Happy 49th Birthday, Eurovision!




Winners:
Top: Lys Assia at Eurovision 1956. (Photos courtesy Stern magazine and Eurovision France.)
Bottom: Helena Paparizou with her dancers, in rehearsals for Eurovision 2005.


With all the talk last week of the 50th Eurovision (last Saturday's) and the 50th anniversary (24 May next year, but with a big show to come in Copenhagen this October), it has almost been forgotten that we hadn't yet reached even the 49th anniversary of the contest. But that day is today.

It was on Thursday (not a Saturday) 24 May 1956 that 30 year-old Lys Assia won the first Eurovision for Switzerland, in the same country, in the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano. Her winning song was 'Refrain', which is why I really wanted Pay TV to be Sweden's representatives this year, as their song was called 'Refrain, Refrain'. The winner was Lys Assia's second song of the evening, as all seven participating countries did two songs each. As she was singing for Switzerland, Lys had done her first song in German. 'Das Alte Karussel' is a jolly little song which has a rhythm not unlike a fairground carousel, you won't be surprised to learn. Listening to it right now, she seems to be singing something about a mouse as well. Needless to say, sex and international politics did not figure highly in the subject matter of Eurovision 1956. Sample lyric; "The old carousel, which doesn't go so fast any more.." 'Refrain' is a sad, slow song, a genre which never wins Eurovision these days.

The UK and Ireland weren't in the first contest, so there were no songs in English. Compare that with last Saturday, when only 6 of the 24 finalists featured no English at all, and 15 were completely in English, including the top three.

We don't know if neighbourly voting featured in 1956 either, as, unfortunately, history hasn't recorded the points given to any of the songs. (Unless you believed ESC Today's brilliant April Fool last year.) We only know that 'Refrain' won, voted for by two judges from each competing country. However, Luxembourg TV was in financial difficulties at the time, and couldn’t afford to send two judges as well as their singer, so they asked the Swiss judges to vote on their behalf. And Switzerland won. Hmm, funny that.

'Refrain' opens with an orchestral sweep that sounds like Lys is about to break into "the hills are alive with the sound of music". It's certainly a long way from Wig Wam. I bet she never thought that, 49 years later, the winning singer would be lifted up in the air (as in 2004 too) and would pretend to play the braces of a very sexy man kneeling below her as if they were a cello. Oh, how times have changed.


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