Wogan’s Wit: Eurovision

Another essay branching from the Muggle Studies homework, thanks Caro for the idea!

Wogan’s Wit: Eurovision

The Eurovision Song Contest. An annual singing competition between countries in Europe – one act from each participating country perform a cheesy song and the rest of the countries in Europe vote.

The show is broadcast throughout Europe on the television, the radio and more recently, the Internet. The first contest was back in 1956, and there were no rules about language or timing. The rule that each song could be no more than three minutes long was introduced in 1957. The winners of that very first Eurovision were Switzerland. They have gone on to win only once more.

I shall now look at the times the UK have won the Eurovision. We first won in 1967 with bare-footed Sandie Shaw’s song “Puppet on a String”. Typical Eurovision fare, with lyrics such as:

Love is just like a merry-go-round
With all the fun in the air
One day I'm feeling down on the ground
Then I'm up in the air
Are you leading me on?
Tomorrow will you be gone?

I wonder if one day that, you'll say that, you care
If you love me madly, I'll gladly, be there
Like a puppet on a string

The United Kingdom came joint first in 1969 with Boom bang-a-bang by Lulu. Perhaps the cheesiest UK entry was the winner of the 1976 contest, “Save All Your Kisses for Me” by Brotherhood of Man.

The UK then went on to win a further two times, in 1981, Bucks Fizz were victorious with the song “Making Your Mind Up”, and in 1997, Katrina and the Waves won with their song “Love Shine a Light”. It is interesting to note that both of those song contests took place in Dublin – perhaps a little of the Irish luck was passed onto the English?

But perhaps the best part of watching Eurovision (because, come on, it’s not for the quality of the songs!), is listening to Terry Wogan’s acerbic commentary. The radio 2 DJ has commentated the Eurovision for many years, and it is his witty comments that really make Eurovision.

For example, during this years Eurovision, we saw some short videos of Athens. During one such video, Wogan remarked “Oh look, that’s a beach. And those are people.” Perhaps it does not sound very funny, but in that sarcastic voice of his, the videos became a little less boring.

It’s also interesting listening to Wogan when the results are being announced. He will always try and guess to which country the twelve points will go to, but invariably ends up guessing wrong. One thing is for sure: the United Kingdom won’t be seeing those twelve points!

For the last nine years, the UK has not even had a look-in when it comes to winning the Eurovision. The entry for 2004, a song by duo Jemini, took home an astounding score of “nil points”, our most embarrassing to date. Wogan will tell you it is political voting – countries vote for their neighbours, and he may very well be right.

A popular Eurovision night event is to throw a Eurovision party. If you can gather together enough friends, the idea is that everyone is assigned a country. People eat traditional European food, drink European drinks and watch the Eurovision song contest together.

Another fun thing to try is to put the subtitles on (or now, use the interactive red button which will give you the lyrics on screen). Any songs that are not in your native language are translated. It’s rather amusing to find that that song with the romantic sounding foreign lyrics, is actually a song about “fluffy little kittens with noses”.

This years victors were Lordi, a freakishly weird looking Finnish rock band, with the song “Hard Rock Hallelujah”, with lyrics such as:

“Rock 'n roll angels bring thyn Hard Rock Hallelujah
Demons and angels all in one have arrived
Rock 'n roll angels bring thyn Hard Rock Hallelujah
In God's creation supernatural high.”

An unusual Eurovision entry, and even more unusual is the fact that it won – gone are the days of cheesy lyrics and skirt-whipping-off frenzies – is this the future of Eurovision?

Hard rock? Hallelujah!

Grr ... I'm going to have Puppet on a String in my head for the entire day now Duck! 50 points.