Eurovision Song Contest 1974
| Eurovision Song Contest 1974 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Dates | |
| Final | 6 April 1974 |
| Host | |
| Venue | The Dome Brighton, United Kingdom |
| Presenter(s) | Katie Boyle |
| Musical director | Ronnie Hazlehurst |
| Executive supervisor | Clifford Brown |
| Host broadcaster | British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |
| Website | eurovision |
| Participants | |
| Number of entries | 17 |
| Debuting countries |  Greece |
| Returning countries | None |
| Non-returning countries |  France |
| Vote | |
| Voting system | Each country had 10 jurors who could all give 1 vote to their favourite song. |
| Winning song |  Sweden"Waterloo" |
The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 was the 19th Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in the seaside resort of Brighton on the south coast of the United Kingdom. The BBC agreed to stage the event after Luxembourg, having won in both 1972 and 1973, declined on the grounds of expense to host the contest for a second consecutive year.[1]
Katie Boyle came back to host her fourth Eurovision Song Contest (she also hosted the contest in 1960, 1963 and 1968). ABBA sang the song "Waterloo", and the group went on to become one of the most popular recording artists of all time. Along with 1988 winner Celine Dion, ABBA are among the few Eurovision winners to achieve international superstar status. Sweden's win was their first.[1]
Location
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove (formed from the previous towns of Brighton, Hove, Portslade and several other villages) on the south coast of Great Britain. Formerly part of the non-metropolitan county of East Sussex, it remains part of the ceremonial county of East Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex.
The ancient settlement of Brighthelmstone dates from before Domesday Book (1086), but it emerged as a health resort featuring sea bathing during the 18th century and became a destination for day-trippers from London after the arrival of the railway in 1841. Brighton experienced rapid population growth, reaching a peak of over 160,000 by 1961.[2] Modern Brighton forms part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation stretching along the coast, with a population of around 480,000.[3]
The venue which hosted the 1974 Contest was the Brighton Dome, an arts venue that contains the Concert Hall, the Corn Exchange and the Pavilion Theatre. All three venues are linked to the rest of the Royal Pavilion Estate by an underground tunnel to the Royal Pavilion in Pavilion Gardens and through shared corridors to Brighton Museum, as the entire complex was built for the Prince Regent (later George IV) and completed in 1805. Originally the Concert Hall was the Prince Regent's stables with the Corn Exchange being a riding school.
William Porden designed the new stables and riding school for the Prince. Inspired by water colour pictures of India, he created a building in the Indo-Saracenic style with a vast glass dome (24 metres (79 ft) in diameter and 19 metres high) covering the main hall. Many pessimists[who?] predicted that this daring construction would collapse once the scaffolding was removed. The stables were converted to a concert hall around 1860. Since that time, the Corn Exchange and Concert Hall have gone through many different guises with the latest renovation of the Concert Hall taking place in 2001–02 and costing £22 million. This rebirth was ushered in with the help of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Courtney Pine, Nigel Kennedy and Fatboy Slim (amongst others).
Format
A two-night preview programme, Auftakt für Brighton (Prelude for Brighton), was coordinated by the German national broadcaster ARD in February and was hosted by the journalist Karin Tietze-Ludwig. It shares two special distinctions in that it was the first "preview"-type programme to be broadcast in many European countries simultaneously (traditionally each national broadcaster puts together their own preview programme), and also in that it aired nearly six weeks before the actual Contest, the earliest-ever airing of "preview week". The programme was also notable in being the European television debut for the winners, ABBA, who were peculiarly credited in previews as "The Abba".[1]
Participating countries
Seventeen nations took part in this year's contest. Greece made their début, while France withdrew during the week of the contest after the sudden death of French President Georges Pompidou.[1]
Conductors
Each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra.[4]
Belgium - Pierre Chiffre
Finland - Ossi Runne
Germany - Werner Scharfenberger
Greece - Giorgos Katsaros
Ireland - Colman Pearce
Israel - Yoni Rechter
Italy - Gianfranco Monaldi
Luxembourg - Charles Blackwell
Monaco - Raymond Donnez
Netherlands - Harry van Hoof
Norway - Frode Thingnæs
Portugal - José Calvário
Spain - Rafael Ibarbia
Sweden - Sven-Olof Walldoff
Switzerland - Pepe Ederer
United Kingdom - Nick Ingman
Yugoslavia - Zvonimir Skerl
Returning artists
Three artists returned to the contest this year. Gigliola Cinquetti winner of the 1964 Contest participated again for Italy. Romuald Figuier who also participated in the 1964 Contest for Monaco, as well as in 1969 Contest for Luxembourg. Norway's Bendik Singers also returned after last participating in Eurovision Song Contest 1973.[1]
Results
Scoreboard
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Finland | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| United Kingdom | 14 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Spain | 10 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||||||
| Norway | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| Greece | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| Israel | 11 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||||||||||||
| Yugoslavia | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||||||||
| Sweden | 24 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | |||||||||
| Luxembourg | 14 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||||
| Monaco | 14 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Belgium | 10 | 2 | 5 | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| Netherlands | 15 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Ireland | 11 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||||||||||
| Germany | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| Switzerland | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| Portugal | 3 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Italy | 18 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
International broadcasts and voting
Unusually, a separate draw was made for the order in which the participating countries would vote. In all previous contests either nations had voted in the same running order as the song presentation or in the reverse of that order. It wouldn't be until 2006 that the voting sequence was decided by draw again. Finland, Norway, Switzerland and Italy drew the same position in both draws. Countries revealed their votes in the following order:[1][6]
The table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1974 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the broadcasting station for which they represented are also included in the table below.[1]
Non-participating countries
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Notable incidents
The United Kingdom was represented in the contest by the (British born) Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John, who came fourth with the song "Long Live Love". As noted by author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor in his book The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, Olivia disliked this song and preferred others from the UK heat, but "Long Live Love" was chosen as the UK's entry by a public postal vote.[18]
France had been going to enter this Eurovision with the song "La vie à vingt-cinq ans" by Dani, but they withdrew after the French President, Georges Pompidou, died in the week of the contest. Since his funeral was held the day of the contest, it was deemed inappropriate for the French to take part. Dani was seen by viewers in the audience at the point the French song should have been performed, after the Irish and before the German entry. For the same reason, the French singer Anne-Marie David, who had won the first place for Luxembourg in 1973, could not come to Brighton to hand the prize to the 1974 winner.[1][18]
Malta withdrew from the contest for unknown reasons, but had selected Enzo Guzman with the song "Paċi Fid Dinja" (Peace in the World) to represent them. The singer has confirmed this to be the case. Malta returned to the competition in 1975.[1]
Italy refused to broadcast the televised contest on the state television channel RAI because of a song sung by Gigliola Cinquetti which coincided with the intense political campaigning for the 1974 Italian referendum on divorce which was held a month later in May. Despite the Eurovision contest taking place more than a month before the planned vote and despite Cinquetti going as far as winning second place, Italian censors refused to allow the contest and song to be shown or heard. RAI censors felt the song which was titled "Sì", and which contained lyrics constantly repeating the word "SI" (yes)[19] could be accused of being a subliminal message and a form of propaganda to influence the Italian voting public to vote "YES" in the referendum. The song remained censored on most Italian state TV and radio stations for over a month.[18]
Portugal's entry "E depois do adeus" was used as one of the two signals to launch the Carnation Revolution against the Estado Novo regime. The song alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup and the tanks of the left-wing military coup to move in. John Kennedy O'Connor describes it as "the only Eurovision entry to have actually started a revolution", while Des Mangan suggests that other Portuguese entries (he mentions 1998's "Se Eu Te Pudesse Abraçar") would not be likely to inspire coups.[18]
Sweden won the contest with a score of 24 points, representing just 15% of the possible available vote. Such a low percentage has never been achieved since, but it is still higher than the 12% achieved by each of the four winners in 1969. This was the first time when four countries came last with a point. (In 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1965, four countries had come last without a point.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Eurovision Song Contest 1974". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
- ^ Carder, Timothy (1990). The Encyclopaedia of Brighton. S.127 East Sussex County Libraries. ISBN 0-86147-315-9
- ^ "KS01 Usual resident population: Census 2001, Key Statistics for urban areas". Retrieved 11 April 2007.
- ^ "Conductors 1974". 4Lyrics.com. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
- ^ "Eurovision Song Contest 1974". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
- ^ Diggiloo Thrush - scoreboard 1974
- ^ a b Selostajat ja taustalaulajat läpi vuosien? Template:Fi icon Viisukuppila, 18 April 2005
- ^ a b Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
- ^ Eurovision Song Contest 1974 BBC Archives
- ^ Sumnja od Jugolasvenskog glasanja Template:Sr icon OGAE Serbia forum, 8 September 2011
- ^ "Um Waterloo onde faltou Cambronne", Diário de Lisboa, 7 April 1974
- ^ "Nederlandse televisiecommentatoren bij het Eurovisie Songfestival". Eurovision Artists (in Dutch).
- ^ Infosajten.com[dead link]
- ^ Leif Thorsson Melodifestivalen genom tiderna ["Melodifestivalen through time"] (2006), p. 108; Stockholm: Premium Publishing AB ISBN 91-89136-29-2
- ^ Uribarri comentarista Eurovision 2010 Template:Es icon FORO FESTIVAL DE EUROVISIÓN
- ^ "Facets of Eurovision Song Contest 1975", Times of Malta, 31 March 1975
- ^ CONCOURS EUROVISION DE LA CHANSON 1974 SongContest
- ^ a b c d O'Connor, John Kennedy The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History Carlton Books, UK, 2007 ISBN 978-1-84442-994-3
- ^ Sì - Lyrics The Diggiloo Thrush
External links
| Studio albums | |
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| Compilation albums |
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| Live albums | |
| Box sets | |
| Concerts and tours | |
| Films and musicals |
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| TV specials | |
| Video games | |
| Related articles | |
| Related individuals | |