Eurovision Song Contest 1969

Infobox Eurovision
name = Eurovision Song Contest 1969


final = 29 March 1969
presenters = Laurita Valenzuela
conductor = Augusto Algueró
director = Ramón Díez
host = flagicon|Spain|1939 TVE
venue = Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain
winner = flag|Spain|1939 "Vivo Cantando" flag|United Kingdom "Boom Bang-a-Bang" flag|Netherlands "De Troubadour" flag|France "Un Jour, Un Enfant"
vote = Each country had 10 jury members who each awarded 1 points to their favourite song.
entries = 16
debut = None
return = None
withdraw = flag|Austria
null = None
interval = La España diferente
opening =
con = Eurovision Song Contest
pre = ◄1968
nex = 1970►

The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 was the 14th in the series. It was the first time that the contest resulted in a tie for first place, with four countries each gaining 18 points. Since there was at the time no rule to cover such an eventuality, all four countries were declared joint winners. This caused an unfortunate problem concerning the medals due to be distributed to the winners as there were not enough to go round, so that only the singers received their medals on the night: the songwriters, to some disgruntlement, were not awarded theirs until after the date of the contest. Had the later tie-break rule been in place, France would have been the overall winner.

Austria declined to enter the contest because it did not want to send a singer to a country ruled by a dictator, namely Spain (under the rule at the time of Francisco Franco). As the writer and historian John Kennedy O'Connor notes in his book "The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History", since Spain's winning margin in 1968 had been by a single point, and Austria had awarded the country's song two points, it could be argued that the Austrians were in part responsible for sending the contest to Madrid in the first place. [O'Connor, John Kennedy. The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History. Carlton Books, UK. 2007 ISBN 978-1-84442-994-3] The surrealist Spanish artist Salvador Dalí was responsible for designing the publicity material for the 1969 contest as well as the metal sculpture which was used on stage.

Liechtenstein wanted to participate in the 1969 contest, and got as far as choosing the song "Un beau matin" ("A Beautiful Morning") to represent it. Unfortunately, the country – having no broadcasting company of its own and thus not being a member of the EBU – was not allowed to participate.

France's win was their fourth. France became the first country to win the contest four times. The Netherlands' win was their third. Spain and the United Kingdom each won for the second time.

Individual Entries

Results

core sheet

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; font-size: 85%"!colspan="2" rowspan="2"
!colspan="43"|Results
- Yugoslavia 5 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 Luxembourg 7 1 0 3 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 Spain 18 1 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 1 3 2 2 0 Monaco 11 0 0 2 0 4 0 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Ireland 10 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 3 Italy 5 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 United Kingdom 18 2 4 0 0 0 3 1 5 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 Netherlands 18 0 2 0 1 0 3 0 0 1 4 1 0 6 0 0 Sweden 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 1 3 Belgium 10 0 0 2 0 0 0 3 1 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 Switzerland 13 2 0 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 2 Norway 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Germany 8 3 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 France 18 0 1 0 2 4 0 4 2 1 0 1 0 1 2 0 Portugal 4 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 Finland 6 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 THE TABLE IS ORDERED BY APPEARANCE

Map

Other Interesting Facts

*Jean Jacques, representing Monaco, became one of the youngest Eurovision participants, at just 12 years old.
*Salomé caused a stir because her outfit was made of porcelain (and weighed almost 30 pounds). She caused controversy when she danced during her song, which was a violation against the EBU's rules at that time.
*Muriel Day was the first singer from Northern Ireland to represent the Republic of Ireland.
*There are conflicting reports that before the contest started, host Laurita Valenzuela asked EBU voting scrutineer, Clifford Brown what would happen if there was a tie. He assured her that it would never happen. After the last jury voted and four countries were tied, she laughed nervously and asked him in both Spanish and French to tell her who the winners were "exactly".
*ESC 1969 was the second to be filmed and transmitted in colour, even though TVE did not have colour equipment at the time. It had to rent colour TV cameras from the ARD German network. The colour transmission was distributed through the EBU network as well the east-European Intervision network, and through satellite also to Puerto Rico, Chile and Brazil. In Spain itself the broadcast was seen in black and white because the local transmitters did not support colour transmissions.
*Benny Hill once parodied this in his very first episode for Thames.
*"Monty Python's Flying Circus" parodied Lulu's performance with a similarly nonsensical number called "Bing Tiddle Tiddle Bong," written entirely in pictographs for sounds.
*As Norway's representative, Kirsti Sparboe, takes a bow at the end of her performance, she almost trips herself and falls over.
*For years, there has been controversy over whether the country of Liechtenstein was originally selected to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969. They had no broadcasting network that was part of the EBU, which is why they have not participated to date. It has been said that the song that would have represented them was "Un Beau Matin" by Vetty.

References