REVIEW
EUROVISION HISTORY
CHANGES
How much has Eurovision changed since the first contest in 1956? Author Chris West explores...
Zeljko Joksimovic
Monica Aspelund
A
man in black tie ushers two cute, deferential children onstage to present the lady with bouquets.The conductor brings in the orchestra.‘Refrain d’amo-oo-our,’ croon the backing
singers. Strings swirl.The lady begins to reprise her song in her precise, elegant voice, about how she looks back on her 20s, when she first fell in love… Lys Assia has just won the first Eurovision Song Contest, in 1956. The people’s winner of 2023. Bare-chested, bondage-collared Käärijä smashes his way out of a box, half-singing, half-rapping about how he is going to get drunk tonight. Change, change, change If there is one theme to all the changes we have seen in Eurovision over the years, it has to be ever-increasing diversity. This has been geographic: the ‘Europe’ of Eurovision 1956
Rona Nishli
Dana International
was largely the nations of the original European
Economic Community.The contest expanded to include more of Western Europe, then the Balkans,
then the old Soviet Bloc.With this came an ever wider array of cultures.The UK’s slick late 1960s pop professionalism.The myth-laden visions of the Nordic countries ( Lapponia, Monica Aspelund, Finland 1977). Haunting Balkan sevdah. Lautar, gypsy punk, saudade. Zeljko Joksimovic, Rona Nishliu, Salvador Sobral, Konstrakta. Ukraine, so special even before its current hideous travails. Russia,Turkey and Hungary, trying to fit in but, in the end, finding our liberalism too much. Eurovision has mirrored changes in how we love. In the 86 AUTUMN 2023 ● VISION
Paul Oscar
Jean-Claude Pascal
VISION ● AUTUMN 2023 87
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