instrumentation sounds like something out of early Doctor Who (and this is a complement because early Doctor Who music is state-of-the-art). It really doesn’t sound like anything we’ve heard at Eurovision (or will hear, even entries that went fully enectronic since this have usually had a more upbeat and cheereful vibe). Not having an orchestra genuinely elevates this song from “decent, but rather uninteresting Italian ballad” to “a one-of-a-kind Eurovision entry”.
The lyrics do let it down a bit though. While the opening of the song is great, the second half is a bit repetitive and doesn’t have the same surrealist imagery that Domenico loves so much. I think that an instrumentation like this requires lyrics that are fairly out there as well. It’s sad because it probably would’ve been my winner otherwise.
And here’s a song that was written specifically to annoy me.
First of all, the backing singers clash horribly with Dominique. It immediately set me against the song, but everything only got worse.
The whole song is extremely outdated compared to everything else. While most countries tried to “get with the times”, France sent something that wouldn’t sound out of place in 1957. The instrumental is extremely trite and uninteresting and there’s a weird key change that doesn’t lead anywhere for some reason.
The lyrics aren’t much better. In fact, they’re much worse. It’s chauvinism and xenophobia in one, how fun! While I’m willing to ignore some lyrics that were “of their time”, these ones are too egregious. He’s addressing someone who’s crossed the Atlantic Ocean (so, an America) and saying that “In Europe, the boys court the girls”. Of course, you also have your usual tripe about how villages are better than cities and so on. Even detaching myself from this, the lyrics are just kinda crap. They’re full of trite rhymes and reek of someone having run out of ideas.
Overall, it’s an unpleasant experience with no musical merit whatsoever.
This is another quite wacky entry, but it’s considerably weaker than the Swedish one. Milly Scott has a great voice that really elevates the song, but it isn’t particularly memorable otherwise. It’s clearly parodying Latin pop (and probably doing that quite well, but I’m not an expert on 1960s Latin pop). The staging with the two guitar players in sombreros does make it stand out a little bit, but it falls flat in more important aspects.
Yes, French commentator, c’est une… eum… ballade indeed. Far from the best one, of course, but not a bad one either. Ireland would keep refining their ballad formula for the next couple of years until finally winning. There isn’t much to say about it, nothing deep to analyse, but I’m glad it was in the contest.
This is an operatic song in Eurovision, so if you expect it to not work for me, you’re expecting right. At least he avoids the really bad part of operatic entries by singing clearly.
As far as the song goes, it’s fine. Nothing exceptional, but nothing bad either. The instrumental is alright, it’s fine lyrically. His costume definitely stands out though, the kilt and all.
This was definitely a huge improvement compared to a lot of other years. There were a lot of enjoyable songs with enough variety and a good draw for the running order.
The voting was fun too, the first three juries all gave their points to different countries. Austria did start leading quite soon, after Luxembourg voted, but it still wasn’t clear that they’d win until the second half of juries gave their points. And while I think this is Udo’s weakest entry, I’m happy he got his win anyway.
I also liked how the audience ooh’d and aah’d during voting, which isn’t something we’ve seen before. They laughed when Norway gave all of their points to their fellow Nordics or when Sweden got 5 points from Denmark. It’s definitely a sign of times changing and the audiences becoming more invested in Eurovision (and the overall mood lightening up).
I’ll see you all in Vienna next time for the final Eurovision broadcast in black-and-white, without Denmark.