“Music is money for the record company”: The story of the first parody entry at the Eurovision Song Contest

Being a Eurovision fan in the 21st century means having to get used to the various lighthearted entries that exist to poke fun at various contemporary issues. Some ‘parody entries’ come to mind, such as Israel’s “Push the Button” from 2007, parodying the threat of nuclear warfare, or Spain’s “Baila el chiki chiki” from the following year, which made fun of the reggaeton music genre.

Although this has mainly been a more recent phenomenon, it is not to say that it is completely new. In fact, the song that could be credited as the first ever parody entry at Eurovision competed for Austria in 1977.

The band that performed it, Schmetterlinge, was originally formed in Vienna in 1969. The lineup has changed throughout the years, but in 1976 they were joined by Beatrix Neundlinger and Günter Grosslercher, who were previously members of Milestones, the band that represented the country in 1972. That entry, Falter im Wind, came 5th and was Austria’s best entry since their victory in 1966.

While Günter, who was the lead vocalist for Milestones, assumed the role of manager and did not appear onstage in 1977, Beatrix continued her role as vocalist and was in fact the only female member of the group at the time.
Pete Murray, the BBC commentator for the contest, describes the group as having “quite some publicity to their political performances,” having “recently presented a three-and-a half hour work illustrating the oppression of the working classes,” most likely referring to their 65-song composition Proletenpassion (Proletarian passion).

Then it is no surprise that their Eurovision song, “Boom Boom Boomerang” was a parody of capitalistic practices within the music industry. In fact, Pete Murray introduces the entry as talking about “the exploitation of artists and groups in the recording world.”

Lyrically, the song does exactly that. The text was written by cabaret singer Lukas Restarits, whose brother Willi was a member of the band. The chorus appears to consist of a string of English words that don’t really have much meaning when put together. Nonsensical, if you will. This could be seen as a mockery of Eurovision songs with nonsensical titles, including past winners La, La, La; Boom Bang-a-Bang, and the more recent Ding-a-Dong.

The verses, meanwhile, tell a story. Here, the singers describe the song creation process from a rather Marxist perspective. Music is in the air, they say, but quickly that song is taken into the studio and turned into a moneymaker. Later, in the second verse, they show how lucrative a song can be, making the dollar “rock and roll” around. Considering the amount of English incorporated into the song, it appears the songwriters wanted to also reflect on how some songs include English-language lyrics to be more accessible to an international audience. And that’s how the story goes, as they then repeat the chorus (perhaps that is the ‘song’ in this story?) until their 3 minutes is up.

At Eurovision, this song performed 4th, after the Netherlands and before Norway. Nestled in between two female soloists, the group was sure to stand out.

From this live performance alone there’s a lot to analyze.

First let’s talk about those outfits. At first, it seems like the four male singers are wearing beige suits with red dress shirts underneath. Perfectly reasonable attire. They are also wearing a heart shape on their left breast (perhaps a nod to the opening lines of the song?) and on their lower right there is a butterfly ornament (which seems like an obvious reference to the band’s name).

But then the men turn around, revealling that the back of their outfits have been designed to look like the front of a tuxedo, complete with a bowtie and face (mask) to match them. Some sort of pocket is also built in to hold banknotes, which Beatrix later collects throughout the song. Given the context of the song, and the way the back side of their costumes are revealed, we can conclude that this is meant to represent the businessmen who are in control of the music industry, holding positions of power in record companies.

Beatrix is dressed in what appears to be a hippie-inspired outfit, which provides a rather stark contrast from the ‘moguls’ surrounding her and appears to work with the overall theme of the song. I think it is safe to say that it was the most unique outfit choice for a Eurovision entry at the time, though surely not for long.

Then there’s the choreography. As more and more Europeans picked up television sets in the 1960s and 1970s, the visual staging of an entry became increasingly important. While it had already been common to have some simple movement, the United Kingdom and Israel brought thoroughly rehearsed dance routines to the 1976 Eurovision in the Hague. And as we all know, the former won.
This had an effect the following year too. Some countries, Greece and Belgium to name a few, incorporated heavily choreographed routines into their performance, with each second meticulously planned and no movement unintentional. This was also the case for Schmetterlinge, who pulled off a rather silly dance routine during the chorus. The difference here is that, within the context of the song, the use of choreography in the live performance of Boom Boom Boomerang appears to be parodying such choreography-heavy performances, particularly the then-reigning champion.

Now if you thought the live performance was a lot, here’s the preview video for the song:

 

There is so much to unpack here, that I think it’s worth its own article. But at first glance, the preview video does a much better job than the live performance at sending the message behind the song home.

Of course, there is only so much one can do on stage. And at the end of the show, the song came 17th with 11 points, placing higher than only Sweden.

Despite the poor result, Boom Boom Boomerang goes down in history as being one of the earliest parody entries, possibly even as a ‘joke entry’ (no, songs from the 1950s that used props don’t count as joke entries). Throughout the ages, we would see more and more parody entries, many of which don’t end up doing well in the contest (and those that do often end up being remembered unfavourably).

Do you like parody entries? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments!

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