Eurovision 1968: Cliff, edged | Animated scoreboard
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- An edited down version of the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 from London, with a scoreboard using today’s technology. This all started as a lockdown project!
This edit will give a flavour of the evening (Saturday 6th April) with Norwegian commentary from Roald Øyen. The reasons why are mentioned in the video.
For many fans, 1968 is a watershed. I’ve wanted to see whether it’s just because of the electrifying nature of colour television arriving or whether something else happens in London. One of my reasons for doing each year chronologically is to chart the progress of the show and I even thought about watching this one in black and white. I think overall, the songs don’t take a massive leap forward, but they somehow seem more accessible with colour. This is ultimately a robust collection of songs though, with some real strong players vying for contention. The BBC production team seemed to take some of the best of 1963 in terms of camera shots and a focus on the performers.
It’s easy to say that the strongest contender was Cliff Richard (27), although I am wary of being too UK-centric. He’d had the biggest career, certainly, and had been in several films - the most enduring being ‘Summer Holiday’. The problem was, Cliff was struggling stateside - even ‘Summer Holiday’ was unfortunately released just after JFK’s assassination and subsequently flopped. Nevertheless, as you can tell from the pre-selection show, he was incredibly popular with teen fans and ‘Congratulations’ went into Eurovision as a UK number 1, an unusual event (apart from Shaw the previous year). Meeting him, to face the jurors, was former champion Isabelle Aubret (29) with a spellbinding song that appears to be about a gang-rape. Not usual ground for Eurovision and in stark contrast to Cliff’s chirpy number. Nevertheless, no country had successfully defended their title in Eurovision.
Spain’s eighth Contest preparations weren’t ideal. ‘La, La, La’, was written by the members of the Dúo Dinámico (Dynamic Duo) who had achieved Beatles-esque popularity in Spain in the early 60s. They had selected their friend Joan Manuel Serrat, but even though there was some liberalisation of language rules in Spain, RTVE weren’t going to send a Catalan-sung entry. Massiel was drafted in just one week before London. Spain’s average placing before Raphael was around 12th, which has risen to 6.5 over 1966/7. Victory was going to a big leap, but Massiel’s excellent vocal performance with a catchy tune was something else.
We know now that allegations of the result being rigged haven’t been successfully proved, if it was, it was a master stroke to do it so subtly. The voting almost perfectly shows dominance by France in the first third, the UK in the second, and Spain in the third, although Spain had been gaining points with the UK in the middle - but it was the 6 from Germany that took it over the top. Cliff was hiding in loo, Aubret in tears. You can tell from the addition of the reaction at the end that this result delighted Spain, a country that was experiencing significant change throughout the 1960s. A shock! As the audience shuffled out whilst Massiel was singing, it was Cliff who had been edged out, and the UK were left once again befuddled by continental tastes.
DESIGN AND THE BOARD
If you want to fix readability of the scoreboard then just make it massive. This must be the biggest in size so far. We lose the ‘points this round’ functionality, and we swap to a BBC engineering staple of the time, the split flap board which I hopefully have faithfully created digitally - even down to sheering off the ‘1’ from Gill Sans - the typeface used. Full review of the original from @mrjdsworld’s blog: euroscoreboards.wordpress.com...
I’m sure the BBC didn’t get some French polished high-quality wood to build the board, but in fact left it to the painting dept, so I did the same in Photoshop. I’ve used ‘Brygada1918’, a free download from a Polish foundry, with Gill Sans and some Eurostile for the very small text, as this was used in the show and reads best at small sizes. You’ll notice I am in HD for the first time - mainly because the source footage had been upscaled. I won’t be able to do this every time, but if it makes sense, I will. It’s all brass and wood, but for the moving backing I looked to both the Eurovision stars and the lovely, tiled stage. I really wanted it to be black and white, but it wasn’t appropriate for the first colour edition!
TRANSFER NEWS (source: Wiki)
None.
INTERVAL ACT
The music is called ‘London Medley’ and I think the film is called ‘Impressions from London’ - a bit of a step back to what I think is a ‘stock’ Interval Act.
CREDITS
Original video from @SvenskTV
Spain reax: @Festival de Benidorm, Cilla: @Euro Cafe
Flags: countryflags.com
00:00 CILLA
03:20 Intro
06:18 Song super-cut [SHORTENED]
06:49 Voting intro
08:32 The reorder board 68
27:39 Recap, data & reprise
32:41 Spain reaction
A few other things I couldn’t fit in the description:
- For the full, un-redacted version: ko-fi.com/post/Eurovision-1968-Cliff-edged-Super-cut-with-ani-S6S16DSYG
- Full CILLA clip: ua-cam.com/video/ajo7zLGPFxQ/v-deo.html
- Full Spanish reactions: ua-cam.com/video/013q9WteW1o/v-deo.html Thanks to @San Marino Diacono el Swat Kat for the tip about this - if you know of anything like that about an upcoming Contest…do share!
- A big thank you again to those who’ve supported the channel on ko-fi/thereorderboard! You can also follow me on Twitter too @thereorderboard. I’ve had some very kind donations this week, mainly after the wobbly I threw after last weekend. There’s not much to say, other than I couldn’t find the energy to come back to my desk on the Sunday after knowing my viewer base had just watched the entire show on Saturday night! I would have happily worked on 1968 instead of 1967, but I guess I wasn’t required - perhaps the purists have won the day. Once I’d got my edit on UA-cam, it was then a further disaster with copyright. I just don’t think you can show 1968 without the UK and Spain. Imagine 1993 without the UK and Ireland in the edit! I know a lot of you just go straight for the boards, already very familiar with the songs, but I really enjoy editing them down, so I don’t want to skip that if I can help it! Unfortunately, for this UA-cam edition, that’s what I’ll have to do. Nearly everything else is there. The recap is a little tatty, but you’ll see all the usual facts.
- Yes, I wasn’t aware that the Royal Albert Hall was glass domed either, I know it had significant sound issues, which were noticed immediately on the first performance in the hall in 1871. The immediate solution was to place a sheet of cloth over the dome, which also protected the audience from the sunlight. It was common for conductors to note that you heard your orchestra twice due to the echo. Strangely, the problem wasn’t solved until the installation of the mushroom domes, suspended above an aluminium roof which were installed in…1969! I’ve got a funny feeling this might be the largest of the venues used so far, with a capacity of over 5,000. It certainly looked and sounded full for Eurovision. Entirely inappropriate for a modern contest, regular shows do come from there and if you get the chance…go!
- I know most of you are itching for an update on Terry Wogan. No? Well, in 1967 he was rejected by the head of BBC2 for a presenting job, the controller…none other than David Attenborough, thought it ridiculous to have two Irishmen on the channel. He nevertheless had started his BBC career though, often from Dublin, for the BBC Light Programme - which became Radio 2 in 1967. It would be the autumn after the 1969 contest that he would start a regular afternoon show. Eurovision commentator wise, I expect the BBC took the opportunity not to have a commentator because Rolf didn’t go down too well in 1967 (via @riva1958allan). A new commentator would take over for the UK in 1969.
- Although I’ve written about the UK, France and Spain in this one, it’s worth mentioning that Udo Jürgens was there, for the 4th time, having written the Austrian song. As mentioned in the clipping below, he expected to do much better than 13th! I did enjoy this selection of songs. I agree with most of the final rankings, apart from Monaco and Luxembourg slightly over-performing. Finland didn’t deserve last although I expect it was a little crowded out by Germany, who got their best result since 1962. Switzerland perhaps had the harshest treatment. Medieval themes! Belgium’s entry is probably worth a top 3 placing, but I don’t know what I would displace for it! It sounds like the soundtrack to a medieval film, and with ‘Jedan Dan’ bringing the costumes it’s more 1368 than 1968…amirite!? ‘merlons of my heart’ is a new lyrical high in the Contest too…again from Belgium, a merlon being the solid part of a crenellated parapet between two embrasures. If you understand that, you’d did better than me!
As Terry Wogan would say... "What a Cliff-hanger" ;)
it's surreal that yugoslavia managed to stop the win from UK by only 1 vote on TWO occasions - first in 1968 and 20 years later in 1988. Spain won 1968, while Switzerland won 1988. Both countries have two wins each
Si quieren que los países de la antigua Yugoslavia...seccionados ahora en SERBIA , MONTENEGRO , CROACIA , BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA , ESLOVENIA , MACEDONIA DEL NORTE , KOSOVO.
Vuelvan a otorgar puntos a la gran bretaña para el festival de la canción de Eurovisión vayan de turismo por esa zona que se está muy muy bien.
Teniendo en cuenta la tragedia que asoló ese gran país llamado Yugoslavia.
Así no se tirarán de los pelos como ya lo están ahora por las consecuencias del brexit.
Ustedes se van a otra música pero Europa siempre les rescata para todo incluido las juergas de los hooligans del fútbol.
Yo me pondría en wimbledon y me vestiría de tenista con el mismo color que las pistas de tenis , el color verde de la hierba.
El blanco para los partidos de cricket , el picnic , el te de la cinco , las carreras de hípica , las partidas de snokker , los juegos de dardos , la ropa de pijama , el atuendo de los reyes ingleses , y la de los payasos del mimo del hyde park.
Off course.
@@bertodiz2627I.. dont understand
@@nolans-sky i,m sorry so much but my english It,s very badly.
But thanks for the answer .
See you Soon here.
1968 was my first contest. My aunt was Cliff’s secretary for 40 years and ran his fan club, so we watched to see if we could spot her in the hall. I was fascinated more with the idea that you could contact other countries to get the scores ( we lived in an isolated cottage in the county with no telephone ) than with the actual songs.
Some Euro Geek nonsense:
I’m actually in Barcelona at the moment so don’t have access to my archive, so all this is off the top of my head.
The french song, which indeed is about a gang rape and based on a true event, should have been disqualified as it had been released by composer Guy Bonnet - Eurovision 1970/83, two years earlier.
Many people forget that Spain was actually second favourite with many of the bookies. Massiel became the first winner to reprise part of their song in another language. Despite Franco’s objections, she would go on to record the song in Catalan. The English language version made the UK charts.
Katie’s marriage was splitting up at the time and she spent most of the rehearsals crying and had to lie down with cold compresses on her eyes before the show to try and reduce the swelling and redness. It is interesting that Katie almost universally repeats the votes as ‘points’.
It was originally planned to have live film from the Green Room but Cliff’s management refused to let this happen as he refused to be seen losing. Cliff would also refuse to sit with the artists during the voting in 1973.
Gianni Mascolo from Switzerland moved to London and opened a very successful restaurant that he ran until his death a couple of years back.
The original Norwegian entry was disqualified after winning the Norwegian NF as it was a copy of Cliff’s Summer Holiday.
Finland was well favourited in the pre contest betting for some reason.
Pat McGuigan was boxer Barry McGuigan’s dad and would sing Danny Boy in the ring before each of Barry’s fights.
The BBC no longer hold a full copy of their own transmitting with just Katie’s song links from the hall. There were actually two feeds, one for the UK and the other for the rest of the countries. You can hear Katie introducing the songs in some of the backgrounds of the other commentaries although this is just by chance. She was never expected to be heard doing the introductions in other countries due to union rules and it’s just the commentators mics picking up her voice in the hall.
Magdalena Iglesias was on the Portuguese jury.
Cliff recorded an English language version of the Italian entry which was very successful on the continent.
The German conductor was Horst Jankowski who sold millions of easy listening records throughout the world and was in the US and UK charts with the highly successful A Walk In The Black Forest, one of the most played instrumental pieces of music in the 1960s.
The stage was very fragile and the floor managers had to shove the photographers off at the end as it was in danger of collapse.
During the rehearsals the noise from carpentry work was so intense that the director told everyone to stop working. When later they went to rehearse something else the workmen said it wasn’t ready as the director had never told them to restart the work and everything had to be held over for another day. Such was the power and pedant nature of unions at the time.
There was a fake Albanian delegation turned up at BBC headquarters and were believed to be real until the joke could not be carried out any longer.
That’s all I can drag from the depth of my aged brain whilst sitting in the Catala sunshine.
In the time between Sweden and Finland you get a glimpse of Katie on stage introducing the next song. She has a spotlight but I can't make out if any cameras were pointing to her. Was she seen in vision on BBC 1 or sound only?
Between Ireland and Spain you can see how the on screen captions were done - one camera is pointing at an easel with the captions on cards and someone is changing the cards over. You can also see that the colour OB cameras are Peto Scott PC60s (if you're into that sort of thing!!). I count 8 cameras in use with two on cranes and dollys. This is far and away the biggest ESC production so far.
@@Starfilter1 I think the boom camera was picking up Katie doing part of the introductions before the other camera switched to the conductors taking their bow. The BBC production notes say that Katie introduces the songs from the side of the stage for the audience in the auditorium and the audience at home [although does not actually state that she is in vision]. However they also state that whilst this happens, the second feed shows scans of the audience 'for the other countries and commentators'. This would indicate by default that the UK feed weren't being shown the audience scans and rather than be shown nothing I presume they were looking at Katie!
This was indeed the biggest Eurovision production so far and in many ways.
It was also the first contest to have a public ticket allocation with tickets being made available by a ballot through the Radio Times. In the past it was invited guests and those involved with eh songs etc themselves.
@@riva1958 Thanks for this. It does sound as if Katie was probably in vision. You're fortunate to have those production notes! Many years ago someone showed me a camera script for ESC 1974 but sadly I don't have a copy. These sort of details about the production of the contest fascinate me!
Apologies for not replying sooner...another excellent and insightful post. I love the details about the stage and also Guy Bonnet and La Source! It's so strange how small the circles are in Eurovision. I hope you enjoyed the Catalan sunshine!
The ofiicial story about the Norwegian entry is that it was plagarism. The true story is a bit different. Kari Neegaard, who wrote the song, was married to Ola Neergaard, a producer in the NRK. They both wrote songs,. and had the grupu Three Hits together. They collabortaed in writing songs,but mostly Ola wrote the tune and Kari wrote the lyrics. She also transletd foreign hits to Norwegian. The rumorurs started running that she didn't write the tune, but that it was her husbond that had written it. As an empoyee in the nRK, he wasn't allowed to take part. (Which was strange beucause one of the lyricits, under pseudonym, that t
took part in 1965 pre selection, was one of the bosses in the radio.) The speculation made Kari Neegaard to withdraw the songe, long before "the looking into the plagarism" was started by a comity in the NRK. It wasn't fun to take part anymore. The song that won, had nearly twice as manye as Stress, and is a good tune that would have done well in London. And poor Wenche, that didn't get a singel point from Norway. Maybe they were angry that she withdraw from singing Karusell in 1965, just hours before the preselection? Siw Malmkvist did not get any points from Sweden either in 1969. Sweden could hav had 3 singers in the finale. Lill- Babs took part in the Norwegian pre selection, but didn't get a single point and ended last.A And at last, a riddle: Which cuople met in the 1969 swedish preselection and later became stars? :-)
I love this scoreboard design!
Thank you so much for going through the work of re-editing and reuploading-it’s always nice to have these things easily accessible on UA-cam. I can’t wait for ‘69!!!
Thank you for spending so much time on this project. It's great to see the video even with the edits. Your scoreboard is great - split flaps and all! I like the use of Gill Sans and Eurostile as well. Both those typefaces were used regularly by the BBC at different periods.
The BBC were hugely proud of this 1968 production. It gets several mentions in the following BBC Yearbook and Annual Report. They even included a photo of Massiel so there was no bad feeling about the result from their point of view!
Thanks for watching once and again and bearing with!
Well done with this scoreboard! The one in Royal Albert Hall was so posh and well-constructed, I'm glad you managed to keep the main form within a reorderboard format. I also like the designs and the font here--good job!
It's interesting you mentioned how 1968 wasn't that much different musically, despite the switch to color. I agree with you in that it felt more accessible to us in the modern day. That said, it's a solid year, with a good set of songs and a really nice production. The voting was definitely something; you could pinpoint the moment when the oxygen was taken out Royal Albert Hall when Germany gave 6 points to Spain.
As for La La La, it's honestly one of my least favorite winners. Like a good number of people I thought something else was fishy with the voting, but after learning it wasn't proved, my problem was with how the verses were so cool and mysterious, but the chorus was too happy! (If Spain were to get their first win, I would've preferred it with Yo soy aquel).
My top five:
5. GER
4. GBR
3. YUG: Initially, I thought it was really cute, albeit very repetitive with the "dans" and all that. Over time, I grew more charmed by the song, because of the medieval elements and the flute. The repetitive elements become less irritating, and just sweet.
2. FRA: I've had mixed feelings about this, but La Source has enough intriguing elements to keep me listening. The instrumental is very sugary sweet, which contrasts with the very dark lyrics. The latter is quite poetic, especially towards the end. Isabelle also delivers well on this; no wonder she was quite upset about losing. Which entry of Isabelle's do you prefer?
1. BEL: But Quand tu reviendras is my favorite; from the opening notes you are taken into a very folkloric world. The medieval elements convey a timeless scene, filled with nostalgia and yearning. And Claude sings this well, with a bit of delicacy and sweetness (which gets compared to Kate Bush often). May she rest in peace, and her work last forever.
I think you've made solid choices here! And thank you for taking your time to comment on both editions of this video, much appreciated. Whenever I watch the songs back, Belgium stands out more and more - it really should have been up there in the voting. I much prefer La Source for Aubret, I think it's a great entry which propels the Contest forward in an unexpected way, considering you can imagine it becoming a sugary pop mess after Puppet On A String. I think I like La La La much more now, having properly heard the verses, but I agree, the chorus is too cheery - amazing performances by Massiel though!
Thanks for this, mister. I really appreciate your effort to make this show great as always. I love the leaderboard, so similar to the original one but still so special in a way.
you always leave me speechless!
Thank you so much
congratulation for you work.
Thank you so much!
- Andtheconductoris.eu ITALY: Giancarlo Chiaramello: “I had never been to England before and was much impressed by the Royal Albert Hall. Like the previous year in Vienna, the orchestra turned out to consist of extremely good professionals, making my job very easy indeed. It was a pity that ‘Marianne’ was not strong enough to make an impression. There was nothing which made it stand out and I was not surprised that it was not a hit even in Italy (Cliff Richard recorded the song in English, scoring a minor chart success with it in Britain, BT). It was much weaker than ‘Canzone per te’. I am sure that Sergio Endrigo hoped that the Eurofestival would be the steppingstone to an international career. In the end, he succeeded in conquering the Mediterranean countries and Brazil, but this had nothing to do with this Eurovision participation…to be quite honest with you”, Chiaramello concludes, “nobody in Italy cared about the Eurovision Song Contest in those years. People took no interest in it and, contrary to other European countries, Eurovision songs hardly ever climbed the charts here. ‘Puppet on a string’ was one of the few exceptions…”
- Andtheconductoris.eu FRANCE: Alain Goraguer: The 1968 Eurovision Song Contest in London was the exception to the rule: this time, Alain Goraguer replaced Frank Pourcel as the conductor of France’s entry to the festival, Isabelle Aubret’s ‘La source’. The 1968 edition of the contest is the only one between 1958 and 1972 which Pourcel missed. Goraguer: “I think Isabelle herself and music publisher Gérard Meys insisted on having me as their conductor. With Isabelle, I had a tight working relationship which lasted for many years. She was a very artistic and pleasant person and, more importantly, a brilliant singer. ‘La source’ was brilliant in its simplicity, while the lyrics were most unusual. I decided to keep the arrangement sober, simply following the music. The contest that year was held in a magnificent theatre, the Royal Albert Hall. The English were very good at organising such a manifestation… I distinctly remember one of the other delegations arriving late for the rehearsal. They arrived five minutes before the end of the rehearsing time allotted to them and were told that there was nothing that could be done about it. The artists were indignant and, by apologizing, tried to talk the show’s producer into giving them some extra time, but he said he could not change the schedule just for them. He was right in doing so and I really liked his attitude. True, we came third, but Isabelle was bitterly disappointed. Because she had won the contest before and as she was a true winner by character, she was reduced to tears after the voting.”
- Andtheconductoris.eu NED: Dolf Van Der Linden: 1968 representative Ronnie Tober, on the other hand, complained afterwards that the percussion was far too loud during his rendition of ‘Morgen’; this, however, seems to have been the error of a sound engineer rather than of Van der Linden.
- Andtheconductoris.eu AUT: Robert Opratko: “In those days”, Opratko comments, “I regularly arranged songs for Udo’s albums. It was Udo himself who personally asked me to arrange and conduct his composition for the Eurovision Song Contest with Karel Gott. I had never met Karel Gott before. I soon found out he was a good guy. Although we never met up professionally again afterwards, we have always remained friends as a result of this one week in London. We scored badly, true, but London was a great experience for me. First, there was this wonderful Royal Albert Hall where the contest was organized. Moreover, it was the first time ever for me to conduct on television - as you will understand, very exciting!” […] We were there with a small delegation. Udo himself was present and of course Beierlein, the publisher. As far as I remember, there were two people from ORF and that was it! The rehearsals did not pose any problems. Communication with the orchestra musicians was easy, as I speak some English thanks to the many years I played in the American dance clubs in Vienna after the war. The musicians said they liked our song, but I experienced in the festivals all over Europe and beyond I did in the years after, that musicians always say that to any conductor. ‘Yes, your song will win, it is the best in the competition!’, was what they used to say. Most of the times the orchestra for festivals like these is very good; that was certainly the case in London. The musicians were very eager to please the guest conductors. I also got the impression they liked the music they were playing and, throughout the rehearsals, the atmosphere was most pleasant […] For Udo Jürgens, the result in London was a huge deception”, says Opratko. “He had written a song in the style with which he himself was immensely successful in Germany at that time. ‘Tausend Fenster’ was hardly played on the radio after the contest and there was no chart success whatsoever. On the other hand, for me personally, this Eurovision Song Contest was quite important. It was interesting to find yourself in a different environment, meeting up with all kinds of people and getting the opportunity to listen to what other European countries came up with. Yes, it was a wonderful experience!”
- Andtheconductoris.eu FIN: Ossi Runne: As his country’s musical director, did Runne feel responsible when the Finnish entry did badly in the contest? “No, because my responsibility was different. My job was to make sure the music would be played the way the participating songwriters and singers wanted... and I did exactly what they wanted. On a personal note, of course, I could feel disappointed or negatively surprised, as was the case with Kristina Hautala. She was a nice girl and I liked Esko Linnavalli’s song. The intro of its arrangement is really quite sophisticated. I expected it to do better in the contest. My most vivid memory of the 1968 contest? Well, dressing rooms in the Royal Albert Hall were shared by two participants. Somehow, they put me in one room with Cliff Richard. Just before the concert was to begin, he was checking two pairs of shoes he had taken with him. He could not make up his mind about which to wear. He asked me for my opinion… and then put on the pair I suggested to him!”
Thanks for the information regarding British commentary for the ‘68 contest. I’ve been trying to find it for years. At least now I know that there isn’t one. I can now die in peace….if not a little disappointed. 😂. It’s truly tragic that the BBC wiped so much of it’s history from the 1960’s.
As a Norwegian watching, i do enjoy listening to Roals norwegian commentary. God jobb Roald!
Yes I appreciated Norwegian's might feel like I've come down on the Norwegian commentary too hard - it was more that it was constant and the levels were very high, meaning Katie could barely be heard! Thank goodness NRK kept this colour archive!!
I’m really happy Norway also has High quality versions of the contest in 86 and 96 easily available for norwegian viewers, one of the few broadcatsers who has high quality recordings of eurovision!
this exciting voting, has just become more exciting :)
Massiel gran vencedora Eurovision 68.
"London Medley" was Arthur Wilkinson's last ever arrangement, as he died shortly afterwards at the age of only 48. I believe the footage of London was largely from Pathe London travelogue films, as I'm sure I've seen lots of it in some of the "Look at Life" films.
Astonishing line-up in the orchestra too - so much British jazz talent: Tony Fisher and Ronnie Hughes amongst the trumpets, Don Lusher and Jackie Armstrong in the trombones, Roy Willox and Pete King in the saxes, Frank Clarke on double bass and the astonishing Kenny Clare on drums. I bet the "Ninety-Nines" pub down the road (IYKYK) got some hammer that week!
Omg France got such a steady start.. but well, all those French neighbours were in the first half lol
I hope you have better luck with this version!
Imagine a year where Spain can win
this is messed up that you couldnt show the songs :(
My top: 1 Spain, 2 United Kingdom, 3 Yugoslavia, 4 France, 5 Ireland.
- EXTRA 1: 1968 in History: The year started odd by British PM Harold Wilson asking people to stay an additional 30 minutes at work to improve the UK’s ‘competitiveness’. In late January the significant Tet Offensive started in South Vietnam, with surprise attacks all over the country. Several gruesome massacres occur over the Spring, on top of an already torrid situation, the My Lai massacre wouldn’t be public until 1969 and would further undermine public opinion for the war in the US. By March, after a primary challenge, President LBJ announces he won’t go for re-election. Despite having taken over halfway during JFK’s term, LBJ was entitled to serve another four years. In February, Grenoble was the Olympic City for the Winter Games a pleasant experience for a country that later experienced massive student unrest in Paris in May. Two days before Eurovision, Martin Luther King Jr is tragically killed, kicking off multiple riots and eventually led to the Civil Rights Act of 1968. In May, the IBA in Israel starts television broadcasts. In June, Robert F Kennedy, Democratic candidate for President and brother of JFK is shot and dies of his wounds the next day. The day after that, sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant near London go on strike (Sandie Shaw had worked there previously) - the events inspired the film ‘Made in Dagenham’. The next month, the BBC’s ‘Dad’s Army’ begins. In August, Warsaw Pact troops (mainly Soviet) invade Czechoslovakia, ending some liberalisation that was starting in Prague - it’s the largest military operation since WW2 and alarms Europe. Four days later, France tests it’s first Hydrogen bomb. Albania withdraws from the pact a month later. The Boeing 747 gets launched in September, amongst another year of deadly plane crashes. The summer Olympics in start in Mexico City in October. Richard Nixon wins the 1968 US Presidential Election in November. In December, Douglas Engelbart demonstrates two pioneering tech things at once in what’s called the ‘mother of all demos’ by using a computer mouse to click on piece of text that linked to another piece of text, the forerunner of a hyperlink. Everyone was amazed, but it was too early for the computer industry at that time. Oliver!, the film is released. And on Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 orbits the Moon, meaning the astronauts see the dark side of the Moon for the first time, William Anders, on board, photographs ‘Earthrise’.
Here are all the Music Videos listenable in Video and Colour :)
ua-cam.com/video/o1jVn7n0p9k/v-deo.html
1968 favs: 🇧🇪 BELGIUM, 🇫🇮 FINLAND, 🇫🇷 FRANCE, 🇵🇹 PORTUGAL, 🇪🇸 SPAIN!
1969 was confusing since there was 4 winners. Hopefully thereorderboard can sort the 1969 4 way tie dilemma. Thanks and I love thereorderboard!
It's such a shame you had to do this with the song summary, still it's a great video and it still greatly shows how close was the voting
Thanks Patryk - well at least people can view it, although most won't...clicking too many links is hard!
Their was a Scandel
If only ‘Step Inside, Love’ had been the UK entry
Here are my personal votes/rankings, i'am from the Netherlands
12 points: United Kingdom - Cliff Richard - Congratulations
10 points: Yugoslavia - Luci Capurso & Hamo Hajdarhodzic - Jedan dan
8 points: Spain - Massiel - La la la
7 points: Switzerland - Gianni Mascolo - Guardando il sole
6 points: Portugal - Carlos Mendes - Verão
5 points: Ireland - Pat McGuigan - Chance of a lifetime
4 points: Sweden - Claes Göran Hederström - Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mig
3 points: Monaco - Line & Willy - A chacun sa chanson
2 points: Germany - Wencke Myhre - Ein hoch der liebe
1 point : France - Isabelle Aubret - La source
oh f. uck off its 2022
I Love Massiel 1968 Spain. The winner.
Not me
Started as 🇫🇷France vs 🇮🇪Ireland, ended as 🇬🇧UK vs 🇪🇸Spain. Shocked how 🇫🇷France didn't win from that big lead at the start.
Katie Boyle doing everything possible to delay announcing Spain as the winner. Everyone was almost certain there was a mistake & the UK won. 🤣
It's fifty-three years later, and I'm still certain there was a mistake and the UK won.
I think the scrutineers misheard the Yugoslavians give the Swiss 3 points instead of 2, so they insisted that they gave their result again to make sure.
That last bit is a little too North Korean for my palate.
the biggest FIX in eurovision From francos spain
I don't get what Mr Brown thought was wrong in the Yugoslavian vote. They had 10 votes and awarded 10 votes.
Katie Boyle misheard "Switzerland 2 points" as 3 points.
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Why did you delete the first Eurovision 1968?
due to copyright on spain and the uk
This German jury.......Sorry, UK!!!
Don't worry, we're used to you causing problems!
Hasta en cuatro ocasiones ha tenido que repetir la delegación del jurado de Yugoslavia los puntos del jurado de su país... Italia 2 puntos , Suiza 2 puntos , Irlanda 6 puntos.
Si tienen tantas ganas de repetir las puntuaciones del jurado de Yugoslavia ( última en la elección del voto ) como un disco rayado que lo hagan en todas las delegaciones más que nada para preservar una hipotética neutralidad .
El disgusto de perder en tu propio país un festival de la canción europea puede ser razonable.
Pero por dios hay que disimular y guardar las formas , este es impropio del señorío británico ( un brexit en toda regla).
No han tenido tiempo de hablar con los alemanes porque ni en su mayor de su pesimismo podían imaginar que los teutones ricachones y poderosos podían darle seis puntos a la débil representación española.
Una vez más el ente europeo ya por 1968 haciendo gala de un mangoneo no visible en aquellos años de la famosa invasión de la antigua URSS a la antigua Checoslovaquia , y los asesinatos de Robert Kennedy y Martín Luther King.
En España nada cambió en exceso nos llevamos un la,la, la que supo a gloria y para la cantante Massiel fue el comienzo de un infierno personal porque los medios audiovisuales no la dejaban en paz por la fama adquirida con el logro europeo del festival.
Cliff Richard se mantuvo unos años más en la élite musical hasta que decidió encontrar su refugio en la religión.
Cuantos cadáveres arroja el mundo musical , cuantos desaprensivos en cuanto a agentes y presentadores metidomentodo y el ente europeo permitiendo países que adopta cantantes de otras nacionalidades , amiguismos , tratos de favor , presentadores empoderados , homenajes insulsos y un público tan entregado como decepcionado.
Por cierto señores de la bbc , Yes , BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION.
Los títulos de crédito tendría que salir cuando sale la canción ganadora y no cuando se vacía el Royal Albert Hall.
Un poco de respeto.
El te de las cinco puede esperar .
Porque tanta prisa del público.
Acaso no es un país civilizado.
Hay que quedarse a aplaudir a los campeones.
We are the champions.
From Massiel.
Sit down, take a deep breath and think about what you're doing with your life.
El estilo fascista que tiene el presentador de hablar.
Very interesting but the winning song was dreadful Congratulations sold millions of recrords around the world should have won