Eurovision Song Contest 1977

Marie Myriam

Date: May 7, 1977
Venue: Wembley Conference Centre, London, United Kingdom
Presenter: Angela Rippon
Orchestra: BBC Television orchestra
Conductor: Ronnie Hazlehurst
Director: Stewart Morris
Scruteneer: Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster: BBC
Price presenter: Sir Charles Curran
Interval act: Mr. Acker Bilk & his Paramount jazz men
Duration: 2 hours, 12 minutes
Number of entries: 18
Debuting countries: -
Returning countries: Sweden
Withdrawing countries: Yugoslavia, Tunesia
Winning Song: L'oiseau et l'enfant - Marie Myrianm, France
Voting system: Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs

 Marie Myriam

Entries

01. Ireland: The Swarbriggs Plus Two - It's nice to be in love again (3rd place, 119 points)
02. Monaco: Michèle Torr - Une petite française (4th place. 96 points)
03. The Netherlands: Heddy Lester - De mallemolen (12th place, 35 points)
04. Austria: Schmetterlinge - Boom boom boomerang (17th place, 11 points)
05. Norway: Anita Skorgan - Casanova (15th place, 18 points)
06. Germany: Silver Convention - Telegram (8th place, 55 points)
07. Luxembourg: Anne-Marie B - Frère Jacques (16th place, 17 points)
08. Portugal: Os Amigos - Portugal no coração (14th place, 18 points)
09. UK: Lynsey De Paul & Mike Moran - Rock bottom (2nd place, 121 points)
10. Greece: Paschalis, Marianna, Robert & Bessy - Mathema solfege (5th place, 92 points)
11. Israel: Ilanit - Ahava Hi Shir Lishnayim (11th place, 49 points)
12. Switzerland: Pepe Lienhard Band - Swiss Lady (6th place, 71 points)
13. Sweden: Forbes - Beatles (18th place, 2 points)
14. Spain: Micky - Enséñame a cantar (9th place, 52 points)
15. Italy: Mia Martini - Libera (13th place, 33 points)
16. Finland: Monica Aspelund - Lapponia (10th place, 50 points)
17. Belgium: Dream Express - A million in one, two, three (7th place, 69 points)
18: France: Marie Myriam - L'oiseau et l'enfant (1st place, 136 points)

Heddy Lester

The Eurovision Song Contest 1977 was the 22nd contest, and was held on 7 May 1977 in London. With Angela Rippon as the presenter, the contest was won by Marie Myriam who represented France, with her song L'oiseau et l'enfant which was written by Jean-Paul Cara and Joe Gracy . This was France's fifth victory, a record, which was equalled by Luxembourg in 1983, the United Kingdom in 1997, and most recently Sweden in 2012. It was equalled and beaten by Ireland in 1993 and 1994, respectively.

Format

The language rule was brought back in this contest, four years after it had been dropped in 1973. However Germany and Belgium were allowed to sing in English, because they had already chosen the songs they were going to perform before the rule was reintroduced.

As noted in The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History by author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor, the contest was originally planned to be held on 2 April 1977, but because of a strike of BBC cameramen and technicians, it had to be postponed for a month.

The Belgian act Dream Express had created some controversy in the press with reports that the three female members would wear transparent tops; this did not materialise for the actual event.

Although Marie Myriam won, the song which finished second, Rock Bottom, written and performed by Lynsey De Paul and Mike Moran, was the most commercial with the European public since this song went on to become a top 10 hit in most European countries, unlike the winner L'oiseau et l'enfant. The British conductor Ronnie Hazlehurst used an umbrella and wore a bowler hat.

Participating countries

At one point before the contest Tunisia was going to participate but they withdrew. Had Tunisia gone ahead they would have appeared fourth on stage. Yugoslavia also withdrew, and didn't return until 1981.

 Mike Moran & Lynsey De Paul

Returning artists

This year there were 10 returning artists. Beatrix Neudlinger and Günter Grosslercher, both member of the Austrian band Schmetterlinge, were also members of the band The Milstones, who represented Austria in 1972.
Patricia, Bianca and Stella Maessen, members of the Belgian band Dream Express, represented the Netherlands in 1970 as Patricia & Hearts of Soul.
Fernando Tordo, who represented Portugal in 1973 and Paulo de Carvalho, who represented Portugal in 1974, were member of the Portuguese band Os Amigos.
The Swarbriggs represented Ireland in 1975, Ilanit represented Israel in 1973 and Michèle Torr represented Luxembourg in 1966.

Iran Costa

Iran Costa

Iran Pereira da Costa, better known as just Iran Costa, born on December 28 in Porto Franco, is a Brazilian singer. Iran started his career as a radio presenter and producer. In 1991 he released his first single, Penso Em Ti, which was successful and got much attention in Brazil. His music career got a big boost in 1992 after Iran was invited to show his work in Europe. Iran released many successful singles and albums. For one of his albums he covered Sobe, sobe, balão sobe. 

Sobe, sobe, balão sobe was the Portuguese entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979, performed in Portuguese by Manuela Bravo and written by Carlos Nóbrega e Sousa.

The song is a moderately up-tempo number, with the singer describing life as being carefree. The English language recording of the song was entitled Flying Up with My Balloon.

The song was performed first on the night. At the close of voting, it had received 64 points, placing 9th in a field of 19 - Portugal's best result since 1972.

Eurovision Song Contest 1976

Brotherhood of Man

Date: April 3, 1976
Venue: Nederlands Congrescentrum, The Hague, Netherlands
Presenter: Corry Brokken
Orchestra: Metrople Orchestra
Conductor: Jan Stulen
Director: Theo Ordeman
Scruteneer: Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster: NOS
Price presenter: Getty Kaspers
Interval act: The Dutch swing college band
Duration: 2 hours, 11 minutes
Number of entries: 18
Debuting countries: -
Returning countries: Austria, Greece
Withdrawing countries: Sweden, Malta, Turkey
Winning Song: Save Your Kisses For Me - Brotherhood of Man, UK
Voting system: Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs

Entries

01. UK: Save your kisses for me - Brotherhood of Man (1st place, 164 points)
02. Switzerland: Peter, Sue and Marc - Djambo, Djambo (4th place, 91 points)
03. Germany: Les Humphries Singers - Sing sang song (15th place, 12 points)
04. Israel: Chocolat, Menta, Mastik - Emor shalom (6th place, 77 points)
05. Luxembourg: Jürgen Marcus - Chansons pour ceux qui sáiment (14th place, 17 points)
06. Belgium: Pierre Rapsat - Judy et Cie (8th place, 68 points)
07. Ireland: Red Hurley - When (10th place, 54 points)
08. The Netherlands: Sandra Reemer - The party's over (9th place, 56 points)
09. Norway: Anne-Karine Strøm - Mata Hari (18th place, 7 points)
10. Greece: Mariza Koch - Panagia mou, panagia mou (13th place, 20 points)
11. Finland: Fredi & Ystävät - Pump-pump (11th place, 44 points)
12. Spain: Braulio - Sobran las palabras (16th place, 11 points)
13. Italy: Al Bano & Romina Power - We'll live it all again (7th place, 69 points)
14. Austria: Waterloo & Robinson - My little world (5th place, 80 points)
15. Portugal: Carlos do Carmo - Uma flor de verde pinho (12th place, 24 points)
16. Monaco: Mary Christy - Toi, la musique et moi (3rd place, 93 points)
17. France: Catherine Ferry - Un, deux, trois (2nd place, 147 points)
18. Yugoslavia: Ambasadori - Ne mogu skriti svoju bol (17th place, 10 points)

Sandra Reemer

The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21th edition of the contest hosted by NOS and held in The Hague, Netherlands. The arena for the event was the Nederlands Congrescentrum. Teach-In's victory in Stockholm the previous year gave The Netherlands the right to host the contest for the third time. The Contest was won by Brotherhood of Man, who sang Save Your Kisses for Me in English, representing the United Kingdom. The song was written by Tony Hiller, Lee Sheriden and Martin Lee.

Location

Nederlands Congrescentrum (presently known as The World Forum Convention Center) was the venue for the twenty-first edition of Eurovision. The venue was constructed in 1969.

Format

The scoring system introduced in the previous years competition returned in 1976. Each jury gave 12 points to the best song, 10 to the second best, then 8 to the third, 7 to the fourth, 6 to the fifth and so forth until the tenth best song (in the jury's opinion) received a single point. Unlike today, the points were not given in order (from 1 up to 12), but in the order the songs were performed. The current procedure was not established until 1980.

 Catherine Ferry

Participating countries

Sweden, Malta and Turkey withdrew from this contest reducing the number of participating countries down to eighteen from the previous competitions record of nineteen countries that took part. Austria and Greece returned to the contest.

Sweden withdrew from the contest, as the broadcaster Sveriges Radio (SR) did not have enough money to host another contest if Sweden won again. A new rule was therefore introduced that in the future each broadcaster participating would have to pay a part of the cost of staging the contest. As the author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor notes in his book The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, there had been public demonstrations in Sweden against the contest, which also played a part in SR's decision to withdraw. The same book also notes that the victorious song went on to become the biggest selling winning single in the history of the contest and won with 80.39% of the possible maximum score; a record under the voting system introduced in 1975.

Sandra reemer

Malta, having selected Enzo Guzman with the song Sing Your Song, Country Boy to represent them, then withdrew from the contest for undisclosed reasons, as the singer has confirmed. Malta would not return to the competition until 1991. The entry from Greece aroused controversy as it was about the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The previous year Greece had withdrawn from the contest in protest over this matter. This year it was Turkey's turn to withdraw.

Liechtenstein attempted to submit an entry to the contest, but as they had no broadcasting service of their own, they were not allowed to. Their entry would have been Little Cowboy by Biggi Bachmann.

Returning artists

Four artists returned to the contest in 1976. Fredi who represented Finland in 1967, Sandra Reemer returned having represented Netherlands in 1972, Peter, Sue and Marc also returned having represented Switzerland in 1971, and finally Anne-Karine Strøm represented Norway again having last done so in 1974. She repeated her finishing result by coming last once more.

Eurovision Song Contest 1975

Teach-In

Date: March 22, 1975
Venue: Stockholmsmässan, Stockholm, Sweden
Presenter: Karin Falck
Conductor: Mats Olsson
Director: Bo Billtén
Scruteneer: Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster: SR
Price presenter: Henrik Hahr
Interval act: The World of John Bauer
Duration: 2 hours, 13 minutes
Number of entries: 19
Debuting countries: Turkey
Returning countries: France, Malta
Withdrawing countries: Greece
Winning Song: Ding-A-Dong - Teach-In, The Netherlands
Voting system: Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs

Entries

01. The Netherlands: Teach-In - Ding-A-Dong (1st place, 152 points)
02. Ireland: The Swarbriggs - That's what friends are for (9th place, 68 points)
03. France: Nicole Rieu - Et bonjour à toi l'artiste (4th place, 91 points)
04. Germany: Joy Fleming - Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein (17th place, 15 points)
05. Luxembourg: Geraldine - Toi (5th place, 84 points)
06. Norway: Ellen Nikolaysen - Touch my life (18th place, 11 points)
07. Switzerland: Simone Drexel - Mikado (6th place, 77 points)
08. Yugoslavia: Pepel In Kri - Dan Ljubezni (13th place, 22 points)
09. UK: The Shadows - Let me be the one (2nd place, 138 points)
10. Malta: Renato - Singing this song (12th place, 32 points)
11. Belgium: Ann Christy - Gelukkig zijn (15th place, 17 points)
12. Israel: Schlomo Artzi - At va ani (11th place, 40 points)
13. Turkey: Semiha Yanki - Seninle bir dakika (19th place, 3 points)
14. Monaco: Sophie - Une chanson c'est une lettre (13th place, 22 points)
15. Finland: Pihasoittajat - Old man fiddle (7th place, 74 points)
16. Portugal: Duarte Mendes - Madrugada (16th place, 16 points)
17. Spain: Sergio y Estíbaliz - Tú volverás (10th place, 53 points)
18. Sweden: Lasse Berghagen - Jennie, Jennie (8th points, 72 points)
19. Italy: Wess & Dori Ghezzi - Era (3rd place, 115 points)

The Eurovision Song Contest 1975 was the 20th edition of the contest hosted by Karin Falck and held in Stockholm, Sweden. The arena for the event was the newly built Stockholm International Fairs in Älvsjö in southern Stockholm. ABBA's victory in Brighton the previous year gave Sweden the right to host the contest for the first time. The Contest was won by Teach-In, who sang Ding-A-Dong in English, representing the Netherlands. The song was written by Dick Bakker, Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens.

Getty Kaspers

Location

Stockholmsmässan (Stockholm International Fairs) was the venue for the twentieth edition of Eurovision. The main building is in Älvsjö – a southern suburb of Stockholm Municipality for which the building got its nickname – and was constructed in 1971, and holds 4,000 people.

Format

This year a new scoring system was implemented, one which is still used today. Each jury would now give 12 points to the best song, 10 to the second best, then 8 to the third, 7 to the fourth, 6 to the fifth and so forth until the tenth best song (in the jury's opinion) received a single point. The host Karin Falck several times confused the new system with questions like "How much is seven in France?" Unlike today, the points were not given in order (from 1 up to 12), but in the order the songs were performed. The current procedure was not established until 1980.

The Portuguese entry Madrugada was an unabashed celebration of the Carnation Revolution, during which the country's 1974 Eurovision entry had played a pivotal practical role. According to author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor in his book The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, the Portuguese performer had to be dissuaded from wearing his Portuguese army uniform and carrying a gun onto the stage. Some competitors (notably Portugal and Yugoslavia) opted to perform their songs in English for the rehearsals heard by the judges, but in their native tongue at the final. Others, such as Belgium and Germany, opted for a mix of their own language and English.

 Joy Fleming

Participating countries

Greece withdrew from this contest in response to the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, in protest of Turkey's participation. Despite this, a record of nineteen countries took part. Turkey made their début, while France and Malta returned to the contest.

Returning artists

Norway's Ellen Nikolaysen was the only participant to return to the contest this year. Ellen's previous participations where with the band Bendik Singers in 1973 and 1974.

Eurovision Song Contest 1974

 ABBA

Date: April 6, 1974
Venue: The Dome, Brighton, UK
Presenter: Katie Boyle
Orchestra: BBC Television orchestra
Conductor: Ronnie Hazlehurst
Director: Michael Hurll
Scruteneer: Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster: BBC
Price presenter: Sir Charles Curran
Interval act: - The Wombles
Duration: 1 hour, 49 minutes
Number of entries: 17
Debuting countries: Greece
Returning countries: -
Withdrawing countries: France, Malta
Winning Song: Waterloo - ABBA, Sweden
Voting system: Each country had 10 jurors who could all give 1 vote to their favourite song.

Entries

01. Finland: Carita Holmström - Keep me warm (13th place, 4 points)
02. UK: Olivia Newton John - Long live love (4th place, 14 points)
03. Spain: Peret - Canta y sé feliz (9th place, 10 points)
04. Norway: Anne-Karine Strøm feat. Bendik Singers - The first day of love (14th place, 3 points)
05. Greece: Marinella - Krasí, thálassa ke t' agóri mou (11th place, 7 points)
06. Israel: Kaveret - Natati La Khayay (7th place, 11 points)
07. Yugoslavia: Korni Grupa - Generacija '42 (12th place, 6 points)
08. Sweden: ABBA - Waterloo (1st place, 24 points)
09. Luxembourg: Ireen Sheer - Bye bye I love you (4th place, 14 points)
10. Monaco: Romuald - Celui qui reste et celui qui s'en va (4th place, 14 points)
11. Belgium: Jacques Hustin - Fleur de liberté (9th place, 10 points)
12. The Netherlands: Mouth and MacNeal - I see a star (3rd place, 15 points)
13. Ireland: Tina Reynolds - Cross your heart (7th place, 11 points)
14. Germany: Cindy & Bert - Die Sommermelodie (14th place, 3 points)
15. Switzerland: Piera Martell - Mein Ruf nach dir (14th place, 3 points)
16. Portugal: Paulo de Carvalho - E depois do adeus (14th place, 3 points)
17. Italy: Gigliola Cinquetti - Si (2nd place, 18 points)

Mouth and MacNeal

The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 was the 19th Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in the seaside resort of Brighton on the south coast of the United Kingdom. The BBC agreed to stage the event after Luxembourg, having won in both 1972 and 1973, declined on the grounds of expense to host the contest for a second consecutive year.

Katie Boyle came back to host her fourth Eurovision Song Contest (she also hosted the contest in 1960, 1963 and 1968). ABBA sang the song Waterloo, which was written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson. The group went on to become one of the most popular recording artists of all time. Along with 1988 winner Celine Dion, ABBA are among the few Eurovision winners to achieve international superstar status. Sweden's win was their first.

Location

The venue which hosted the 1974 Contest was the Brighton Dome, an arts venue that contains the Concert Hall, the Corn Exchange and the Pavilion Theatre. All three venues are linked to the rest of the Royal Pavilion Estate by an underground tunnel to the Royal Pavilion in Pavilion Gardens and through shared corridors to Brighton Museum, as the entire complex was built for the Prince Regent (later George IV) and completed in 1805. Originally the Concert Hall was the Prince Regent's stables with the Corn Exchange being a riding school.

Format

A two-night preview programme, Auftakt für Brighton (Prelude for Brighton), was coordinated by the German national broadcaster ARD in February and was hosted by the journalist Karin Tietze-Ludwig. It shares two special distinctions in that it was the first preview-type programme to be broadcast in many European countries simultaneously (traditionally each national broadcaster puts together their own preview programme), and also in that it aired nearly six weeks before the actual Contest, the earliest-ever airing of preview week. The programme was also notable in being the European television debut for the winners, ABBA, who were peculiarly credited in previews as The Abba.

Participating countries

Seventeen nations took part in this year's contest. Greece made their début, while France and Malta withdrew.

Returning artists

Three artists returned to the contest this year. Gigliola Cinquetti winner of the 1964 Contest participated again for Italy, Romuald Figuier who also participated in the 1964 Contest for Monaco, as well as in 1969 Contest for Luxembourg and Norway's Bendik Singers also returned after last participating in Eurovision Song Contest 1973.

 ABBA

Notable incidents:

The United Kingdom was represented in the contest by the British born Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John, who came fourth with the song Long Live Love. As noted by author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor in his book The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, Olivia disliked this song and preferred others from the UK heat, but Long Live Love was chosen as the UK's entry by a public postal vote.

France had been going to enter this Eurovision with the song La vie à vingt-cinq ans by Dani, but they withdrew after the French President, Georges Pompidou, died in the week of the contest. Since his funeral was held the day of the contest, it was deemed inappropriate for the French to take part. Dani was seen by viewers in the audience at the point the French song should have been performed, after the Irish and before the German entry. For the same reason, the French singer Anne-Marie David, who had won the first place for Luxembourg in 1973, could not come to Brighton to hand the prize to the 1974 winner.

 Carita Holmström

Malta withdrew from the contest for unknown reasons, but had selected Enzo Guzman with the song Paċi Fid Dinja to represent them. The singer has confirmed this to be the case. Malta returned to the competition in 1975.

Italy refused to broadcast the televised contest on the state television channel RAI because of a song sung by Gigliola Cinquetti which coincided with the intense political campaigning for the 1974 Italian referendum on divorce which was held a month later in May. Despite the Eurovision contest taking place more than a month before the planned vote and despite Cinquetti going as far as winning second place, Italian censors refused to allow the contest and song to be shown or heard. RAI censors felt the song which was titled Sì, and which contained lyrics constantly repeating the word SI (yes) could be accused of being a subliminal message and a form of propaganda to influence the Italian voting public to vote "YES" in the referendum. The song remained censored on most Italian state TV and radio stations for over a month.

Portugal's entry E depois do adeus was used as one of the two signals to launch the Carnation Revolution against the Estado Novo regime. The song alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup and the tanks of the left-wing military coup to move in. John Kennedy O'Connor describes it as the only Eurovision entry to have actually started a revolution, while Des Mangan suggests that other Portuguese entries would not be likely to inspire coups.

Sweden won the contest with a score of 24 points, representing just 15% of the possible available vote. Such a low percentage has never been achieved since, but it is still higher than the 12% achieved by each of the four winners in 1969. This was the first time when four countries came last with 3 points.

Eurovision Song Contest 1973

 

Anne-Marie David

Date: April 7, 1973
Venue: The Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Presenter: Helga Guitton
Conductor: Pierre Cao
Director: René Steichen
Scruteneer: Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster: RTL
Price presenter: Vicky Leandros
Interval act: Charlie Rivel
Duration: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Number of entries: 17
Debuting countries: Israel
Returning countries: -
Withdrawing countries: Austria, Malta
Winning Song: Tu te reconnaîtras - Anne-Marie David, Luxembourg

Voting system: Each country had two jury members, one aged between 16 and 25 and another aged between 26 and 55. They each awarded 1 to 5 points for each song (except for the song from their own country) immediately after it was performed, the votes were collected and counted as soon as they were cast. The juries watched the show on TV from a backstage area of the theatre and then appeared on stage to confirm their scores.

Entries

01. Finland: Marion Rung - Tom Tom Tom (6th place, 93 points)
02. Belgium: Nicole & Hugo - Baby, Baby (17th place, 58 points)
03. Portugal: Fernando Tordo - Tourada (10th place, 80 points)
04. Germany: Gitte - Junger Tag (8th place, 85 points)
05. Norway: Bendik Singers - It's just a game (7th place, 89 points)
06. Monaco: Marie - Un train qui part (8th place, 85 points)
07. Spain: Mocedades - Eres tú (2nd place, 125 points)
08. Switzerland: Patrick Juvet - Je vais me marier, Marie (12th place, 79 points)
09. Yugoslavia: Zdravko Čolić - Gori vatra (15th place, 65 points)
10. Italy: Massimo Ranieri - Chi sarà con te (13th place, 74 points)
11. Luxembourg: Anne-Marie David - Tu te reconnaîtras (1st place, 129 points)
12. Sweden: Nova and The Dolls - You're summer (5th place, 94 points)
13. The Netherlands: Ben Cramer - De oude muzikant (14th place, 69 points)
14. Ireland: Maxi - Do I dream (10th place, 80 points)
15. UK: Cliff Richard - Power to all our friends (3rd place, 123 points)
16. France: Martine Clémenceau - Sans toi (15th place, 65 points)
17. Israel: Ilanit - Ey sham (4th place, 97 points)

Ben Cramer

The Eurovision Song Contest 1973 was the eighteenth Eurovision Song Contest and was held in Luxembourg. Luxembourg's win was their fourth. The winning song Tu te reconnaîtras was sung by Anne-Marie David and was written by Claude Morgan and Vline Buggy. The voting was a very close one, with Spain finishing only 4 points behind and Cliff Richard (who came second in 1968) another 2 points after. According to The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History by John Kennedy O'Connor, the winning song scored the highest score ever achieved in Eurovision under any voting format, recording 129 points out of a possible 160; scoring just under 81% of the possible maximum, but partly due to a scoring system which guaranteed all countries at least two points from each other country.

Location

The Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, inaugurated in 1964 as the Théâtre Municipal de la Ville de Luxembourg, became the venue for the 1973 contest. It is the city's major venue for drama, opera and ballet.

Ilanit

Format

The language rule forcing countries to enter songs sung in any of their national languages was dropped, so performers from some countries sang in English. The event was marked by controversy when the Spanish song, Eres tú, was accused of plagiarism due to reasonable similarities in the melody with the Yugoslav entry from the 1966 contest (Brez besed sung by Berta Ambrož); however, Eres tú was not disqualified. After finishing second in the contest, the song went on to become a huge international hit.

The somewhat elliptical lyrics to Portugal's entry Tourada provided sufficient cover for a song that was clearly understood as a blistering assault on the country's decaying dictatorship. Also, the word breasts was used in Sweden's song entry. However, no action was taken by the EBU. An argument broke out between the singer Maxi and her Irish delegation over how the song should be performed. During rehearsals she repeatedly stopped performing in frustration. When it began to appear possible that Maxi might withdraw from the contest, RTÉ immediately sent over another singer, Tina Reynolds, to take her place just in case. In the end Miss Reynolds wasn't needed as Maxi did perform, with her entry earning 10th place on the scoreboard. (Tina Reynolds would perform the following year.)

Anne-Marie David

This contest holds the record for the most watched Eurovision Song Contest in the United Kingdom, and is also the 18th most watched television show in the same country, with an estimated 21.54 million tuning in on the night. Cliff Richard represented the UK with the song Power to All Our Friends. He came 3rd with 123 points.

In the light of events at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, there were fears of a terrorist threat, particularly directed against Israel's first-ever entrant, leading to unusually tight security for the contest. This gave rise to one of the best-known Eurovision anecdotes, frequently recounted by the UK's long-serving commentator Terry Wogan. He recalled that the floor manager strongly advised the audience to remain seated while applauding the performances, otherwise they risked being shot by security forces.

 Mocedades

Participating countries

Seventeen nations took part in this year's contest. Malta was drawn to perform in 6th place between Norway and Monaco, but the Maltese broadcaster withdrew before the deadline to select an entry. The 1973 contest marked the first time that women conducted the ESC orchestra. Monica Dominique conducted the Swedish entry and Nurit Hirsh conducted the Israeli entry.

Returning artists

Three artists returned to the 1973 contest, Finland's Marion Rung, who last represented the nation in 1962; 1971 entrant Massimo Ranieri from Italy; and Cliff Richard, who last performed Congratulations for the United Kingdom in 1968.

Morgan

Marco Castoldi better known by his stage name Morgan was born in Milan on December 23 1972. He is a singer, musician and multi-instrumentalist. His musical genres are mainly alternative rock and synth rock, sometimes experimental rock and synthpop. He is been also a judge for three years in the Italian version of The X Factor.

He is also a founding member of Bluvertigo, an Italian band formed in 1992. Their first album was released in 1995, Acidi e basi, followed in 1997 by Metallo non metallo and in 1999 by Zero. Their latest album is Pop Tools, a compilation released in 2001. In 2003 Morgan released his first solo album: Le canzoni dell'appartamento.

In 2008 he released the album Italian songbook vol. 1 and in 2012 Italian Songbook vol. 2 with covers of famous Italian songs.