It’s been a month since we launched #allkindsofESC, a project in which we share various Eurovision-related trivia from over the years. Let’s see what we learned this month.
We started off this project looking at the national final performance of Hot Eyes (Denmark) from 1984:
🇩🇰 Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 1984 took place over a few different sets, one of which had a swimming pool.
Hot Eyes took advantage of this for their staging; watch and find out what Kirsten did to Søren 👇 #allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/BobSUmaoaB
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 5, 2021
Little did we know that this month’s #EurovisionAgain would be 1968 when we featured this story below:
Odd Børre had originally won 🇳🇴 MGP 1968 with the song 'Jeg har aldri vært så glad i noen som deg'
The song was withdrawn due to allegations that it had plagiarised Cliff Richard's 'Summer Holiday', but as Børre also sang the runner-up entry, he still went to ESC#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/SwWEJ7T3KK
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 10, 2021
This one was posted on the day our 1956 article went live. Initially, we had only planned to discuss the 6-minute footage of the winner’s reprise, which we discovered a few weeks prior. It was only the day before the planned publication that we found these photos, and we were quick to incorporate them into the blog post.
📺 Some photos from the rehearsals of the 1956 Eurovision Song Contest.
👤 Which singers do you think appear in these pictures?
📸 Vincenzo Vicari#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/rZlqNN64xz
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 11, 2021
While we initially thought it was Michèle Arnaud (representing Luxembourg) who was in the first picture above, someone linked us to French songstress Mathé Altéry’s cover of Refrain. We changed our conclusions and shared the clip below:
First-ever French entrant 🇫🇷 Mathé Altéry performing a cover of first-ever Eurovision winning entry 🇨🇭 Refrain 👇
🎧 A studio recording is available to stream on Youtube and Spotify#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/gEcldF15xc
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 13, 2021
Moving away from the 1950s, former ESC conductor Jože Privšek caught our attention due to his brief but significant repertoire:
👤 Ljubljana-based musician Jože Privšek was Yugoslavia's debut conductor in 1961.
🇸🇮 32 years later, he was invited to pick up the baton once again for the debut of an independent Slovenia.
🎼 Overall, he conducted on 5 occasions: 1961-62 and 1993-96.#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/CxnTuAaXZA
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 14, 2021
An interesting coincidence involving a grandmother-granddaughter duo and the French city of Cannes:
🎞 Actress Emma de Caunes starred in Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), in which her character brings Mr. Bean to the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
🧑🦳 That event took place in the very location where her grandmother, Jacqueline Joubert, hosted Eurovision in 1959 and 1961.#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/gDdFDkea33
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 15, 2021
We had known for a while that ‘De oude muzikant’ and ‘Ik ben verliefd (Sha-la-lie)’ were written by the same person. But only recently did we make the connection between him and his pen name of Father Abraham:
🎼 The infamous 'Smurf Song' was written by Dutch musician Father Abraham.
🇳🇱 Under his real name Pierre Kartner, he penned and composed two Dutch Eurovision songs, one in 1973 and the other 37 years later.
👇 Which one is your favourite?#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/euhroGxCNZ
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 18, 2021
As we looked into Evropesma, Serbia and Montenegro’s short-lived national final for another article, we learned that several future ESC entrants representing five of the six former Yugoslav republics competed in this preselection, including a future winner:
Prior to her ESC victory, Marija Šerifović tried her luck in representing Serbia and Montenegro in 2005.
At the national final Evropesma, she performed the song 'Ponuda' (Offer), and came 18th in a field of 23 with 5 points.
Do you prefer this over Molitva? 👇#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/mTPBGWNjcu
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 19, 2021
There have been landslide victories in many national finals, and then there’s this:
In 2007, Teapacks was internally selected to represent 🇮🇱 Israel.
A four-song NF was held to determine the entry. Here are the results:
🥇 Push the Button (100 pts)
🥈 Salam Salami (0 pts)
🥈 Twelve Points (0 pts)
🥈 Voulez vous (0 pts)#allkindsofESCpic.twitter.com/6SPT49opLW— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 20, 2021
We posted this unfortunate coincidence the day our Evropesma article went live:
On 11 March 2006 in Serbia & Montenegro:
— Former president Slobodan Milošević was found dead, awaiting trial in the Hague for war crimes.
— Evropesma, the ESC national final, was held. No Name were controversially declared the winner 👇#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/yd10mODUOh
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 21, 2021
The introduction of ESC preview shows, in which clips of the entries were shown ahead of the contest, occurred just a few years before the rise of music videos in the entertainment industry.
We looked at one of the first-ever preview clips:
📺 The concept of ESC preview shows was introduced in 1971 to allow viewers to get to know the competing songs ahead of time
🇨🇭 The Swiss preview video that year showcased a unique arrangement of the song that is not heard in either the studio or live versions 👇#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/uOrgnLS6pT
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 23, 2021
And finally, we took one more look at 1956. As it turns out, it only took seven entries for there to be sampled music:
🇮🇹 Italy's debut song 'Aprite le finestre' was the first ESC entry to sample an existing piece of music.
🎻 The arrangement of the live performance begins and ends with a few bars inspired by Edvard Grieg's 'Morgenstemning', from the Peer Gynt Suite (1975) 👇#allkindsofESC pic.twitter.com/qc9wCMJPNh
— Good Evening Europe! (@goodevening_eu) September 27, 2021
Overall, it has been a pretty eventful month for us at Good Evening Europe. As this project is based on Twitter, be sure to follow us there for more Eurovision trivia!
Great content! Keep up the good work!