A few other things I couldn’t fit in the description: A big thank you again to those who’ve supported the channel on ko-fi/thereorderboard, including those repeat donations! If you follow me you can still see the updates on ko-fi, but I’m still grateful! You can also follow me on Twitter too @thereorderboard. A huge thank you to @Dave King who was very helpful with the French I’ve used in these captions…I would have tripped over the gender changes in the superlative ‘Most Generous juror’ graphics! Thank you! Want a more in depth review of the original scoreboard? Here’s @mrjdsworld’s blog on it: euroscoreboards.wordpress.com/2021/07/27/luxembourg-1973/ Apologies for the confusion about uploading. Part of the reason for the delay was to allow time for confusion about Belgium, I had two versions ready, one with Belgium muted. The one with Belgium fully available said ti would only be blocked in Belgium, but that’s clearly not the case. The version I had which is muted is also blocked, as they don’t want you to see the visuals either, so unfortunately we have the blurring. I’m glad to have reached 1973, even though 1974 is often considered the zenith I suppose, this year is a great Contest, even though it’s not entirely strong across the board. I think Italy, Netherlands, Ireland are the weak ones…I actually quite like ‘Baby, Baby’ although I do agree with the conductor’s (Francis Bay) comments below which suggest that the female vocal was too low, the male’s too high. It appears that Francis and the rest of the Belgian delegation scarpered from Luxembourg quickly, failing to console Nicole and Hugo. Italy merrily continue with their own song style, which I notice always has very long lines of lyrics that often delivered broken up. I had some issues with la la la’s in 1972, this time there were considerable issues with layered singing…Norway’s was a tricky! I should have put in the main commentary that this Contest still exists in the top-20 all time most watched programmes (not news or sport) in the UK. It sits at 19th, with 21.56 million viewers. This does go to show that we’re in Eurovision’s golden age. The most watched programme remains the Christmas Day episode of Eastenders in 1986, when I was just 8 days old (30.15m). The 1966 World Cup final achieved 32.2m, Diana’s funeral, 32.1m, Euro 2020 Final 29.85m. The announcement of Covid measures on the 23rd March 2020 knocks the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympics off the top-10 list, which says it all really. I should mention Wogan’s commentary, which stutters in as we see shots of modern Luxembourg. It’s great to hear him again, even if he does get a lot wrong during the voting…along with Helga’s French to English counting. He leaves the UK audience with the possibility of Cliff overtaking Luxembourg when clearly they can’t with the 20 votes available to them. There are some impressive hauls, the UK only dropping one point out of 20 in one of the rounds. Listen out for the other commentators you can hear on his crackly line, you can clearly hear consternation at France only achieving 9 points on the opening round (out of 30) from their commentators, who also appear to drudgingly just repeat every vote, despite the board and the announcer being in French. Doesn’t this Contest look great? I love the stage and the backing lighting. The board is a little oddly coloured though and perhaps would have been better in the grey seen around everywhere else. It’s quite the functional Bauhaus style to add the orchestra to the stage for the first time, even though some of the songs wouldn’t use them that much. I often have a fear that late on in my edit, I’ll notice an obvious spelling mistake in the board, resulting in a couple of hours of reworking. On this one, I’m aware there’s a few confusing bits. Firstly, the name of this venue, the site of what must have been one of the most complex outside broadcasts in Luxembourg so far. A few published books, and the production itself, refer to the venue as the ‘New Theatre’. To my knowledge the theatre was never actually called that officially, just referred to that by the locals who were given the lengthy name ‘Théâtre Municipal de la Ville de Luxembourg’ when it opened in 1964. Being less than ten years old, I’m 90% certain it was still called that officially in 1973 but I couldn’t find confirmation. It’s now called the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, which is what is listed on Wikipedia via the updated linked page…I felt it was perhaps easier to go with what it’s called now - even though it’s not entirely accurate. Secondly, I’m still confused by the CLT and RTL relationship. I know they are one of the same but I’ve gone with what it is on the Eurovision ident board, which is CLT. I assume this is what Luxembourgers would have tuned to, to watch the show. This is an RTL production though, with ‘Radio-Télé-Luxembourg’ prominent on stage, the most prominent broadcaster branding we’ve seen so far. Well it’s not surprising, considering three songs being so close together that this year, that 54.8% of the total votes were given out, that’s way up on 1972’s 50.4%, and 1971’s 49%. The toughest jury was Portugal although they aren’t that far away from the others. Like Switzerland in Edinburgh, the older Portuguese juror helped level them up a bit, giving 10 points more. 10 juries had younger members who gave out more points. The largest differential was between the Irish young and old, with the older juror giving out 11 points more. The Italian jury was equal with what it gave out, splitting for age - with France, the UK, Yugoslavia and Spain being pretty close to equal. If you flip the table around and look at song performance, the age split broke with 744 votes from the older jurors, to 746 from the younger. Interestingly, it was votes from older jurors that brought Luxembourg the victory: The Luxembourg, Spain and UK younger totals were 67, 69 and 65 respectively…meaning Spain would have won if we’d just counted the youth votes. If you add the older votes on top, the UK and Spain get 56, with Luxembourg getting 64, overtopping the disadvantage it had with the under-25s. Norway was heavily favoured by over-25s, getting 13 more points. Spain got 13 more points from young compared to old, with the UK getting 11. In 1971 only 2 songs got more support from younger jurors, this rose to 6 in 1972 and is now 8 in 1973. Luxembourg won with an equal appeal of old and young, which is nice. This is the last year to use my recreation of the 1959 gear system, used again in 1961, 1962, 1966 and then in Vienna in 1967. The ending of this production was quite chaotic, with Anne-Marie quickly noticing that the programme was still on…I assume her eye was caught by an enthusiastic floor manager telling her to carry on singing as the orchestra struck up again. Is this the only time we get two reprises? Or one-and-a-half anyway. Local commentary seems to cease at the beginning of the first reprise. Other than that I always enjoy the placing of the song titles during the performance in the Luxembourg productions…they make my placings a bit messy of course, but I do think they are always ‘just right’. You’ll see in the comments below, the Portuguese song (which is one of my faves) is not about the crumbling Estado Novo regime but is about the campaign to remove bull fighting in Portugal. I’ve tried to work out why the BBC asked Cliff in 1973 - I expect someone has the answer, although I noticed it led to the ‘It’s Cliff Richard’ show not appearing in the schedules in 1973 (as it had done for Eurovision selection in 1970-72). At this time, UK Eurovision selection was around 8 weeks long (6 songs over 6 weeks, 1 review show and then results). In 1973 it shifted to ‘Cilla’, as it had done in 1968. Cliff was going to tour Australia, literally days after Eurovision, so maybe that’s why…please do Eurovision instead of the whole usual production. Cliff’s official UA-cam channel includes two other final contenders, the ones I’m sure he was happier with (although most weren’t unhappy with Power to all Our Friends, unlike Boom-Bang-A-Bang etc). You’ll notice Bauhaus design gets to the titles of these too, but with the font we’re going to be using for 1974 at the top of the performance. ua-cam.com/video/BQxLE60Z6yQ/v-deo.html and ua-cam.com/video/Fm1WmQdpw_k/v-deo.html
From andtheconductoris.eu: Belgium, Francis Bay: For years, Francis Bay had argued Belgium should try its luck at Eurovision with a rigorously up-tempo song for once; and, for that reason, he felt ‘Baby baby’ was a good choice: “This time around, I really loved the song, which had a good beat.” In spite of Nicole and Hugo having put together an innovative stage presentation which combined singing and dancing, the festival in Luxembourg turned into a major disappointment as the Belgian entry finished seventeenth and last. Bay, commenting: “The way the song was written, Hugo had to sing in a key which was too high for his vocal abilities, while Nicole’s part was too low - the result being a ‘seven-headed dragon’, truly a monstrosity. The sound resembled a choir of ten crows - so far out of tune - and I had to conduct all that, with the whole of Europe watching… eighty million viewers. Afterwards, I heard people speak about me as someone only able to beat time to music, but it wasn’t my fault the song didn’t suit Nicole and Hugo, was it?!” In view of the fact that Francis Bay had not commented on the duo’s vocal performance in rehearsals, it seems the conductor was looking for a way, however far-fetched, to explain that the bad result was not his fault. The competitive side of his character could not take the humiliation of finishing last. “After the voting, Francis was gone,” according to Hugo Sigal. “In fact, we were left to our own devices by all BRT delegates in Luxembourg. There was nobody to give us a pat on the back or speak some consoling words. As for Francis, we weren’t surprised about him, because we knew him as a very distant person. In later years, when we performed in large shows across the country and on cruises, we had our own ‘chef d’orchestre’ with whom we were much closer. Of course, it was much more pleasant to have a conductor who was really involved in what you were doing on stage, but that was not what Francis was like.” From andtheconductoris.eu: Luxembourg: Pierre Cao “Before the rehearsals started, I went through the scores of all participating songs with the orchestra. During those rehearsals in the theatre, the orchestra was conducted by the respective arrangers from the other countries. Even in those days, the EBU organized everything into the smallest detail. Every country was allowed forty or forty-five minutes of rehearsing time and not one second longer. There were even specific rules as to how many violins and how many brass players there had to be in the orchestra. Moreover, there were draconic security measures. The theatre was turned into some sort of fortress. For us in Luxembourg, this was a totally new experience.” As mentioned in the above, Cao was part of the winning Luxembourg team, conducting Anne-Marie David’s song ‘Tu te reconnaîtras’ (arranged by Raymond Donnez). “Obviously overcome with emotions, Anne-Marie David told me immediately after the TV broadcast of the contest was over that I had conducted very well: Tu as dirigé très bien, Pierre!”, Cao laughs. “I thought this was rather unexpected! In those days, I often conducted earnest classical pieces, such as the Mahler symphonies - very demanding music requiring the utmost of a conductor’s technique. So accepting this compliment from Anne-Marie after only having conducted a three-minute-song was somewhat hard! But then again, pop music brought difficulties for a classical conductor, such as I was, too. Counting in the orchestra for those songs in the right tempo was not always easy. Making all kinds of impressive gestures while the orchestra is playing pop music is ridiculous. The most important thing is indicating the correct tempo at the beginning. During the remainder of the song, it is best for a conductor to keep a low profile.” From andtheconductoris.eu: France: Jaen Claudric In 1973, Jean Claudric was the first musical director of a French Eurovision pre-selection after the ‘Pourcel era’. On the 6th of March in the Butte-Chaumont TV studios, he conducted all six competing entries, of which three were performed by Martine Clémenceau, two by Anne-Marie Godart (who had been the representative of Monaco in the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest), and one by Jean-Pierre Savelli. All songs were arranged by Claudric himself. The piece ‘Sans toi’, composed by Paul Koulak with lyrics by Anne Grégory, was selected to represent France in the international contest in Luxembourg. Perhaps not the strongest French effort in the history of the contest, ‘Sans toi’ and singer Martine Clémenceau failed to impress the European jurors and finished fifteenth in a field of seventeen competing countries. “Of course, I was not happy either with this result, although it was not my song”, Claudric recalls. “We were all in it together, after all. Usually, in situations like this, the composer blames the vocalist for not interpreting his work correctly, while the singer feels the songwriter should have composed a better song. Martine Clémenceau was an artist with whom I worked on more occasions, arranging and recording her songs and conducting musical comedies in which she was one of the actors.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: Sweden: Monica Dominique Why did Monica and Carl-Axel, who were both members of the progressive pop group Solar Plexus at that time, decide to compete with a song in the Swedish Eurovision pre-selection at all? Carl-Axel explains: “Originally, it was an idea of the director of our record company EMI, Sven-Olof Bagge. It was the first year when record companies rather than composers submitted songs for the Swedish final. He wanted us to write something. We were certainly interested… I for one had tried before to enter the competition with some of my songs, but these had never been chosen. Perhaps they were a little too avant-garde for the selection committee! In ’73, we initially lacked the inspiration to write something good, until Monica saw those two guys, Malta, in a club in Stockholm. She said: we should write a song for them! Claes and Göran liked the idea. We invited both of them over to our house to hear their suggestions before we actually composed the song.” Monica adds: “Carl-Axel and I thought: why not send in something we like ourselves - a song without any commercial thought behind it. We wanted to test if it was possible to succeed in a competition like that with such a song. Now we really had to hurry, because the submission deadline was only a couple of days away. Luckily, the inspiration came quite fast and we both rather liked the result of our work. Next, we called the poet Lars Forssell, a good friend of ours, and asked him to write the lyrics to it. He agreed and the next morning we found ourselves in Lars’ house. We played the song for him several times at the piano, whilst he sat down and wrote the lyrics. Now, Lars was a serious poet - an artist, not somebody who was expected to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. He even was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy! When we were on the brink of leaving, he said: ‘Wait a minute… as a poet, I have to add something special to those lyrics.’ And then he wrote that line, ‘Dina bröst är som svalor som häckar’ (‘Your breasts are like swallows a-nesting’). That was a line which made headlines in Sweden; people talked about it… and they still do! Subsequently, I arranged and conducted the song myself. To our enormous surprise, we won the pre-selection in Stockholm. We always thought ABBA and ‘Ring ring’ were the obvious winners… and we could not believe our luck!” Sweden was one of seventeen competing countries; for the first time, the rule which obliged all countries to present a song in one of the native languages, had been dropped and the Swedish delegation decided to present their entry in English: ‘You’re summer’. In Luxembourg, Monica found out she was not the only female conductor, as the musical director of the Israeli delegation was Nurit Hirsh. “So I thought: ‘Damn, I am not alone!’”, Monica laughs, “I was fully aware I was making some sort of history as a woman conducting a Eurovision song. I thought it was important to stand up for women in music… usually, when I wrote an arrangement, people asked Carl-Axel if it was his work. That made me really angry! Not many girls played the piano and even fewer could be found who were composing, arranging, or conducting… I was fairly alone in those days. I must admit I had hoped to be the only female conductor in Luxembourg, but I was the first anyway, as we were drawn before the Israeli entry!” “The rehearsals were most pleasant”, Monica Dominique continues. “The orchestra gave me all due respect. I had to stop at certain points to ask them to change some details, but that was not a problem at all. The atmosphere among the artists of different countries was very relaxed and friendly, whereas I had expected more ‘elbows’ and more competitiveness. However, as Israel was participating for the first time, there were lots of security people around. The Israeli delegation stayed in a special flat, away from the other participants, and was guarded by men armed with rifles. During the entire television broadcast, there were two guys with machine guns on either side of the stage, turned to the audience! That was a little bit frustrating, because we were there to make music, whereas they gave you the impression to be in some sort of war situation.” “After our success in Sweden”, Monica concludes, “we hoped to do well in Luxembourg, too. What was most interesting for us, however, was to have people outside the borders of Sweden listen to our music. The voting in Luxembourg was rather exciting, as we were doing very well, scoring high marks all through. When it turned out we had finished fifth, we were thoroughly satisfied!” Göran Fristorp and Claes Olof af Geijerstam broke up their collaboration as a duo soon after the Eurovision Song Contest, continuing their careers separately. That has not impeded the song ‘Sommar’n som aldrig säger nej - You’re summer’ reaching the status of Eurovision classic in Sweden. From andtheconductoris.eu: Israel: Nurit Hirsh After the Israeli broadcaster IBA had been late in submitting its application for the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest, Israel finally made its debut in the competition one year later, when the festival was held in Luxembourg. Choosing to play the safe card, it was decided upon to pick one of the country’s most popular female singers of the moment, Ilanit, to do the honours. In Luxembourg, it was Nurit Hirsh herself to conduct the orchestra during Ilanit’s performance of ‘Ey-sham’. The 1973 contest was the first Eurovision edition which saw a woman conducting the orchestra - in fact, two women, as Sweden happened to have a female conductor too, Monica Dominique. Nurit: “I realized that it was special, but I was prepared for that, as I had already conducted at festivals in places as far away as Greece and Brazil. I always was the only woman amongst the orchestra leaders. Especially in Greece, with this macho culture, I was considered as a kind of novelty. On the other hand, I could use it to my advantage… simply, by being a woman, looking these guys in the orchestra straight in the face and telling them exactly what I wanted. I am not a conductor by profession, but during my student days I had mastered the basic techniques… which I used to my advantage later, because I insisted on conducting my own compositions and arrangements in international festivals. To my mind, I was the only person who should do it, as I always want a perfect rendition and I completely trust myself! I am a perfectionist… for example, when I first wrote an arrangement which included a harp, I took private lessons with a harpist to learn about the peculiarities of this instrument.” Just one year after the massacre at the Munich Summer Olympics, going abroad to represent Israel in any competition was an affair which involved major security measures. Hirsh: “Ilanit and I were accompanied by armed guards - tall, rectangular guys. They reminded me most of refrigerators! Moreover, there were local policemen with motorcycles accompanying us from the hotel to the auditorium and back. At that time, it was necessary to have all these precautions; in Israel, Arabs even put bombs in garbage cans to kill Israelis. You cannot imagine the amount of tension which we felt back then when going abroad. Ilanit was more relaxed under the circumstances than I was… Ilanit always was cool. She even took a quick nap shortly before the live broadcast, while my hands were shaking when I tried to button my pink blouse. In Israel, there is a myth which has persisted until this day: people believe Ilanit was wearing a bullet-proof vest under her dress to protect her from a terrorist attack… but this is simply not true. Before we went on stage, Ilanit and I simply prayed that we would be alive after this… and that was it! During the performance, I forgot about what could happen to us and I returned to being my normal self, who is always excited to play and to perform in front of an audience, trying to transmit my energy to the other musicians.” I was not thinking of my own success at that moment. We wanted to perform well and make our compatriots proud. During our performance, the streets in Israel were empty. People all over the country were glued to their TV sets, as they felt it was a special moment for Israel.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: Netherlands: Harry van Hoof In the festival final, held in Luxembourg, this somewhat indigestible Schlager failed to impress the international juries, finishing fourteenth. “Everything that went well for me the year before”, Harry laughs, “now went completely wrong! It was a little waltz ditty and I had perhaps slightly over-arranged it. From the first rehearsal, Ben Cramer, who is a nice chap in real life, behaved as if he was the biggest star of the festival… shouting at the technicians that the sound was useless and that the lighting had to be changed. He really gave them a bad time! In an aside, I tried to convince Ben that he achieved nothing by going on like this. After all, these were only the rehearsals - how could we expect every aspect of our performance being perfect from scratch? Unfortunately, Ben persevered in cursing each and everyone he met. In the TV concert, the orchestra played our entry awfully… I have sometimes thought the players did it on purpose because they disliked Ben so much. You cannot expect to be treated well by others if you misbehave in such a horrible fashion yourself.” Portugal: Jorge Costa Pinto Was Jorge Costa Pinto surprised when the song ‘Tourada’ (translated as ‘Bullfight’) - the lyrics of which (by José Carlos Ary dos Santos, a left-leaning artist like Fernando Tordo himself) it is claimed contain surreptitious criticism of the Estado Novo government which was still in power in Portugal in ’73 - was chosen to represent Portugal in the international festival? “Not really, because, as a song, ‘Tourada’ stood out. The melody is somewhat jumpy; not a typical Eurovision song. Especially in those days, it was something new, unheard of before. More important than that, however, were the lyrics. A metaphor about the Caetano government? No, there is no metaphor! You are mistaken. ‘Tourada’ means ‘bullfight’ and the song was intended to vent criticism of bullfighting. I agreed with the lyrics one hundred percent. I have always felt it is a barbarous relic of bygone times. Fernando wrote his song to support those who, back then, were trying to ban bullfighting in Portugal.” In Luxembourg, Fernando Tordo’s rendition of ‘Tourada’ was awarded with a tenth place amongst seventeen participating acts. Maybe because it was ‘his’ second time in Luxembourg, Jorge Costa Pinto does not have many memories of this edition of the Eurovision Song Contest: “At a contest such as Eurovision, the schedule was usually quite hectic: airport, hotel, rehearsal, hotel, rehearsal, hotel, show, hotel, airport, and back to Portugal. That was how it was, essentially! I remember one thing: Luiz Villas-Boas, the RTP producer who was with us in Luxembourg, told me after one rehearsal how the musicians in the orchestra were gossiping amongst each other about how good or bad the guest conductors were. According to him, the musicians thought I was one of the good conductors in the festival. As you can imagine, I was flattered. It is always nice to receive a compliment from colleagues. And coming back to Fernando Tordo, I never quite understood why others found him so cumbersome. Throughout our Eurovision project in ’73, the working relationship between him and me was good - and we are still friends today. He was a special guy, he was an artist, he was young - but then, I was young too!” Finland: Ossi Runne In 1973, when the international festival final was held in Luxembourg once more, Finland obtained its best result ever - sixth place, a record which stood until 2006 - with Marion Rung and her song ‘Tom tom tom’. Asked for an explanation for the success of this entry, Runne says: “Well, for a start, Marion Rung is one of the best entertainment singers here in Finland. She can handle many different music genres, is very pretty, and always manages to put a smile on her face. ‘Tom tom tom’ was nothing special, but tailor-made for Eurovision by Rauno Lehtinen. He worked in the advertising industry, and this showed in his compositions (amongst which the ‘Let kiss’, an international hit success he wrote for the Gudrun Jankis Orchestra). When he wrote a melody, he was always looking for something which audiences would pick up easily. Moreover, he made the wise decision to translate the song in English (between 1973 and 1976, countries were free to choose the language of their Eurovision entry, ed.). He understood that, when going abroad, the Finnish language always is a problem. Nobody outside Finland understands one word of the lyrics, however beautifully written these might be. There were also other languages which suffered in Eurovision, but Finnish was certainly one of the worst.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: UK: David Mackay For the 1973 festival, the BBC invited Cliff Richard to do the honours. As luck would have it, David Mackay was one of the producers who had stepped in when Cliff’s long-time producer Norrie Paramor retired in the course of 1972. “The first thing we recorded was a country song which we were all happy with… and then, the next thing I’m told is that Cliff would be doing Eurovision - and that he and Peter wanted me to arrange and conduct that. I thought: “Oh no, here I go again!” That was a tough old job! The song which was picked was ‘Power to All Our Friends’. It wasn’t a great song. It was good enough for what it was, the Eurovision Song Contest, but it’s not the favourite record I’ve ever produced.” While preparing the Eurovision project, Mackay was called to a meeting with the BBC’s Head of Light Entertainment, Bill Cotton. “Peter Gormley and Cliff were also there. Cotton had discovered that, under the rules of Eurovision, it was allowed to use a backing track. We all looked at him and thought: “Are you sure?” The previous year, everything was done completely live, so it must have been a new rule. Billy absolutely wanted to use a backing track to play along with the orchestra in Luxembourg. He knew that nobody had ever done this before. I have no idea why he thought it was so important. Perhaps he thought that, with a backing track, we would sound better than everybody else? Cliff and all the rest of us would have been more than happy to do the whole thing live. Billy Cotton took the decision - perhaps in collusion with one of his producers. Then, I had to prepare a backing track with the rhythm players for us to take to Luxembourg. At first, I was at a loss how we were going to do this. Again, there was going to be an orchestra that I had to conduct. Billy Cotton and the others at the BBC encouraged me. They said: “We’ll be behind you. You just go ahead and conduct the orchestra. We’ll worry about all the rest of it.” Before travelling to Luxembourg as the conductor of the UK’s Eurovision delegation, there was some other minor business to attend to. “It was a very peculiar week, to say the least,” Mackay laughs. “I got married on the Saturday and I had to leave my wife Brenda on Monday morning to take Cliff to Luxembourg on my honeymoon! Brenda couldn’t be there with us. The wedding itself was wonderful enough. Cliff was there too - and his manager Peter Gormley, who was a fellow-Australian and a great friend, was my best man. After he did Eurovision, Cliff immediately flew to Australia for a tour. Before he left, he gave my wife and me free aeroplane tickets to travel around the world. That was his wedding gift for us. Brenda and I departed the week after the Eurovision Song Contest. I met up with Cliff in Australia to supervise the sound on one of his concerts to set him and his musicians off on their tour. Brenda and I did lots of travelling in the following weeks. We had a lovely honeymoon… eventually!” Once in Luxembourg, it was down to the orchestral rehearsals. In the first rehearsal, with BBC producer Stewart Morris standing right behind him, David Mackay had to explain the musicians what was about to happen. “I needed an interpreter for that, because my French wasn’t good enough to explain what was going on. So I told them that I would be wearing headphones and that there would be a backing track. They were looking at one another. They must have been thinking: “What on earth is going on here?” Now, in the auditorium, there were delegates from other countries. When the track started and Cliff did his bit, I could see that many of them getting up and going to the back of the hall. As I was told later, they were looking for the director of the Eurovision Song Contest to file a complaint. We simply went through the rehearsal as planned. After coming off stage, we went back to our hotel and thought nothing more of it.” As it turned out, there had been a mistake in the translation of the new backing track rule from the original French to English. “That same night, I was given a call by the BBC’s Head of Delegation. He said it was not a problem using the track, but we couldn’t use the backing voices. In London, following the instructions I had been given at the BBC meeting, I had done a track with rhythm instruments and backing vocals. So now I had to do a new version without the vocals. We hired a studio at RTL (Luxembourg’s broadcasting service - BT) the next day. The guys had their guitars with them and Trevor Spencer took his conga drums. As it was a radio studio, there was not the advanced recording equipment available that we had used in London. There was just one big desk and one microphone on the top. Alan Tarney, the bass player, had his bass plugged into a bass amp (an amplifier - BT), but in order to hear the sound effect, Cliff had to hold up the amp for him! It had to be as close to the microphone as possible. In order for them to know when to start singing the a cappella bit at the beginning, there was a short count-in on the bass guitar - and that was it, that was our new rhythm track!” “Then, for the concert, the guys had to sing live to the rhythm track, while I had to conduct the orchestra and hope that their singing, the track, and the orchestra would all be in sync… because if we weren’t, we were in shit street! Fortunately, it all came together and it worked. The orchestra in Luxembourg were fine. I had no complaints with them. On the other hand, I wasn’t really testing them, because there was not a lot they had to do for our song really. Watching the video of our performance, you can see the drummer and the other rhythm players in the orchestra sitting there doing nothing behind Cliff, while he did that outlandish dancing routine he had thought out. It was all so stupid. I was embarrassed for the orchestra and I felt embarrassed myself doing it. I never spoke to the Luxembourg musicians at all really - we were just in and out, that was it.” “Out of interest, we sat in on the rehearsals by the other artists. We were feeling so unhappy about being different from the others due to that rhythm track - and we wanted to be part of the festival along with the artists from the other countries, I suppose. Two or three of them were really good. Our favourites were Mocedades and ‘Eres tú’ (the Spanish entry - BT). That was just the most wonderful song and they had beautiful voices too. A class act! That should have won. Just before going into make-up before the show, Cliff and I went over to them, saying: “If there’s any justice, you guys are going to win!” They loved us for that. What better for any artist than to hear Cliff Richard saying that you deserve the trophy? In the end, we came third and they were second. I don’t even remember who won. All these countries voting - it’s very unpredictable, isn’t it?” According to some sources, Cliff Richard took valium to keep his nerves in check for the Eurovision performance in Luxembourg; allegedly, Peter Gormley even had to do his utmost to wake him up in time. “Of course, he would have wanted to win, but Cliff wasn’t too dejected about not winning,” Mackay adds. “Coming third was pretty good. It was reasonable. My most vivid memory is of Cliff hiding in our dressing room during the voting. He didn’t want to sit with the other artists while the votes were coming in. He felt it was a cattle pen. It was embarrassing for an artist like him to be there. Now, Cliff’s dressing room was on the ground floor, but the four backing guys and I shared another one on the third floor of the theatre. When the voting was about to start, he came up to us and hid in the toilet of our dressing room until near the end. At some point, the floor manager came in, asking us: “Have you seen Mr Richard?” He was panicking. Now, we didn’t want to give him away, so we said that we hadn’t and that he surely was downstairs somewhere. When the voting was nearly done, Cliff went back downstairs as if nothing had happened: “Oh, I’ve just been walking around, you know.” When it was all over, he joined the afterparty with the other artists. He was just fine.” “Following the Eurovision Song Contest, I worked with Cliff for the next year-and-a-half. We did a bunch of singles and three albums; one of them was ‘The 31st of February Street’, for which Cliff wrote about half of the songs himself. That was exactly what I had wanted from him all along! He also played some guitar for that album and he was in with the backing vocals. He really got involved on the recording side.”
Terry thought that Cliff could catch Anne-Marie, but he couldn't - as the final jury group consisted of only two countries, and the maximum that UK could get was 20.
Those top two songs truly are classics. I am surprised how much I like this version of the voting! Thanks again, I can't imagine how much work you put in and all your notes are amazing! 💯🏅
Another phenomenal effort from the ReorderBoard! A shame about having to mute the Belgian entry: maybe they were sore that they wouldn’t be winning for another 13 years, haha! No disrespect to Cliff, a great voice, but I wasn’t surprised he didn’t win: the song wasn’t all that and that dance thing he did was just a bit… weird, somehow. A curious typeface (used for the title of British sitcom “Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?” if I’m not mistaken?) which screams early 70s and glam rock. I’m not surprised they did away with this voting system, after the older Swiss judge seemed to think it was a show about him!! A lovely reconstruction: these are my go-to videos now if I need some Eurovision nostalgia. 👍 Thanks for the translation of the lyrics, always helpful. For years I thought Anne-Marie David was singing about chocolate at 21:51. *face palm*. Looking forward to the next one as always, but will be sad once you reach 1979! 😊👍
Ah great Jez, I'm glad the translations are of some use!! I initially put them in to help us through the chanson era of the 50s and early 60s but I think they are still useful.
One of the best positions from a debuting country - Israel at number 4. Little did Ilanit know that she would be reprising the song not in 1973, but rather in 2019 :)
Thank You for this. For the first time in history, Norway actually took the lead, only for a few seconds, but still... The composer, Arne Bendiksen, was until then, the most sucsessful composer for Norway in ESC. His third place in 1966 was also done with a song with an unusual beat. Bendik Singers was his "baby." In the fifties and early sixties he had been a part of the vocal quartet The Monn Keys, and his dream was to start a similar group, that he could mentor and write and arrange songs for. The 4 singers was selected by Bendiksen, and they had all been session singers for Bendiksens recording company, as he put them together in a group. One would think that Bendiksen would be composing songs for the Norweaign pre selections for years to come, but when his song "Afrotime" that was ment for Bendik Singers, was rejeceted by th internal jury for the preselection in 1974, he was furious, and never participated again. Bendik Singers was bacikngsingers for Inger Lise Rypdal in her norwegian version of "Eres Tu". Her version is her biggest hit during her long career. R\The Noregian entry was no commercial sucsess, and was completly outshined by "I mitt liv." That version is still often to hear in Norwegian radio, so i guess Juan Carlos Calderón gets some royalties from Norway every year. "I mitt liv" is one of the most popular esc songs in Norway ever. Inger Lise Rypdal, that was the most seling and most poular popsinger in Norway for two decades, never took part for Norway in the ESC, but "I Mitt liv" became her biggest hit ever, and is included in a lot of best off records, and in her stage shows.
1973 feels like a new chapter for Eurovision. It’s become much more colourful and the songs more fun since Edinburgh. With Terry Wogan on BBC 1 and the Costa brothers singing backing vocals the golden years have definitely begun! I really like CLT’s stage with the orchestra on that modern structure and the prominent lion of Luxembourg medallion. And because there’s no orchestra pit they could build two aprons left and right which allow for cameras on peds to be positioned on the stage itself. Thanks to this we get all the lovely tracking shots which are the hallmark of this contest. There are only four cameras but they are used really well. (I know many fans love the 1984 contest from the same venue, but I’m not one of them. 84’s staging is much more old-fashioned and theatrical than 73. Due to the orchestra pit the cameras are miles away and the direction is often a mess.) The downside of this contest is the sound mixing. The brass, percussion and backing singers are all far too loud and you can hardly hear the strings at all. And don’t forget the dreadful interval act - the stony silence from the audience said it all! Come back the bagpipes, all is forgiven!
Paola del Medico got fifth place in 1969 (the year with four winners), so no one knew better than her what a few points could mean. 4 years later, she became the juror that gave the highest number of points (54). I don't think that was a coincidence at all
Power to thereorderboard! You’re the wheat of our bread and your video is like swallows a-nesting! I especially appreciate the effort you’ve gone to working in Terry Wogan’s commentary and the little touches in the voting with percentages. I’m glad this voting system didn’t continue but it has really shown off your creativity! (And thanks for working round the copyright trouble too!)
Thank you! Yes, Belgium threw me some issues - but it was mainly YT's misreporting of the status of it...it told me it was banned in Belgium but not elsewhere, when in fact the opposite was true. What also made this different was that the video, not just audio was blocked. It took a long time to clear because I think the algorithm could half guess something not allowed was there!
Poor Cliff! This feels like it should be his Jana Novotna at Wimbledon moment - a triumphant victory after a previous heartbreak. The draw is perfectly set up for him and he had not just a strong song but a strong set of songs in his national final. All the press coverage I’ve looked up from 1973 was very positive about him, and Power To All Our Friends was regularly described as the best UK song for several years. So I’ve often wondered why he missed out. I used to think it might have been the arrangement of the song that cost him the seven points he needed. Compared to either the record or the live ASFE version the ESC arrangement is missing something (probably not helped by the poor sound mix of the orchestra). But recently I realised I was overlooking something more obvious. After my grandmother died a couple of years ago I was given a box of videos and audio tapes from her house. One was an audio cassette marked Eurovision 1973 which my aunts had recorded live off air as teenagers. When I played it back I heard clips of the songs they liked including all of Power To All Our Friends (plus Terry Wogan’s intro). But at the precise moment Cliff started doing his ridiculous dance routine you can hear my aunts screaming with laughter which continued for almost the rest of the song. And it clicked with me at last - Cliff was destined to lose again because he looked like a complete eejit!
Great job! Definitely my favourite of your three scoreboards from this era. This was actually the only year of the three with this voting system that actually gave us an exciting voting sequence, and having a reordered board really highlights that. Though as you say, it was done and dusted after Luxembourg received its last set of points, even if Terry hadn’t realised it yet.
50:04 - yes of course it was a low vote for Luxembourg Terry! They couldn’t vote for themselves so that round was always going to see Luxembourg score relatively low. It still managed to get 17 out of a possible 20, which was pretty good!
On Sir Terry’s anniversary, I think a wee word of tribute is due! Yes, he didn’t bother remembering stats, and he annoyed fans by talking over the start of the songs. And yes, he should probably have retired from commentating at least five years earlier than he did. But… he was a great broadcaster and Eurovision would not be as big in the UK without him. We forget now that although Eurovision had high ratings it was not always popular - especially in the bigger countries. By the 1990s France, Germany, Spain and Italy had all lost interest to greater or lesser degrees. Ratings fell sharply in the UK too during the late eighties. But although it didn’t have credibility as a musical contest, Terry ensured it was always popular, mainstream, event television. He had the knack of helping people to see the fun in programmes that they would have criticised (and not just the ESC, but Dallas, The Archers and Blake’s 7 all got extra publicity and popularity from his teasing). His remark about the bad choice of picture for France’s postcard in 1973 was just one early example of him drawing the viewer in and encouraging them to have fun with him. As a young fan I remember how irrelevant the ESC was in the UK in the mid-nineties - apart from Terry’s commentary. And when 1998 changed the way the contest was seen in the UK it was right and fitting that Terry got his moment in the sun as host. It was thanks to him that British viewers had stayed the course. And he has been proved right - the whole Petra Mede/Love Love Peace Peace approach to the contest we have now is just what Terry was doing for all those years on BBC 1. He wasn’t a fan, but he loved the contest and we were fortunate to have him on our side. (P.S. I met him once at a book signing in Leeds. He was lovely and I treasure the signed book to this day!! God rest him.)
"By the 1990s France, Germany, Spain and Italy had all lost interest to greater or lesser degrees. Ratings fell sharply in the UK too during the late eighties. But although it didn’t have credibility as a musical contest, Terry ensured it was always popular, mainstream, event television." - So well put! Although I know he wasn't entirely a popular choice for commentary here, he invites people in and makes it friendly and less stuffy. I think it's easy to say that some of his comments aren't well received through a 2020s looking glass, but that's not always true - he mentions in his 1981 commentary about the complaints he received for commenting on the appearance of the Turkish female entrant in 1980...he occasionally pushed the boundary a bit, just as mates down the pub might do - and overall he was a massive plus for the Contest in the UK.
Like many, I’m beyond impressed by how far you have come with your reorderboard, with all the little touches and creativity: all your wrangling with your CanWin (I forget the name) function has paid off! Much like your 1996 pre-sel video I’m curious as to how you’ve wrestled with this unique voting sequence in Viz. And you are right in this being a great and vivid looking contest! I remember being blown away by just how punchy the colours are for its time and just how bright it all is. Full Lux is right! Also really interesting that the contest was held in the same venue some 11 years later, and yet how much darker and less vibrant it felt. Maybe also representative of that classic serif-gothic-beige feel of the 80s! Sterling work as always and a pleasure to watch.
And it was covered in several languages; from the top of my head I remember Lecia - _Rør ved mig_ (Danish), Karel Gott - _Spravný ton_ (Czech), Rina Hugo - _Jy's vir my_ (Afrikaans) and Collage - _Selline sa oled_ (Finnish). :)
I must say, out of all the potential copyright songs you couldn't use for this year, it had to be the one that is often memed my Eurovision fans. Especially given the popularity of the top 3, and Sweden is another meme for the ages. Regardless, another remarkable scoreboard, though I'm not gonna miss this voting system lol. So out dated and just isn't fair. It's so open to tactical voting. Look how both UK and Spain give below par scores to each other in comparison of others. Plus your stats on the most and least points giving jurors real paint a picture on just how open to fraud it all was. Keep up the brilliant work as always. And now, I need to find my Napoleon hat lol
Swipe me: this year has some very strong songs! You’re design had come out of left field for me (I didn’t expect so many circles; I’d have associated the circular flags a bit more with 1971) but it’s brilliantly applied here! Probably one of my favourites of yours!
Well done again!! Wogans commentary is new for me. I hope it will be completely available somewhere. In my opinion the quality of the BBC orchestra in 1972 and 1973 was far better...
In my opinion this (along with 1974) is one of the strongest years of Eurovision ... the contest was indeed reaching its zenith ... reflected in the fact the UK pulled out the big guns with Cliff this year and ONJ the following year. My favourites in no particular order include: Finland, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, France and Israel. Out of them, I thought France in particular was criminally underrated ... though the sound problems probably didn't help her. Still I believe a good song, and you can hear the groans and exclaims of shock when they only receive 9 points in the first round. The only time I think in the early contests the French entry placed well lower than it should have. Israel I think too should have challenged the top 3 a lot more, it is a really moving ballad, but 4th is still an excellent debut. Despite some people's misgivings about the Luxembourg winner, it is one of those songs I find myself humming absentmindedly from time to time, and is a really inspiring, uplifting song. Out of the uptempo songs I think Finland's is the best ... and probably could have done better had it not performed first. Still it would go on to be the best Finnish result until 2006 which says something! Although I love Anne-Marie David the most out of the top 3 ... I still wonder if under other Eurovision voting systems she would have won. I feel like this 1971-3 voting system favoured a safe song that appeals to all jurors, which is why a young female singing a big French ballad won in all these contests. Honestly I'm not sure Luxembourg would have won under the 1957-61, 67-70, 74 system where jurors can only vote for one song, hence songs "riskier" songs that stood-out (like ABBA) won. I also truly believe that if Cliff had not performed those strange dance moves he could have won, given he was only 6 points off the winner. The Spanish girls too apparently hated their outfits, and I wonder if they could have chosen their own clothes they would have made up those 4 points. Guess we will never know. All in all though a great contest, and I love Helga's blue frock and Anne-Marie David's reaction to winning.
I love this scoreboard! You use the elements from this year's production very well, including the color scheme and the font. Unfortunately, it's the last time that we get to see this voting system, but I felt like you did a great job here! (Also, kudos for including that enthusiastic Swiss juror, haha). I think 1973 is one of the strongest years of the 70s, in terms of song quality. Though looking back at it, there were a couple of duds in the running order, but not enough to dilute the field. The production was a bit less good, with the audio mix standing out particular. My top five: 5. PRT 4. ESP 3. GBR --This year has probably one of the best top threes ever, with different genres and moods conveyed so well. While I love and respect Eres tu for its sweetness, I like the rock n roll vibe of Power to All Our Friends just a bit more. It's so lively and fun! (Too bad Cliff still can't dance.) 2. YUG -- Gori vatra is so underrated! It's passionate and filled with infatuation, not unlike the title itself. I feel all the tension building up, and the brass does its job in adding to the mood. My second favorite entry from Yugoslavia, behind Dzuli. 1. LUX -- But in the end, Tu te reconnaitras was the right winner. I love the melody of this, but when I read a translation of the lyrics, it just makes it so much better. It's hopeful and sweet, and Anne-Marie delivers it in spades. The audio mix in the hall wasn't great, but it's still beautiful, and probably my favorite 1970s entry.
This was the first ESC I watched and since then >I have been fun of ESC ı was 8 and ı learned the winning song by heart even I didn't understand the meaning still my favorite I love Anne Marie love from Turkey
Here are my personal votes/rankings, i'am from the Netherlands 12 points: United Kingdom - Cliff Richard - Power to all our friends 10 points: Spain - Mocedades - Eres tú 8 points: Luxembourg - Anne Marie David - Tu te reconnaitras 7 points: Switzerland - Patrick Juvet - Je vais me marier, Marie 6 points: Italy - Massimo Ranieri - Chi sarà con te 5 points: Sweden - The Nova & the Dolls - You're summer 4 points: Yugoslavia - Zdravko Colic - Gori vatra 3 points: Monaco - Marie - Un train qui part 2 points: Belgium - Nicole & Hugo - Baby, baby 1 point : France - Martine Clémenceau - Sans toi
Does anyone have the answer to the mystery of Finland's performance? Here it's not seen, of course, but there's a a portion of the song that seems to be missing from *all* recordings of the contest, no matter the country. The second bridge, "Your smile makes my life worth living..." there was a travelling there of the camera in the original program, but in most recordings, it is simply chopped off, going from "As for me, my heart's on my sleeve" to "Nightingales all welcome the nighttime" I remember I saw one particular recording where part of the bridge was watchable but suddenly went to black for a few seconds then returned after some interference. Could it be that there was a full transmission failure in the whole Eurovision Network and that's why no recording of that part seems to exist anywhere in Europe?
Yes I remember reading somewhere that at that point in the Finnish song you mention the whole Eurovision Network did fail so that portion of the song was not heard and the screen blacked out. Apparently later broadcasters edited the recording of the footage so this blanked bit was removed. Great observation and sorry I can't offer a source, but I remember seeing this answer somewhere.
Gitte from Germany is actually a Danish singer who gained popularity in Germany more so than in Denmark. She competed in the Danish preselection in 1962 with a song called “Snakker med mig selv” (speaking with myself) but was disqualified, I think as a result of one the composers being in the jury (but I forget whether that part is true). We would have done well with that song, and it was very successful.
Wasn't the reason the song was disqualified was due to the composer whistling the song in the men's room right before the national final? I remember that being the reason. Either way , you're right it on that song would have done much better that year versus what DR actually sent. (Still a lovely song though.)
The Swiss male jury giving away his points in a rather flamboyant way. And you can hear the Portuguese commentator in between Terry Wogan's comments during scoring.
Another wonderful production by you. This reorder (and Wogan's slightly inaccurate commentary) make the voting more exciting than it would have been. My votes for 73: 1 pt - Belgium (I don't think it deserved last place?) 2 pts - Portugal 3 pts - Yugoslavia 4 pts - Germany 5 pts - Finland 6 pts - Spain 7 pts - Israel 8 pts - UK 10 pts - Norway (the lyrics are ridiculous but I love the music) and finally Luxembourg 12 POINTS - totally deserving winner.
Where did you find this version with the bbc commentary? I’ve been looking for it for ages. 1973 was a great Eurovision year, not One bad song amongst them. I have a commentary free mp4 version of the show. Would love a copy with the ‘Wogan wit’ though.
Helga is probably my favourite presenter of the 1970s. Shame she had such a poor script “we should not forget that the Eurovision Song Contest is a contest of songs” is a particularly awkward line, though I assume it was said as a reminder that the songs were what was important, not the staging. Perhaps the juries should have been reminded of that in 1981… I also don’t understand her “while the jury deliberates” line at 35:29 as the juries would have already voted, though she’s the only presenter from the 1971-1973 era to not expressly say that they had already voted. Like the RTL presenters of the 1960s, she has also seemingly vanished into thin air. I searched for her on Google a while back, and while I did find an interview with her from 2005, there hasn’t been anything since.
Yea I kept that line from Helga in because I didn't really understand what point she was making...usually it goes with the song writer being presented their prize but this seemed a little out of left field!
Don't feel too upset for the Spanish entry I say. A decade or so later they come up with the biggest piece of European earworm possible as they are commissioned to write all the songs for Willy Fog.
As of today, this is still Spain's highest score ever, 125 points. The closest Spain came to that score was in 1991 and 1995, both Sergio Dalma and Anabel Conde scored 119 points. It's been 18 years since semi-finals raised dramatically the amount of points given, and yet Spain never surpassed those 125 points from 1973.
@@JeSuisRene Who knows? Maybe this could be the year of at least breaking the record, as it seems Chanel is getting a lot of traction. But I thought the same with Pastora Soler and Ruth Lorenzo and neither of them got even to 100 points, so I don't know.
@@manbemel I haven’t heard the Spanish song for this year yet, but I do hope Spain can break this “curse”. Still, I think Spain should have perhaps won in 1995 - one of my favourite Eurovision entries.
Makes me laugh ..and wonder over the copyright with Belgium as there ARE PLENTY OF YT VIDS UP with their performance from that year and you got slapped with copyright and those others are still up and available to view even in the UK! go figure!
Helga Guitton wohl doch die beste deutsche Moderatorin... wird gerne übersehen, weil sie in Luxemburg moderiert hat. Aber absolutely souverän und fehlerlos in allen Sprachen. Wusste gar nicht, dass sie wie mein Papa aus Königsberg kam...Tja wie dann die Lebenswege so gehen
Sorry but I’m not agree with you. This guy was a great showman and very popular. There’s really worth than that. The only think (and I just discover this on Wikipedia) is that guy was a Nazi. Very involved and friend of Hitler 🤮🤮🤮 After the war he ask protection of Franco in Spain 🤮🤮🤮 Ok then, you can say what you want about him, I won’t be offended. I’m totally shocked 😮 now
I'm not a lover of this contest. I think the overall quality of songs is low and indeed, had I been a judge, I would have given 8 of the songs only 1 point. My favourites remain Spain and Monaco. Euro Geek Stuff Austria withdrew, Greece wanted to enter but enquired too late, Malta did enter and was drawn to sing at Number 6 between Norway and Monaco but withdrew without chosing a song. Maltese TV did do a call out for songs but officially said they withdrew due to the lack of quality although it was most likely a funding issue and internal politics. In departure from the usual rehearsal pattern, countries rehearsal time was determined by how close geographically they were to Luxembourg. Therefore the host country rehearsed first followed by Belgium and the Netherlands and so on outward. Cliff had been asked, and agreed, to do the 1972 contest but tour and TV dates made this impossible so he was more or less told he could have 1973 if he wanted it. The writers of Power To All My Friends were treated very badly by the BBC and not included in any of the official business in Luxembourg. They had to make their own way to the hall on the night and were shunted in to rubbish seats. They had no input to the song or presentation and have been quoted as saying they found Cliff's performance an embarrassment. They also say Cliff was surprisingly exceedingly nervous before the contest. It is sometimes reported that Cliff's backing group for the contest were The Shadows. Some newspaper reports call them 'The New Shadows'. In reality it was a bunch of people Cliff knew from working with in the past, some Shadows members some not, who were paid as session musicians for the contest. The performance of the Belgian entry at their National Final is freely available online despite the block on the Eurovision performance. They were even more glorious costumes made of nylon curtains in the NF. Security was tight for the performers but not for the jury members who again contained many a lover or friend or cousin of someone in the countries delegation. The Swiss jury members were Eurovision singer Paola del Medico who sang for Switzerland in 1969 and would return in 1980. The rather over exuberant Swiss gentleman was actor and comedienne Yor Milano who used to do a ventriloquist act with a puppet which was a naked man in a barrel. The female Swedish jury person was Lena Andersson who had much success in Sweden and sang on many ABBA tracks. She never got to Eurovision but took part in Melodifestivalan. The lack of a Maltese jury caused some issue as there were originally going to be 3 juries in each section so the numbers were now uneven. The EBU were concerned what would happen should someone else withdraw and this left one lone jury at the end. There was a lot of issues when it was discovered some jury members were being taken out and wined and dined by other delegations and record companies. One Portuguese jury person was returned to the hotel paralytic drunk after a 'lunch' with Dutch record producers. The EBU had to step in and tell the countries that any further incident would result in their jury members being removed. The juries watched a full dress rehearsal on the Friday night. The close result again showed up the weakness of the voting system where one jury member could effectively have changed the winner. Some have argued that Spain technically lost after the first jury Finland voted and gave them only 3 points. The UK also gave Spain only 4 points and this was questioned by some delegations as one of the UK judges was overheard at rehearsals saying how much they loved the Spanish song. Luxembourg never received less than 6. CLT were the main parent company in Luxembourg with RTL being a subsidiary. Think of the relationship between the main BBC and BBC3 for example. There were licensing laws in Europe at the time as to what TV companies could sell and send outwith their borders and RTL was set up to produce entertainment programmes that could be legally sold and broadcast throughout Europe. There were only about 700 people in the audience. This meant the allocation for each TV station was small, only around 15 tickets each. The BBC requested more tickets and were refused, although they did in the end get 3 of those that had been allocated to Malta. The Cliff Richard Fan Club [which my aunt ran] requested tickets but were told there were none to be had. UK were favourites followed by Spain, Monaco, Luxembourg, Germany and Ireland. I was never a lover of the winning song at the time although it has grown on me over the years. I detest the UK song. Feedback from the BBC public research after the contest was very mixed, whereas 1972 was mainly positive. They generally liked the UK song but many people said Cliff's bizarre stage presentation had cost it the title and had another singer took it on it would have won. Interestingly the feedback on the voting process was mainly negative which is the reverse of the feedback from the voting in 1972. Also interestingly, knowing what was to come in following years, Terry Wogan was generally thought to be very poor and talked too much, got things wrong, spoke over the presenter, and talked as thought the audience were idiots. It is surprising, or not given the BBC's attitude to the contest, that he was asked back given the high degree of negative comments. From 1973 we have sadly lost: Marie - Monaco, Robert Uranga - Spain and Patrick Juvet - Switzerland.
@@JeSuisRene We'd have made a great pair of jury members with me marking down where you mark up and vice versa. The great joy of Eurovision is the joy of our different tastes in music.
Thank you so much for this, particularly the RTL and CLT relationship which always throws me. Also the BBC research into Wogan's performance...he certainly pulled some strings though as the BBC invested in him heavily in the 1980s (not just for Eurovision). I also noticed the low audience numbers too, it looked particularly weak for the opening shot!
I think Israel should have come in second. I really don't understand the hype over Spain and Cliff Richard- both of their songs were snoozefests. Ireland was just cringey.
A few other things I couldn’t fit in the description:
A big thank you again to those who’ve supported the channel on ko-fi/thereorderboard, including those repeat donations! If you follow me you can still see the updates on ko-fi, but I’m still grateful! You can also follow me on Twitter too @thereorderboard. A huge thank you to @Dave King who was very helpful with the French I’ve used in these captions…I would have tripped over the gender changes in the superlative ‘Most Generous juror’ graphics! Thank you! Want a more in depth review of the original scoreboard? Here’s @mrjdsworld’s blog on it: euroscoreboards.wordpress.com/2021/07/27/luxembourg-1973/
Apologies for the confusion about uploading. Part of the reason for the delay was to allow time for confusion about Belgium, I had two versions ready, one with Belgium muted. The one with Belgium fully available said ti would only be blocked in Belgium, but that’s clearly not the case. The version I had which is muted is also blocked, as they don’t want you to see the visuals either, so unfortunately we have the blurring.
I’m glad to have reached 1973, even though 1974 is often considered the zenith I suppose, this year is a great Contest, even though it’s not entirely strong across the board. I think Italy, Netherlands, Ireland are the weak ones…I actually quite like ‘Baby, Baby’ although I do agree with the conductor’s (Francis Bay) comments below which suggest that the female vocal was too low, the male’s too high. It appears that Francis and the rest of the Belgian delegation scarpered from Luxembourg quickly, failing to console Nicole and Hugo. Italy merrily continue with their own song style, which I notice always has very long lines of lyrics that often delivered broken up. I had some issues with la la la’s in 1972, this time there were considerable issues with layered singing…Norway’s was a tricky!
I should have put in the main commentary that this Contest still exists in the top-20 all time most watched programmes (not news or sport) in the UK. It sits at 19th, with 21.56 million viewers. This does go to show that we’re in Eurovision’s golden age. The most watched programme remains the Christmas Day episode of Eastenders in 1986, when I was just 8 days old (30.15m). The 1966 World Cup final achieved 32.2m, Diana’s funeral, 32.1m, Euro 2020 Final 29.85m. The announcement of Covid measures on the 23rd March 2020 knocks the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympics off the top-10 list, which says it all really.
I should mention Wogan’s commentary, which stutters in as we see shots of modern Luxembourg. It’s great to hear him again, even if he does get a lot wrong during the voting…along with Helga’s French to English counting. He leaves the UK audience with the possibility of Cliff overtaking Luxembourg when clearly they can’t with the 20 votes available to them. There are some impressive hauls, the UK only dropping one point out of 20 in one of the rounds. Listen out for the other commentators you can hear on his crackly line, you can clearly hear consternation at France only achieving 9 points on the opening round (out of 30) from their commentators, who also appear to drudgingly just repeat every vote, despite the board and the announcer being in French.
Doesn’t this Contest look great? I love the stage and the backing lighting. The board is a little oddly coloured though and perhaps would have been better in the grey seen around everywhere else. It’s quite the functional Bauhaus style to add the orchestra to the stage for the first time, even though some of the songs wouldn’t use them that much.
I often have a fear that late on in my edit, I’ll notice an obvious spelling mistake in the board, resulting in a couple of hours of reworking. On this one, I’m aware there’s a few confusing bits. Firstly, the name of this venue, the site of what must have been one of the most complex outside broadcasts in Luxembourg so far. A few published books, and the production itself, refer to the venue as the ‘New Theatre’. To my knowledge the theatre was never actually called that officially, just referred to that by the locals who were given the lengthy name ‘Théâtre Municipal de la Ville de Luxembourg’ when it opened in 1964. Being less than ten years old, I’m 90% certain it was still called that officially in 1973 but I couldn’t find confirmation. It’s now called the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, which is what is listed on Wikipedia via the updated linked page…I felt it was perhaps easier to go with what it’s called now - even though it’s not entirely accurate.
Secondly, I’m still confused by the CLT and RTL relationship. I know they are one of the same but I’ve gone with what it is on the Eurovision ident board, which is CLT. I assume this is what Luxembourgers would have tuned to, to watch the show. This is an RTL production though, with ‘Radio-Télé-Luxembourg’ prominent on stage, the most prominent broadcaster branding we’ve seen so far.
Well it’s not surprising, considering three songs being so close together that this year, that 54.8% of the total votes were given out, that’s way up on 1972’s 50.4%, and 1971’s 49%. The toughest jury was Portugal although they aren’t that far away from the others. Like Switzerland in Edinburgh, the older Portuguese juror helped level them up a bit, giving 10 points more. 10 juries had younger members who gave out more points. The largest differential was between the Irish young and old, with the older juror giving out 11 points more. The Italian jury was equal with what it gave out, splitting for age - with France, the UK, Yugoslavia and Spain being pretty close to equal. If you flip the table around and look at song performance, the age split broke with 744 votes from the older jurors, to 746 from the younger. Interestingly, it was votes from older jurors that brought Luxembourg the victory: The Luxembourg, Spain and UK younger totals were 67, 69 and 65 respectively…meaning Spain would have won if we’d just counted the youth votes. If you add the older votes on top, the UK and Spain get 56, with Luxembourg getting 64, overtopping the disadvantage it had with the under-25s. Norway was heavily favoured by over-25s, getting 13 more points. Spain got 13 more points from young compared to old, with the UK getting 11. In 1971 only 2 songs got more support from younger jurors, this rose to 6 in 1972 and is now 8 in 1973. Luxembourg won with an equal appeal of old and young, which is nice.
This is the last year to use my recreation of the 1959 gear system, used again in 1961, 1962, 1966 and then in Vienna in 1967.
The ending of this production was quite chaotic, with Anne-Marie quickly noticing that the programme was still on…I assume her eye was caught by an enthusiastic floor manager telling her to carry on singing as the orchestra struck up again. Is this the only time we get two reprises? Or one-and-a-half anyway. Local commentary seems to cease at the beginning of the first reprise. Other than that I always enjoy the placing of the song titles during the performance in the Luxembourg productions…they make my placings a bit messy of course, but I do think they are always ‘just right’.
You’ll see in the comments below, the Portuguese song (which is one of my faves) is not about the crumbling Estado Novo regime but is about the campaign to remove bull fighting in Portugal.
I’ve tried to work out why the BBC asked Cliff in 1973 - I expect someone has the answer, although I noticed it led to the ‘It’s Cliff Richard’ show not appearing in the schedules in 1973 (as it had done for Eurovision selection in 1970-72). At this time, UK Eurovision selection was around 8 weeks long (6 songs over 6 weeks, 1 review show and then results). In 1973 it shifted to ‘Cilla’, as it had done in 1968. Cliff was going to tour Australia, literally days after Eurovision, so maybe that’s why…please do Eurovision instead of the whole usual production. Cliff’s official UA-cam channel includes two other final contenders, the ones I’m sure he was happier with (although most weren’t unhappy with Power to all Our Friends, unlike Boom-Bang-A-Bang etc). You’ll notice Bauhaus design gets to the titles of these too, but with the font we’re going to be using for 1974 at the top of the performance.
ua-cam.com/video/BQxLE60Z6yQ/v-deo.html and ua-cam.com/video/Fm1WmQdpw_k/v-deo.html
From andtheconductoris.eu: Belgium, Francis Bay:
For years, Francis Bay had argued Belgium should try its luck at Eurovision with a rigorously up-tempo song for once; and, for that reason, he felt ‘Baby baby’ was a good choice: “This time around, I really loved the song, which had a good beat.” In spite of Nicole and Hugo having put together an innovative stage presentation which combined singing and dancing, the festival in Luxembourg turned into a major disappointment as the Belgian entry finished seventeenth and last. Bay, commenting: “The way the song was written, Hugo had to sing in a key which was too high for his vocal abilities, while Nicole’s part was too low - the result being a ‘seven-headed dragon’, truly a monstrosity. The sound resembled a choir of ten crows - so far out of tune - and I had to conduct all that, with the whole of Europe watching… eighty million viewers. Afterwards, I heard people speak about me as someone only able to beat time to music, but it wasn’t my fault the song didn’t suit Nicole and Hugo, was it?!”
In view of the fact that Francis Bay had not commented on the duo’s vocal performance in rehearsals, it seems the conductor was looking for a way, however far-fetched, to explain that the bad result was not his fault. The competitive side of his character could not take the humiliation of finishing last. “After the voting, Francis was gone,” according to Hugo Sigal. “In fact, we were left to our own devices by all BRT delegates in Luxembourg. There was nobody to give us a pat on the back or speak some consoling words. As for Francis, we weren’t surprised about him, because we knew him as a very distant person. In later years, when we performed in large shows across the country and on cruises, we had our own ‘chef d’orchestre’ with whom we were much closer. Of course, it was much more pleasant to have a conductor who was really involved in what you were doing on stage, but that was not what Francis was like.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: Luxembourg: Pierre Cao
“Before the rehearsals started, I went through the scores of all participating songs with the orchestra. During those rehearsals in the theatre, the orchestra was conducted by the respective arrangers from the other countries. Even in those days, the EBU organized everything into the smallest detail. Every country was allowed forty or forty-five minutes of rehearsing time and not one second longer. There were even specific rules as to how many violins and how many brass players there had to be in the orchestra. Moreover, there were draconic security measures. The theatre was turned into some sort of fortress. For us in Luxembourg, this was a totally new experience.”
As mentioned in the above, Cao was part of the winning Luxembourg team, conducting Anne-Marie David’s song ‘Tu te reconnaîtras’ (arranged by Raymond Donnez). “Obviously overcome with emotions, Anne-Marie David told me immediately after the TV broadcast of the contest was over that I had conducted very well: Tu as dirigé très bien, Pierre!”, Cao laughs. “I thought this was rather unexpected! In those days, I often conducted earnest classical pieces, such as the Mahler symphonies - very demanding music requiring the utmost of a conductor’s technique. So accepting this compliment from Anne-Marie after only having conducted a three-minute-song was somewhat hard! But then again, pop music brought difficulties for a classical conductor, such as I was, too. Counting in the orchestra for those songs in the right tempo was not always easy. Making all kinds of impressive gestures while the orchestra is playing pop music is ridiculous. The most important thing is indicating the correct tempo at the beginning. During the remainder of the song, it is best for a conductor to keep a low profile.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: France: Jaen Claudric
In 1973, Jean Claudric was the first musical director of a French Eurovision pre-selection after the ‘Pourcel era’. On the 6th of March in the Butte-Chaumont TV studios, he conducted all six competing entries, of which three were performed by Martine Clémenceau, two by Anne-Marie Godart (who had been the representative of Monaco in the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest), and one by Jean-Pierre Savelli. All songs were arranged by Claudric himself. The piece ‘Sans toi’, composed by Paul Koulak with lyrics by Anne Grégory, was selected to represent France in the international contest in Luxembourg. Perhaps not the strongest French effort in the history of the contest, ‘Sans toi’ and singer Martine Clémenceau failed to impress the European jurors and finished fifteenth in a field of seventeen competing countries. “Of course, I was not happy either with this result, although it was not my song”, Claudric recalls. “We were all in it together, after all. Usually, in situations like this, the composer blames the vocalist for not interpreting his work correctly, while the singer feels the songwriter should have composed a better song. Martine Clémenceau was an artist with whom I worked on more occasions, arranging and recording her songs and conducting musical comedies in which she was one of the actors.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: Sweden: Monica Dominique
Why did Monica and Carl-Axel, who were both members of the progressive pop group Solar Plexus at that time, decide to compete with a song in the Swedish Eurovision pre-selection at all? Carl-Axel explains: “Originally, it was an idea of the director of our record company EMI, Sven-Olof Bagge. It was the first year when record companies rather than composers submitted songs for the Swedish final. He wanted us to write something. We were certainly interested… I for one had tried before to enter the competition with some of my songs, but these had never been chosen. Perhaps they were a little too avant-garde for the selection committee! In ’73, we initially lacked the inspiration to write something good, until Monica saw those two guys, Malta, in a club in Stockholm. She said: we should write a song for them! Claes and Göran liked the idea. We invited both of them over to our house to hear their suggestions before we actually composed the song.”
Monica adds: “Carl-Axel and I thought: why not send in something we like ourselves - a song without any commercial thought behind it. We wanted to test if it was possible to succeed in a competition like that with such a song. Now we really had to hurry, because the submission deadline was only a couple of days away. Luckily, the inspiration came quite fast and we both rather liked the result of our work. Next, we called the poet Lars Forssell, a good friend of ours, and asked him to write the lyrics to it. He agreed and the next morning we found ourselves in Lars’ house. We played the song for him several times at the piano, whilst he sat down and wrote the lyrics. Now, Lars was a serious poet - an artist, not somebody who was expected to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. He even was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy! When we were on the brink of leaving, he said: ‘Wait a minute… as a poet, I have to add something special to those lyrics.’ And then he wrote that line, ‘Dina bröst är som svalor som häckar’ (‘Your breasts are like swallows a-nesting’). That was a line which made headlines in Sweden; people talked about it… and they still do! Subsequently, I arranged and conducted the song myself. To our enormous surprise, we won the pre-selection in Stockholm. We always thought ABBA and ‘Ring ring’ were the obvious winners… and we could not believe our luck!”
Sweden was one of seventeen competing countries; for the first time, the rule which obliged all countries to present a song in one of the native languages, had been dropped and the Swedish delegation decided to present their entry in English: ‘You’re summer’. In Luxembourg, Monica found out she was not the only female conductor, as the musical director of the Israeli delegation was Nurit Hirsh. “So I thought: ‘Damn, I am not alone!’”, Monica laughs, “I was fully aware I was making some sort of history as a woman conducting a Eurovision song. I thought it was important to stand up for women in music… usually, when I wrote an arrangement, people asked Carl-Axel if it was his work. That made me really angry! Not many girls played the piano and even fewer could be found who were composing, arranging, or conducting… I was fairly alone in those days. I must admit I had hoped to be the only female conductor in Luxembourg, but I was the first anyway, as we were drawn before the Israeli entry!”
“The rehearsals were most pleasant”, Monica Dominique continues. “The orchestra gave me all due respect. I had to stop at certain points to ask them to change some details, but that was not a problem at all. The atmosphere among the artists of different countries was very relaxed and friendly, whereas I had expected more ‘elbows’ and more competitiveness. However, as Israel was participating for the first time, there were lots of security people around. The Israeli delegation stayed in a special flat, away from the other participants, and was guarded by men armed with rifles. During the entire television broadcast, there were two guys with machine guns on either side of the stage, turned to the audience! That was a little bit frustrating, because we were there to make music, whereas they gave you the impression to be in some sort of war situation.”
“After our success in Sweden”, Monica concludes, “we hoped to do well in Luxembourg, too. What was most interesting for us, however, was to have people outside the borders of Sweden listen to our music. The voting in Luxembourg was rather exciting, as we were doing very well, scoring high marks all through. When it turned out we had finished fifth, we were thoroughly satisfied!”
Göran Fristorp and Claes Olof af Geijerstam broke up their collaboration as a duo soon after the Eurovision Song Contest, continuing their careers separately. That has not impeded the song ‘Sommar’n som aldrig säger nej - You’re summer’ reaching the status of Eurovision classic in Sweden.
From andtheconductoris.eu: Israel: Nurit Hirsh
After the Israeli broadcaster IBA had been late in submitting its application for the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest, Israel finally made its debut in the competition one year later, when the festival was held in Luxembourg. Choosing to play the safe card, it was decided upon to pick one of the country’s most popular female singers of the moment, Ilanit, to do the honours.
In Luxembourg, it was Nurit Hirsh herself to conduct the orchestra during Ilanit’s performance of ‘Ey-sham’. The 1973 contest was the first Eurovision edition which saw a woman conducting the orchestra - in fact, two women, as Sweden happened to have a female conductor too, Monica Dominique. Nurit: “I realized that it was special, but I was prepared for that, as I had already conducted at festivals in places as far away as Greece and Brazil. I always was the only woman amongst the orchestra leaders. Especially in Greece, with this macho culture, I was considered as a kind of novelty. On the other hand, I could use it to my advantage… simply, by being a woman, looking these guys in the orchestra straight in the face and telling them exactly what I wanted. I am not a conductor by profession, but during my student days I had mastered the basic techniques… which I used to my advantage later, because I insisted on conducting my own compositions and arrangements in international festivals. To my mind, I was the only person who should do it, as I always want a perfect rendition and I completely trust myself! I am a perfectionist… for example, when I first wrote an arrangement which included a harp, I took private lessons with a harpist to learn about the peculiarities of this instrument.”
Just one year after the massacre at the Munich Summer Olympics, going abroad to represent Israel in any competition was an affair which involved major security measures. Hirsh: “Ilanit and I were accompanied by armed guards - tall, rectangular guys. They reminded me most of refrigerators! Moreover, there were local policemen with motorcycles accompanying us from the hotel to the auditorium and back. At that time, it was necessary to have all these precautions; in Israel, Arabs even put bombs in garbage cans to kill Israelis. You cannot imagine the amount of tension which we felt back then when going abroad. Ilanit was more relaxed under the circumstances than I was… Ilanit always was cool. She even took a quick nap shortly before the live broadcast, while my hands were shaking when I tried to button my pink blouse. In Israel, there is a myth which has persisted until this day: people believe Ilanit was wearing a bullet-proof vest under her dress to protect her from a terrorist attack… but this is simply not true. Before we went on stage, Ilanit and I simply prayed that we would be alive after this… and that was it! During the performance, I forgot about what could happen to us and I returned to being my normal self, who is always excited to play and to perform in front of an audience, trying to transmit my energy to the other musicians.”
I was not thinking of my own success at that moment. We wanted to perform well and make our compatriots proud. During our performance, the streets in Israel were empty. People all over the country were glued to their TV sets, as they felt it was a special moment for Israel.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: Netherlands: Harry van Hoof
In the festival final, held in Luxembourg, this somewhat indigestible Schlager failed to impress the international juries, finishing fourteenth. “Everything that went well for me the year before”, Harry laughs, “now went completely wrong! It was a little waltz ditty and I had perhaps slightly over-arranged it. From the first rehearsal, Ben Cramer, who is a nice chap in real life, behaved as if he was the biggest star of the festival… shouting at the technicians that the sound was useless and that the lighting had to be changed. He really gave them a bad time! In an aside, I tried to convince Ben that he achieved nothing by going on like this. After all, these were only the rehearsals - how could we expect every aspect of our performance being perfect from scratch? Unfortunately, Ben persevered in cursing each and everyone he met. In the TV concert, the orchestra played our entry awfully… I have sometimes thought the players did it on purpose because they disliked Ben so much. You cannot expect to be treated well by others if you misbehave in such a horrible fashion yourself.”
Portugal: Jorge Costa Pinto
Was Jorge Costa Pinto surprised when the song ‘Tourada’ (translated as ‘Bullfight’) - the lyrics of which (by José Carlos Ary dos Santos, a left-leaning artist like Fernando Tordo himself) it is claimed contain surreptitious criticism of the Estado Novo government which was still in power in Portugal in ’73 - was chosen to represent Portugal in the international festival? “Not really, because, as a song, ‘Tourada’ stood out. The melody is somewhat jumpy; not a typical Eurovision song. Especially in those days, it was something new, unheard of before. More important than that, however, were the lyrics. A metaphor about the Caetano government? No, there is no metaphor! You are mistaken. ‘Tourada’ means ‘bullfight’ and the song was intended to vent criticism of bullfighting. I agreed with the lyrics one hundred percent. I have always felt it is a barbarous relic of bygone times. Fernando wrote his song to support those who, back then, were trying to ban bullfighting in Portugal.”
In Luxembourg, Fernando Tordo’s rendition of ‘Tourada’ was awarded with a tenth place amongst seventeen participating acts. Maybe because it was ‘his’ second time in Luxembourg, Jorge Costa Pinto does not have many memories of this edition of the Eurovision Song Contest: “At a contest such as Eurovision, the schedule was usually quite hectic: airport, hotel, rehearsal, hotel, rehearsal, hotel, show, hotel, airport, and back to Portugal. That was how it was, essentially! I remember one thing: Luiz Villas-Boas, the RTP producer who was with us in Luxembourg, told me after one rehearsal how the musicians in the orchestra were gossiping amongst each other about how good or bad the guest conductors were. According to him, the musicians thought I was one of the good conductors in the festival. As you can imagine, I was flattered. It is always nice to receive a compliment from colleagues. And coming back to Fernando Tordo, I never quite understood why others found him so cumbersome. Throughout our Eurovision project in ’73, the working relationship between him and me was good - and we are still friends today. He was a special guy, he was an artist, he was young - but then, I was young too!”
Finland: Ossi Runne
In 1973, when the international festival final was held in Luxembourg once more, Finland obtained its best result ever - sixth place, a record which stood until 2006 - with Marion Rung and her song ‘Tom tom tom’. Asked for an explanation for the success of this entry, Runne says: “Well, for a start, Marion Rung is one of the best entertainment singers here in Finland. She can handle many different music genres, is very pretty, and always manages to put a smile on her face. ‘Tom tom tom’ was nothing special, but tailor-made for Eurovision by Rauno Lehtinen. He worked in the advertising industry, and this showed in his compositions (amongst which the ‘Let kiss’, an international hit success he wrote for the Gudrun Jankis Orchestra). When he wrote a melody, he was always looking for something which audiences would pick up easily. Moreover, he made the wise decision to translate the song in English (between 1973 and 1976, countries were free to choose the language of their Eurovision entry, ed.). He understood that, when going abroad, the Finnish language always is a problem. Nobody outside Finland understands one word of the lyrics, however beautifully written these might be. There were also other languages which suffered in Eurovision, but Finnish was certainly one of the worst.”
From andtheconductoris.eu: UK: David Mackay
For the 1973 festival, the BBC invited Cliff Richard to do the honours. As luck would have it, David Mackay was one of the producers who had stepped in when Cliff’s long-time producer Norrie Paramor retired in the course of 1972.
“The first thing we recorded was a country song which we were all happy with… and then, the next thing I’m told is that Cliff would be doing Eurovision - and that he and Peter wanted me to arrange and conduct that. I thought: “Oh no, here I go again!” That was a tough old job! The song which was picked was ‘Power to All Our Friends’. It wasn’t a great song. It was good enough for what it was, the Eurovision Song Contest, but it’s not the favourite record I’ve ever produced.”
While preparing the Eurovision project, Mackay was called to a meeting with the BBC’s Head of Light Entertainment, Bill Cotton. “Peter Gormley and Cliff were also there. Cotton had discovered that, under the rules of Eurovision, it was allowed to use a backing track. We all looked at him and thought: “Are you sure?” The previous year, everything was done completely live, so it must have been a new rule. Billy absolutely wanted to use a backing track to play along with the orchestra in Luxembourg. He knew that nobody had ever done this before. I have no idea why he thought it was so important. Perhaps he thought that, with a backing track, we would sound better than everybody else? Cliff and all the rest of us would have been more than happy to do the whole thing live. Billy Cotton took the decision - perhaps in collusion with one of his producers. Then, I had to prepare a backing track with the rhythm players for us to take to Luxembourg. At first, I was at a loss how we were going to do this. Again, there was going to be an orchestra that I had to conduct. Billy Cotton and the others at the BBC encouraged me. They said: “We’ll be behind you. You just go ahead and conduct the orchestra. We’ll worry about all the rest of it.”
Before travelling to Luxembourg as the conductor of the UK’s Eurovision delegation, there was some other minor business to attend to. “It was a very peculiar week, to say the least,” Mackay laughs. “I got married on the Saturday and I had to leave my wife Brenda on Monday morning to take Cliff to Luxembourg on my honeymoon! Brenda couldn’t be there with us. The wedding itself was wonderful enough. Cliff was there too - and his manager Peter Gormley, who was a fellow-Australian and a great friend, was my best man. After he did Eurovision, Cliff immediately flew to Australia for a tour. Before he left, he gave my wife and me free aeroplane tickets to travel around the world. That was his wedding gift for us. Brenda and I departed the week after the Eurovision Song Contest. I met up with Cliff in Australia to supervise the sound on one of his concerts to set him and his musicians off on their tour. Brenda and I did lots of travelling in the following weeks. We had a lovely honeymoon… eventually!”
Once in Luxembourg, it was down to the orchestral rehearsals. In the first rehearsal, with BBC producer Stewart Morris standing right behind him, David Mackay had to explain the musicians what was about to happen. “I needed an interpreter for that, because my French wasn’t good enough to explain what was going on. So I told them that I would be wearing headphones and that there would be a backing track. They were looking at one another. They must have been thinking: “What on earth is going on here?” Now, in the auditorium, there were delegates from other countries. When the track started and Cliff did his bit, I could see that many of them getting up and going to the back of the hall. As I was told later, they were looking for the director of the Eurovision Song Contest to file a complaint. We simply went through the rehearsal as planned. After coming off stage, we went back to our hotel and thought nothing more of it.”
As it turned out, there had been a mistake in the translation of the new backing track rule from the original French to English. “That same night, I was given a call by the BBC’s Head of Delegation. He said it was not a problem using the track, but we couldn’t use the backing voices. In London, following the instructions I had been given at the BBC meeting, I had done a track with rhythm instruments and backing vocals. So now I had to do a new version without the vocals. We hired a studio at RTL (Luxembourg’s broadcasting service - BT) the next day. The guys had their guitars with them and Trevor Spencer took his conga drums. As it was a radio studio, there was not the advanced recording equipment available that we had used in London. There was just one big desk and one microphone on the top. Alan Tarney, the bass player, had his bass plugged into a bass amp (an amplifier - BT), but in order to hear the sound effect, Cliff had to hold up the amp for him! It had to be as close to the microphone as possible. In order for them to know when to start singing the a cappella bit at the beginning, there was a short count-in on the bass guitar - and that was it, that was our new rhythm track!”
“Then, for the concert, the guys had to sing live to the rhythm track, while I had to conduct the orchestra and hope that their singing, the track, and the orchestra would all be in sync… because if we weren’t, we were in shit street! Fortunately, it all came together and it worked. The orchestra in Luxembourg were fine. I had no complaints with them. On the other hand, I wasn’t really testing them, because there was not a lot they had to do for our song really. Watching the video of our performance, you can see the drummer and the other rhythm players in the orchestra sitting there doing nothing behind Cliff, while he did that outlandish dancing routine he had thought out. It was all so stupid. I was embarrassed for the orchestra and I felt embarrassed myself doing it. I never spoke to the Luxembourg musicians at all really - we were just in and out, that was it.”
“Out of interest, we sat in on the rehearsals by the other artists. We were feeling so unhappy about being different from the others due to that rhythm track - and we wanted to be part of the festival along with the artists from the other countries, I suppose. Two or three of them were really good. Our favourites were Mocedades and ‘Eres tú’ (the Spanish entry - BT). That was just the most wonderful song and they had beautiful voices too. A class act! That should have won. Just before going into make-up before the show, Cliff and I went over to them, saying: “If there’s any justice, you guys are going to win!” They loved us for that. What better for any artist than to hear Cliff Richard saying that you deserve the trophy? In the end, we came third and they were second. I don’t even remember who won. All these countries voting - it’s very unpredictable, isn’t it?”
According to some sources, Cliff Richard took valium to keep his nerves in check for the Eurovision performance in Luxembourg; allegedly, Peter Gormley even had to do his utmost to wake him up in time. “Of course, he would have wanted to win, but Cliff wasn’t too dejected about not winning,” Mackay adds. “Coming third was pretty good. It was reasonable. My most vivid memory is of Cliff hiding in our dressing room during the voting. He didn’t want to sit with the other artists while the votes were coming in. He felt it was a cattle pen. It was embarrassing for an artist like him to be there. Now, Cliff’s dressing room was on the ground floor, but the four backing guys and I shared another one on the third floor of the theatre. When the voting was about to start, he came up to us and hid in the toilet of our dressing room until near the end. At some point, the floor manager came in, asking us: “Have you seen Mr Richard?” He was panicking. Now, we didn’t want to give him away, so we said that we hadn’t and that he surely was downstairs somewhere. When the voting was nearly done, Cliff went back downstairs as if nothing had happened: “Oh, I’ve just been walking around, you know.” When it was all over, he joined the afterparty with the other artists. He was just fine.”
“Following the Eurovision Song Contest, I worked with Cliff for the next year-and-a-half. We did a bunch of singles and three albums; one of them was ‘The 31st of February Street’, for which Cliff wrote about half of the songs himself. That was exactly what I had wanted from him all along! He also played some guitar for that album and he was in with the backing vocals. He really got involved on the recording side.”
ko-fi.com/post/Eurovision-1973-Full-Lux-Song-super-cut-and-ani-I2I89BOSE for full video without Belgium removed
Terry thought that Cliff could catch Anne-Marie, but he couldn't - as the final jury group consisted of only two countries, and the maximum that UK could get was 20.
Yay! My favorite year! Some very excellent songs! Spain, Luxembourg, and Israel are my favorites! Cliff is so good, just can’t dance
I too love Luxembourg and Israel
Those top two songs truly are classics. I am surprised how much I like this version of the voting! Thanks again, I can't imagine how much work you put in and all your notes are amazing! 💯🏅
I feel like this top three is one of the strongest top threes ever!
Thanks Luuk! I'm glad you're enjoying...from the perspective of making the scoreboards I'll quite miss this system, it was an enjoyable challenge!
Felicitacion, c’est magnifique! I am excited for the 1974 contest scoreboard with your touch ups. Congrats, I love it!
Fantastic video, really impressed again..
Merci...
Fortunately, despite the voting system used in 1973, the best song still won..🇱🇺
Another phenomenal effort from the ReorderBoard! A shame about having to mute the Belgian entry: maybe they were sore that they wouldn’t be winning for another 13 years, haha! No disrespect to Cliff, a great voice, but I wasn’t surprised he didn’t win: the song wasn’t all that and that dance thing he did was just a bit… weird, somehow. A curious typeface (used for the title of British sitcom “Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?” if I’m not mistaken?) which screams early 70s and glam rock. I’m not surprised they did away with this voting system, after the older Swiss judge seemed to think it was a show about him!!
A lovely reconstruction: these are my go-to videos now if I need some Eurovision nostalgia. 👍 Thanks for the translation of the lyrics, always helpful. For years I thought Anne-Marie David was singing about chocolate at 21:51. *face palm*. Looking forward to the next one as always, but will be sad once you reach 1979! 😊👍
Ah great Jez, I'm glad the translations are of some use!! I initially put them in to help us through the chanson era of the 50s and early 60s but I think they are still useful.
One of the best positions from a debuting country - Israel at number 4. Little did Ilanit know that she would be reprising the song not in 1973, but rather in 2019 :)
Thank You for this. For the first time in history, Norway actually took the lead, only for a few seconds, but still... The composer, Arne Bendiksen, was until then, the most sucsessful composer for Norway in ESC. His third place in 1966 was also done with a song with an unusual beat. Bendik Singers was his "baby." In the fifties and early sixties he had been a part of the vocal quartet The Monn Keys, and his dream was to start a similar group, that he could mentor and write and arrange songs for. The 4 singers was selected by Bendiksen, and they had all been session singers for Bendiksens recording company, as he put them together in a group. One would think that Bendiksen would be composing songs for the Norweaign pre selections for years to come, but when his song "Afrotime" that was ment for Bendik Singers, was rejeceted by th internal jury for the preselection in 1974, he was furious, and never participated again. Bendik Singers was bacikngsingers for Inger Lise Rypdal in her norwegian version of "Eres Tu". Her version is her biggest hit during her long career. R\The Noregian entry was no commercial sucsess, and was completly outshined by "I mitt liv." That version is still often to hear in Norwegian radio, so i guess Juan Carlos Calderón gets some royalties from Norway every year. "I mitt liv" is one of the most popular esc songs in Norway ever. Inger Lise Rypdal, that was the most seling and most poular popsinger in Norway for two decades, never took part for Norway in the ESC, but "I Mitt liv" became her biggest hit ever, and is included in a lot of best off records, and in her stage shows.
Top 3 songs all deserved to win one of the best Eurovisions
1973 feels like a new chapter for Eurovision. It’s become much more colourful and the songs more fun since Edinburgh. With Terry Wogan on BBC 1 and the Costa brothers singing backing vocals the golden years have definitely begun!
I really like CLT’s stage with the orchestra on that modern structure and the prominent lion of Luxembourg medallion. And because there’s no orchestra pit they could build two aprons left and right which allow for cameras on peds to be positioned on the stage itself. Thanks to this we get all the lovely tracking shots which are the hallmark of this contest. There are only four cameras but they are used really well.
(I know many fans love the 1984 contest from the same venue, but I’m not one of them. 84’s staging is much more old-fashioned and theatrical than 73. Due to the orchestra pit the cameras are miles away and the direction is often a mess.)
The downside of this contest is the sound mixing. The brass, percussion and backing singers are all far too loud and you can hardly hear the strings at all. And don’t forget the dreadful interval act - the stony silence from the audience said it all! Come back the bagpipes, all is forgiven!
Paola del Medico got fifth place in 1969 (the year with four winners), so no one knew better than her what a few points could mean. 4 years later, she became the juror that gave the highest number of points (54). I don't think that was a coincidence at all
I thought that the swiss juror looked like the "bonjour bounjour" girl from 1969😂
I you would’ve counted the four winners as all 1st 🥇 than she actually got 2nd 🥈 for Switzerland with Monaco 🇲🇨 in third
1973: best result for Finland before their Victory in 2006 and their 6th place with Blind Channel in 2021.
and now there's 2nd place with Käärijä!
Power to thereorderboard! You’re the wheat of our bread and your video is like swallows a-nesting!
I especially appreciate the effort you’ve gone to working in Terry Wogan’s commentary and the little touches in the voting with percentages. I’m glad this voting system didn’t continue but it has really shown off your creativity! (And thanks for working round the copyright trouble too!)
Thank you! Yes, Belgium threw me some issues - but it was mainly YT's misreporting of the status of it...it told me it was banned in Belgium but not elsewhere, when in fact the opposite was true. What also made this different was that the video, not just audio was blocked. It took a long time to clear because I think the algorithm could half guess something not allowed was there!
Poor Cliff! This feels like it should be his Jana Novotna at Wimbledon moment - a triumphant victory after a previous heartbreak. The draw is perfectly set up for him and he had not just a strong song but a strong set of songs in his national final. All the press coverage I’ve looked up from 1973 was very positive about him, and Power To All Our Friends was regularly described as the best UK song for several years.
So I’ve often wondered why he missed out. I used to think it might have been the arrangement of the song that cost him the seven points he needed. Compared to either the record or the live ASFE version the ESC arrangement is missing something (probably not helped by the poor sound mix of the orchestra).
But recently I realised I was overlooking something more obvious. After my grandmother died a couple of years ago I was given a box of videos and audio tapes from her house. One was an audio cassette marked Eurovision 1973 which my aunts had recorded live off air as teenagers. When I played it back I heard clips of the songs they liked including all of Power To All Our Friends (plus Terry Wogan’s intro). But at the precise moment Cliff started doing his ridiculous dance routine you can hear my aunts screaming with laughter which continued for almost the rest of the song. And it clicked with me at last - Cliff was destined to lose again because he looked like a complete eejit!
This is SUCH a great story! And well, yes, my understanding from now on will always be that Cliff threw it away with those moves.
Great job with this video as usual! Has been looking forward for this year. Nice songs, interesting voting and I love the antics of the Swiss juror.
one of the best eurovision songcontest ever.
Great job! Definitely my favourite of your three scoreboards from this era.
This was actually the only year of the three with this voting system that actually gave us an exciting voting sequence, and having a reordered board really highlights that. Though as you say, it was done and dusted after Luxembourg received its last set of points, even if Terry hadn’t realised it yet.
One of the most classics winners ever ❤️
50:04 - yes of course it was a low vote for Luxembourg Terry! They couldn’t vote for themselves so that round was always going to see Luxembourg score relatively low. It still managed to get 17 out of a possible 20, which was pretty good!
Wow ey sham is was to win this year עבודה מדהימה של נורית הירש ואוהד מנור❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
On Sir Terry’s anniversary, I think a wee word of tribute is due! Yes, he didn’t bother remembering stats, and he annoyed fans by talking over the start of the songs. And yes, he should probably have retired from commentating at least five years earlier than he did. But… he was a great broadcaster and Eurovision would not be as big in the UK without him.
We forget now that although Eurovision had high ratings it was not always popular - especially in the bigger countries. By the 1990s France, Germany, Spain and Italy had all lost interest to greater or lesser degrees. Ratings fell sharply in the UK too during the late eighties. But although it didn’t have credibility as a musical contest, Terry ensured it was always popular, mainstream, event television. He had the knack of helping people to see the fun in programmes that they would have criticised (and not just the ESC, but Dallas, The Archers and Blake’s 7 all got extra publicity and popularity from his teasing). His remark about the bad choice of picture for France’s postcard in 1973 was just one early example of him drawing the viewer in and encouraging them to have fun with him.
As a young fan I remember how irrelevant the ESC was in the UK in the mid-nineties - apart from Terry’s commentary. And when 1998 changed the way the contest was seen in the UK it was right and fitting that Terry got his moment in the sun as host. It was thanks to him that British viewers had stayed the course. And he has been proved right - the whole Petra Mede/Love Love Peace Peace approach to the contest we have now is just what Terry was doing for all those years on BBC 1. He wasn’t a fan, but he loved the contest and we were fortunate to have him on our side.
(P.S. I met him once at a book signing in Leeds. He was lovely and I treasure the signed book to this day!! God rest him.)
"By the 1990s France, Germany, Spain and Italy had all lost interest to greater or lesser degrees. Ratings fell sharply in the UK too during the late eighties. But although it didn’t have credibility as a musical contest, Terry ensured it was always popular, mainstream, event television." - So well put! Although I know he wasn't entirely a popular choice for commentary here, he invites people in and makes it friendly and less stuffy. I think it's easy to say that some of his comments aren't well received through a 2020s looking glass, but that's not always true - he mentions in his 1981 commentary about the complaints he received for commenting on the appearance of the Turkish female entrant in 1980...he occasionally pushed the boundary a bit, just as mates down the pub might do - and overall he was a massive plus for the Contest in the UK.
Very elegant visually!
Like many, I’m beyond impressed by how far you have come with your reorderboard, with all the little touches and creativity: all your wrangling with your CanWin (I forget the name) function has paid off! Much like your 1996 pre-sel video I’m curious as to how you’ve wrestled with this unique voting sequence in Viz.
And you are right in this being a great and vivid looking contest! I remember being blown away by just how punchy the colours are for its time and just how bright it all is. Full Lux is right!
Also really interesting that the contest was held in the same venue some 11 years later, and yet how much darker and less vibrant it felt. Maybe also representative of that classic serif-gothic-beige feel of the 80s!
Sterling work as always and a pleasure to watch.
Thank you for leaving such a thoughtful comment, Fernand. All the best.
1:05:09 - I love the name of one of the people listed under "Images": Frank Reich. Which is the German name for France.
“Eres Tu”was a massive hit in Latin America that it’s still played on the Radio today.
And it was covered in several languages; from the top of my head I remember Lecia - _Rør ved mig_ (Danish), Karel Gott - _Spravný ton_ (Czech), Rina Hugo - _Jy's vir my_ (Afrikaans) and Collage - _Selline sa oled_ (Finnish). :)
@@danielvanr.8681 Amazing!
Gorgeous!!!
I must say, out of all the potential copyright songs you couldn't use for this year, it had to be the one that is often memed my Eurovision fans. Especially given the popularity of the top 3, and Sweden is another meme for the ages.
Regardless, another remarkable scoreboard, though I'm not gonna miss this voting system lol. So out dated and just isn't fair. It's so open to tactical voting. Look how both UK and Spain give below par scores to each other in comparison of others. Plus your stats on the most and least points giving jurors real paint a picture on just how open to fraud it all was.
Keep up the brilliant work as always. And now, I need to find my Napoleon hat lol
thank you :) looks like nicole and hugo didnt want their song to be played :D well done commentary by terry :)
Congrats for this again great contribution🙂
I like that in this video you can hear the commentary from Portugal in the background... It's like the commentators were sharing a booth
In which timestamps?
Helga G is definitely one of the best dressed hosts of the 70s
Swipe me: this year has some very strong songs! You’re design had come out of left field for me (I didn’t expect so many circles; I’d have associated the circular flags a bit more with 1971) but it’s brilliantly applied here! Probably one of my favourites of yours!
Thank you! Much appreciated!
YES FINALY THANK YOU SO MUCH
Beautiful.
Well done again!!
Wogans commentary is new for me.
I hope it will be completely available somewhere.
In my opinion the quality of the BBC orchestra in 1972 and 1973 was far better...
In my opinion this (along with 1974) is one of the strongest years of Eurovision ... the contest was indeed reaching its zenith ... reflected in the fact the UK pulled out the big guns with Cliff this year and ONJ the following year. My favourites in no particular order include: Finland, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, France and Israel. Out of them, I thought France in particular was criminally underrated ... though the sound problems probably didn't help her. Still I believe a good song, and you can hear the groans and exclaims of shock when they only receive 9 points in the first round. The only time I think in the early contests the French entry placed well lower than it should have. Israel I think too should have challenged the top 3 a lot more, it is a really moving ballad, but 4th is still an excellent debut. Despite some people's misgivings about the Luxembourg winner, it is one of those songs I find myself humming absentmindedly from time to time, and is a really inspiring, uplifting song. Out of the uptempo songs I think Finland's is the best ... and probably could have done better had it not performed first. Still it would go on to be the best Finnish result until 2006 which says something! Although I love Anne-Marie David the most out of the top 3 ... I still wonder if under other Eurovision voting systems she would have won. I feel like this 1971-3 voting system favoured a safe song that appeals to all jurors, which is why a young female singing a big French ballad won in all these contests. Honestly I'm not sure Luxembourg would have won under the 1957-61, 67-70, 74 system where jurors can only vote for one song, hence songs "riskier" songs that stood-out (like ABBA) won. I also truly believe that if Cliff had not performed those strange dance moves he could have won, given he was only 6 points off the winner. The Spanish girls too apparently hated their outfits, and I wonder if they could have chosen their own clothes they would have made up those 4 points. Guess we will never know. All in all though a great contest, and I love Helga's blue frock and Anne-Marie David's reaction to winning.
I love this scoreboard! You use the elements from this year's production very well, including the color scheme and the font. Unfortunately, it's the last time that we get to see this voting system, but I felt like you did a great job here! (Also, kudos for including that enthusiastic Swiss juror, haha).
I think 1973 is one of the strongest years of the 70s, in terms of song quality. Though looking back at it, there were a couple of duds in the running order, but not enough to dilute the field. The production was a bit less good, with the audio mix standing out particular.
My top five:
5. PRT
4. ESP
3. GBR --This year has probably one of the best top threes ever, with different genres and moods conveyed so well. While I love and respect Eres tu for its sweetness, I like the rock n roll vibe of Power to All Our Friends just a bit more. It's so lively and fun! (Too bad Cliff still can't dance.)
2. YUG -- Gori vatra is so underrated! It's passionate and filled with infatuation, not unlike the title itself. I feel all the tension building up, and the brass does its job in adding to the mood. My second favorite entry from Yugoslavia, behind Dzuli.
1. LUX -- But in the end, Tu te reconnaitras was the right winner. I love the melody of this, but when I read a translation of the lyrics, it just makes it so much better. It's hopeful and sweet, and Anne-Marie delivers it in spades. The audio mix in the hall wasn't great, but it's still beautiful, and probably my favorite 1970s entry.
I agree with this analysis...especially about Gori vatra!
Spain - Mocedades - Eres tú❤
This was the first ESC I watched and since then >I have been fun of ESC ı was 8 and ı learned the winning song by heart even I didn't understand the meaning still my favorite I love Anne Marie love from Turkey
The earliest I've been to one of your videos.
Only:
🇬🇧 1974
🇸🇪 1975
🇳🇱 1976
🇬🇧 1977
🇫🇷 1978
and 🇮🇱 1979 to go then you are finished!
I Loved so much Italian song and Massimo ❤❤❤ himself. I really can’t understand why he receive such a small amount of points 😢😢😢.
Here are my personal votes/rankings, i'am from the Netherlands
12 points: United Kingdom - Cliff Richard - Power to all our friends
10 points: Spain - Mocedades - Eres tú
8 points: Luxembourg - Anne Marie David - Tu te reconnaitras
7 points: Switzerland - Patrick Juvet - Je vais me marier, Marie
6 points: Italy - Massimo Ranieri - Chi sarà con te
5 points: Sweden - The Nova & the Dolls - You're summer
4 points: Yugoslavia - Zdravko Colic - Gori vatra
3 points: Monaco - Marie - Un train qui part
2 points: Belgium - Nicole & Hugo - Baby, baby
1 point : France - Martine Clémenceau - Sans toi
Gppd image and sound!!
I was surprised Terry Wogan didn't comment on the flamboyance of Switzerland's top-seated juror.
In my opinion this is the best ESC ever.
RIP: Nicole Josy, Marie-France Dufour and Patrick Juvet.
Does anyone have the answer to the mystery of Finland's performance? Here it's not seen, of course, but there's a a portion of the song that seems to be missing from *all* recordings of the contest, no matter the country. The second bridge, "Your smile makes my life worth living..." there was a travelling there of the camera in the original program, but in most recordings, it is simply chopped off, going from "As for me, my heart's on my sleeve" to "Nightingales all welcome the nighttime" I remember I saw one particular recording where part of the bridge was watchable but suddenly went to black for a few seconds then returned after some interference. Could it be that there was a full transmission failure in the whole Eurovision Network and that's why no recording of that part seems to exist anywhere in Europe?
Yes I remember reading somewhere that at that point in the Finnish song you mention the whole Eurovision Network did fail so that portion of the song was not heard and the screen blacked out. Apparently later broadcasters edited the recording of the footage so this blanked bit was removed. Great observation and sorry I can't offer a source, but I remember seeing this answer somewhere.
Gitte from Germany is actually a Danish singer who gained popularity in Germany more so than in Denmark. She competed in the Danish preselection in 1962 with a song called “Snakker med mig selv” (speaking with myself) but was disqualified, I think as a result of one the composers being in the jury (but I forget whether that part is true). We would have done well with that song, and it was very successful.
Wasn't the reason the song was disqualified was due to the composer whistling the song in the men's room right before the national final? I remember that being the reason. Either way , you're right it on that song would have done much better that year versus what DR actually sent. (Still a lovely song though.)
The Swiss male jury giving away his points in a rather flamboyant way. And you can hear the Portuguese commentator in between Terry Wogan's comments during scoring.
We had a Craig in 71
I suppose he thought we needed a Bruno
@@kaitlinbilous4605 Sorry, but who?
@@paulojrneto Bruno Tonioli from Strictly
Shame that Terry Wogan didn't comment on the flamboyancy of Switzerland's senior juror.
GREAT JOB § IT S MORE EXCITING
Another wonderful production by you. This reorder (and Wogan's slightly inaccurate commentary) make the voting more exciting than it would have been.
My votes for 73:
1 pt - Belgium (I don't think it deserved last place?)
2 pts - Portugal
3 pts - Yugoslavia
4 pts - Germany
5 pts - Finland
6 pts - Spain
7 pts - Israel
8 pts - UK
10 pts - Norway (the lyrics are ridiculous but I love the music)
and finally
Luxembourg 12 POINTS - totally deserving winner.
If you really want to hear the Belgian song it is now available on the official Eurovision channel:
ua-cam.com/video/RrFvCYa05pk/v-deo.html
My what are like swallows-a-nesting?!
Bring this voting system back !!!!
Dancing Purple Stickfigures are hypnotizing!
Where did you find this version with the bbc commentary? I’ve been looking for it for ages.
1973 was a great Eurovision year, not One bad song amongst them.
I have a commentary free mp4 version of the show. Would love a copy with the ‘Wogan wit’ though.
Take a read of the description. Most of it is on youtube but I had to get some from a helpful contributor!
Cliff Richard great dancer,,,,,, omg
That SUI juror is something else, eh?
Helga is probably my favourite presenter of the 1970s. Shame she had such a poor script “we should not forget that the Eurovision Song Contest is a contest of songs” is a particularly awkward line, though I assume it was said as a reminder that the songs were what was important, not the staging. Perhaps the juries should have been reminded of that in 1981…
I also don’t understand her “while the jury deliberates” line at 35:29 as the juries would have already voted, though she’s the only presenter from the 1971-1973 era to not expressly say that they had already voted.
Like the RTL presenters of the 1960s, she has also seemingly vanished into thin air. I searched for her on Google a while back, and while I did find an interview with her from 2005, there hasn’t been anything since.
Yea I kept that line from Helga in because I didn't really understand what point she was making...usually it goes with the song writer being presented their prize but this seemed a little out of left field!
51:55 Twickenham isn’t in Middlesex, Terry! It joined (Greater) London eight years prior to this contest!
Don't feel too upset for the Spanish entry I say. A decade or so later they come up with the biggest piece of European earworm possible as they are commissioned to write all the songs for Willy Fog.
That was indeed a great song in both Spanish and English!! (And David Tennant can't hold a candle to Willy Fog!!)
foi o melhor eurovision de todos o de 1973 eu gostei da França com Martine
7:32 fernando shot me a dirty look
What Programm are you Using For making the scoreboard?
So... has anyone heard the radio broadcast of this contest? Does it suffer from the same sound balance problems?
56:48 No Terry, wrong again
I love Monaco
yes Belgium great song
As of today, this is still Spain's highest score ever, 125 points. The closest Spain came to that score was in 1991 and 1995, both Sergio Dalma and Anabel Conde scored 119 points. It's been 18 years since semi-finals raised dramatically the amount of points given, and yet Spain never surpassed those 125 points from 1973.
Do you see this perhaps changing in Turin?
@@JeSuisRene Who knows? Maybe this could be the year of at least breaking the record, as it seems Chanel is getting a lot of traction. But I thought the same with Pastora Soler and Ruth Lorenzo and neither of them got even to 100 points, so I don't know.
@@manbemel I haven’t heard the Spanish song for this year yet, but I do hope Spain can break this “curse”. Still, I think Spain should have perhaps won in 1995 - one of my favourite Eurovision entries.
Finally!
@@JeSuisRene Yeah, that curse was finally broken this year! :D
What font did you use for the points?
That is Nurom Bold, a Helvetica alternative: fontsarena.com/nurom-by-the-northern-block/
Kiedyś to to były piosenki na Eurowizji. I zgodnie z nazwą "Konkurs Piosenki Eurowizji"❤️❤️❤️. A teraz to konkurs beztalencia i kiczu!😔😔
Is Cliff Richard attempting to dance or is he having some type of seizure 😮
37:07 - guy in white tux jacket must not have had much of a view thanks to that cameraman, no wonder he looks so glum.
Makes me laugh ..and wonder over the copyright with Belgium as there ARE PLENTY OF YT VIDS UP with their performance from that year and you got slapped with copyright and those others are still up and available to view even in the UK! go figure!
Helga Guitton wohl doch die beste deutsche Moderatorin... wird gerne übersehen, weil sie in Luxemburg moderiert hat. Aber absolutely souverän und fehlerlos in allen Sprachen. Wusste gar nicht, dass sie wie mein Papa aus Königsberg kam...Tja wie dann die Lebenswege so gehen
56:26 deesi vote
Ahh the Bergs are coming the bergs are coming the bergs are coming. I warned you I blame you for this Aisling'. Luxury
33:23 Does she wore the bulletproof vest on stage?
No, she said later that was just a rumor.
Look at that badass with the double neck bass guitar! ua-cam.com/video/5x3J-GAl6Ds/v-deo.html
not the iconic BABY BABY being copyrighted 😂😂😂😂
46:42 vazza puncte
אהוד מנור
HOW’D YOU GET THE ENGLISH COMMENTARY
Seriously, what on earth were they thinking with that interval act??
Yea, really odd!
Sorry but I’m not agree with you. This guy was a great showman and very popular. There’s really worth than that.
The only think (and I just discover this on Wikipedia) is that guy was a Nazi. Very involved and friend of Hitler 🤮🤮🤮 After the war he ask protection of Franco in Spain 🤮🤮🤮
Ok then, you can say what you want about him, I won’t be offended. I’m totally shocked 😮 now
It was probably cheap, if highly embarrassing 😂
@@Bungle-UK And it made life very difficult for the radio commentaries, who had to try and describe for listeners what was going on.
España fue la verdadera ganadora de ese año igual que Chanel en 2022
NO strings could be heard on songs
very poor orchestra balance
I'm not a lover of this contest. I think the overall quality of songs is low and indeed, had I been a judge, I would have given 8 of the songs only 1 point. My favourites remain Spain and Monaco.
Euro Geek Stuff
Austria withdrew, Greece wanted to enter but enquired too late, Malta did enter and was drawn to sing at Number 6 between Norway and Monaco but withdrew without chosing a song. Maltese TV did do a call out for songs but officially said they withdrew due to the lack of quality although it was most likely a funding issue and internal politics.
In departure from the usual rehearsal pattern, countries rehearsal time was determined by how close geographically they were to Luxembourg. Therefore the host country rehearsed first followed by Belgium and the Netherlands and so on outward.
Cliff had been asked, and agreed, to do the 1972 contest but tour and TV dates made this impossible so he was more or less told he could have 1973 if he wanted it.
The writers of Power To All My Friends were treated very badly by the BBC and not included in any of the official business in Luxembourg. They had to make their own way to the hall on the night and were shunted in to rubbish seats. They had no input to the song or presentation and have been quoted as saying they found Cliff's performance an embarrassment. They also say Cliff was surprisingly exceedingly nervous before the contest.
It is sometimes reported that Cliff's backing group for the contest were The Shadows. Some newspaper reports call them 'The New Shadows'. In reality it was a bunch of people Cliff knew from working with in the past, some Shadows members some not, who were paid as session musicians for the contest.
The performance of the Belgian entry at their National Final is freely available online despite the block on the Eurovision performance. They were even more glorious costumes made of nylon curtains in the NF.
Security was tight for the performers but not for the jury members who again contained many a lover or friend or cousin of someone in the countries delegation.
The Swiss jury members were Eurovision singer Paola del Medico who sang for Switzerland in 1969 and would return in 1980. The rather over exuberant Swiss gentleman was actor and comedienne Yor Milano who used to do a ventriloquist act with a puppet which was a naked man in a barrel. The female Swedish jury person was Lena Andersson who had much success in Sweden and sang on many ABBA tracks. She never got to Eurovision but took part in Melodifestivalan.
The lack of a Maltese jury caused some issue as there were originally going to be 3 juries in each section so the numbers were now uneven. The EBU were concerned what would happen should someone else withdraw and this left one lone jury at the end.
There was a lot of issues when it was discovered some jury members were being taken out and wined and dined by other delegations and record companies. One Portuguese jury person was returned to the hotel paralytic drunk after a 'lunch' with Dutch record producers. The EBU had to step in and tell the countries that any further incident would result in their jury members being removed. The juries watched a full dress rehearsal on the Friday night.
The close result again showed up the weakness of the voting system where one jury member could effectively have changed the winner. Some have argued that Spain technically lost after the first jury Finland voted and gave them only 3 points. The UK also gave Spain only 4 points and this was questioned by some delegations as one of the UK judges was overheard at rehearsals saying how much they loved the Spanish song. Luxembourg never received less than 6.
CLT were the main parent company in Luxembourg with RTL being a subsidiary. Think of the relationship between the main BBC and BBC3 for example. There were licensing laws in Europe at the time as to what TV companies could sell and send outwith their borders and RTL was set up to produce entertainment programmes that could be legally sold and broadcast throughout Europe.
There were only about 700 people in the audience. This meant the allocation for each TV station was small, only around 15 tickets each. The BBC requested more tickets and were refused, although they did in the end get 3 of those that had been allocated to Malta. The Cliff Richard Fan Club [which my aunt ran] requested tickets but were told there were none to be had.
UK were favourites followed by Spain, Monaco, Luxembourg, Germany and Ireland.
I was never a lover of the winning song at the time although it has grown on me over the years. I detest the UK song.
Feedback from the BBC public research after the contest was very mixed, whereas 1972 was mainly positive. They generally liked the UK song but many people said Cliff's bizarre stage presentation had cost it the title and had another singer took it on it would have won. Interestingly the feedback on the voting process was mainly negative which is the reverse of the feedback from the voting in 1972. Also interestingly, knowing what was to come in following years, Terry Wogan was generally thought to be very poor and talked too much, got things wrong, spoke over the presenter, and talked as thought the audience were idiots. It is surprising, or not given the BBC's attitude to the contest, that he was asked back given the high degree of negative comments.
From 1973 we have sadly lost: Marie - Monaco, Robert Uranga - Spain and Patrick Juvet - Switzerland.
Oooo… contrary to you, I really enjoyed this contest. I only gave 1s to Monaco and France, while more than half my scores were 4s or 5s.
@@JeSuisRene We'd have made a great pair of jury members with me marking down where you mark up and vice versa. The great joy of Eurovision is the joy of our different tastes in music.
Thank you so much for this, particularly the RTL and CLT relationship which always throws me. Also the BBC research into Wogan's performance...he certainly pulled some strings though as the BBC invested in him heavily in the 1980s (not just for Eurovision). I also noticed the low audience numbers too, it looked particularly weak for the opening shot!
The copyirght holders for the Nicole and Hugo song are hilarious. As if anyone would ever want to hear that ghastly song ever again.
spain was the best
Spain the best.
I think Israel should have come in second. I really don't understand the hype over Spain and Cliff Richard- both of their songs were snoozefests. Ireland was just cringey.