EUROVISION HISTORY
EUROVISION HISTORY
1950s, love was sweet but by the book, in a duty-driven society.We became more emotionally ambitious.We want to love our own way, sang Tommy Körberg (bizarrely in front of a Francoist emblem) in 1969 and Mia Martini in 1977 – ‘in love, but not bound to you’. Later, love became darker, more troubled. Paul Oscar, in 1997, seemed weary of the whole business. But we got more physical too. A lot more: Sertab, Slavko, Chanel… Who we loved changed radically, as well. Love was heterosexual in the early days of Eurovision – on the surface, anyway. Not for Dany Dauberson back in 1956, despite the lyrics of her song, or 1961 winner Jean-Claude Pascal – check out the lyrics to Nous, Les Amoureux . Yet we had to wait till 1997 for Paul Oscar (what a pivotal song!) and 1998 for Dana International’s win.The culmination came with Conchita’s spine-tingling 2014 victory. Our diversity isn’t just in Eurovision, it is actively celebrated by it.This, the contest tells us, is what it means to be European. In tough, angry, populist times, it helps us to cling on to that faith. And to continue to build it: let’s see more black artists and hear even more national languages in the contest! Our changing European/Eurovision life is also about technology.The few Europeans who had TVs in 1956 watched on tiny, bulbous black-and-white sets. Colour came to the contest in 1968 – as it did to many Europeans then, with the collapsing of old social barriers and the opening of new opportunities, for example for travel. As Eurovision quit theatres for stadia in the late 1990s, the
scope for extravagant staging exploded. This year, the lasers, LEDs and over a thousand other light-sources were operated from an area front of house that looked like Mission Control, Houston. However, technology hasn’t been all beneficial. Our ability to fashion our environment increases our ability to wreck it. Eurovision has protested about this since Katja Ebstein in 1971. Aloysha, so superb in 2023, did this best of all, perhaps, in 2010. And of course there are the changing fashions – do we really want to look like Hugo et Nicole from 1973 or have hair like Céline Dion in 1988? (To have Céline’s voice would be nice…) Change, change, change! Yet in a way, Eurovision also tells us nothing has changed.We’re still just human, with all the pain, delight and difficulty that brings.Though their reactions to it are radically different, Lys Assia and Käärijä are both essentially singing about vulnerability. She is full of regret at lost love; he drinks to escape the shell that society insists he inhabit. Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose. ■
Mia Martini
Tommy Körberg
Dany Dauberson
Sertab Erener
Chris West is the author of Eurovision! A History of Modern Europe Through the World’s Greatest Song Contest . The revised edition is out now from Melville House UK. https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/melville-house-uk- eurovision/
Katja Ebstein
Aloysha
VISION ● AUTUMN 2023 89
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AUTUMN 2023 ● VISION
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