{"id":12750,"date":"2012-03-30T21:05:52","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T01:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=12750"},"modified":"2012-04-01T10:03:37","modified_gmt":"2012-04-01T14:03:37","slug":"where-did-abba-come-from-daddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/where-did-abba-come-from-daddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Did ABBA Come From, Daddy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12767 aligncenter\" title=\"570px-Eurovision_logo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/570px-Eurovision_logo-300x120.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"120\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/570px-Eurovision_logo-300x120.png 300w, https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/570px-Eurovision_logo.png 570w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s coming&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I have been watching the <strong>Eurovision Song Contest<\/strong> since about 1971, which means that, even allowing for the years when I have had other demands on my time, I have devoted something like a whole week of my life to the event.<\/p>\n<p>Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, there were a group of European countries, who just ten years previously had either been at war with one another, occupied by or occupying one another, or keeping out of it by pleading neutrality.  An organisation based in Switzerland called the European Broadcasting Union put forward the suggestion that an international song contest should be held, primarily to test the limits of live television broadcasting technology, but also to promote international harmony.<\/p>\n<p>And so in 1956, in Switzerland, seven countries tested the technology, and ever since then, on a Saturday evening in the Spring, Europe pauses to come together in a festival of music to unite the continent.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I became aware of the competition, sometime around 1970 or thereabouts, it was well established, and the format had shown itself to be quite adaptable, with an increasing number of nations taking part.  The national broadcasting organisation in each participating country is fairly autonomous, so I can only attempt to describe the Contest through a British pair of eyes.<\/p>\n<p>I have a compilation of every winner since 1956 (including all four tied winners from 1969 &#8211; they ran out of medals and after the Contest had to go away and work out how to stop it happening again), which I have been known to play on long car journeys.<\/p>\n<p>As a service to the Hall I have edited the highlights among the winners down to just under eighteen minutes.  The sound quality is highly variable, but I am sure that this will be the least of the worries of some Townsfolk when faced with some of the music contained herein.<\/p>\n[audio:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/eurocomp.mp3|titles=Fifty-Six Years of Eurovision in Eighteen Minutes]\n<p>Alternatively, here&#8217;s <strong>Lulu<\/strong>.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cALc_kuhcr0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Early in the year, each broadcaster selects, in whichever way it sees fit, an artist and a song to represent the country.  In the early 1970s the British entry was selected through the <em>Cliff Richard Show<\/em>, with somebody like <strong>Olivia Newton-John<\/strong>, <strong>The Shadows<\/strong> (without Cliff), or Cliff himself singing a song each week and viewers would vote for the song they preferred, which would then proceed to the Contest.  If I remember correctly, this was done by viewers cutting out a coupon from the <em>Radio Times<\/em> (the BBC&#8217;s TV listings magazine, in existence since before telly &#8211; hence the title) and posting it to the BBC.  This was in the days when British homes tended to have small black and white televisions, but tended not to have telephones, so it probably was the most democratic selection process available at the time.  I remember my Grandma telling me in no uncertain terms that she wouldn&#8217;t waste her money on the Radio Times, so I don&#8217;t think we ever voted.<\/p>\n<p>From very early on in its history, the Contest has been hosted by the winner of the previous year&#8217;s competition.  Every country works to put on a show more impressive than those which have gone before, a bit like the Olympic Games, which inevitably costs quite a lot to stage, but works quite well unless a country has a winning streak for several years.  In the 1990s, Ireland won it 3 years on the trot, and again a couple of years later, and their Government were seriously concerned that the Irish economy would collapse if it had to pay for another one &#8211; at which point they decided to ensure that they selected a song which couldn&#8217;t possibly win.  This may at first glance appear quite straightforward, in a &#8220;Springtime for Hitler&#8221; sort of way &#8211; but doesn&#8217;t always pay off.  I&#8217;ll get to the songs themselves in a bit.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p>Luxembourg won in 1972 and hosted the Contest in 1973, but having won that one as well simply refused to host it, so in 1974 it was held in Brighton, England.<\/p>\n<p>Just as he had refused to take me to see <strong>Wizzard<\/strong> on Hastings Pier, my father also refused to take me 30 miles along the south coast to go to Eurovision, to see <strong>ABBA<\/strong> winning with &#8220;Waterloo.&#8221;<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3FsVeMz1F5c?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Each broadcaster sends its own team to cover the event &#8211; so every country has its own commentary with its own take on the event.<\/p>\n<p>British coverage was until recently provided by a light-hearted Irish DJ called <strong>Terry Wogan<\/strong>, whose schtick was to not take the event at all seriously, alert the British audience to absurdities about to gallumph over the horizon and onto our screens, and complain that the Contest is fixed when Britain was losing.  Eventually his light heart grew heavy with what he took to be the politics of the event, and after a frankly disgraceful swansong bordering on xenophobia he bowed out about 3 or 4 years ago.  His replacement since then has been <strong>Graham Norton<\/strong>, another Irishman (whose work I otherwise can&#8217;t stand, but who carries the British end of the Broadcast very well).<\/p>\n<p>Having won the Contest the year before, the host nation broadcasts largely in its own language, so unless you are fluent (in the case of the last 2 years&#8217; Contests) in Norwegian or German (while this year the Contest will be conducted in Azerbaijani), you need a commentary to be able to follow it &#8211; unless you&#8217;ve ever seen it before and know the rules.<\/p>\n<p>Because everyone has seen it before (or is watching with someone else who has) the commentary approximates to someone rambling during the least interesting bits of a fairly slow sporting event &#8211; rather like the old boys who drone on for 5 days at a stretch during the radio coverage of the cricket over here, (including the lengthy periods when they&#8217;ve all gone in because it&#8217;s raining &#8211; at which point the commentators on Test Match Special are able to talk for hours about a nice cake which someone has brought in for them.  I am not joking, the BBC are committed to live radio coverage of every ball of every test match played by the England team).  But I digress.<\/p>\n<p>So, back to Eurovision, bastion of all that is best in European music&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;HANG ON!&#8221; I hear you say.  &#8220;AZERBAIJANI?!?!  RUN THAT ONE BY ME AGAIN, WILL YOU?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/geology.com\/world\/azerbaijan-map.gif\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/geology.com\/world\/azerbaijan-map.gif<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I can feel heads being collectively scratched in the Hall among geographers present, puzzled at the unexpected movement of Azerbaijan several thousand miles to the west in order to take part in this feast of musical delights.  Has there been a spectacular movement of tectonic plates about which Fox News or CNN has not made us aware?  Well, no&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p>That well-known European nation that just happens to be in the Middle East, er&#8230; Israel&#8230; first took part in 1973 (and won in 1978 with the highly enthusiastic and catchy &#8220;A-Ba-Ni-Bi&#8221;, also &#8211; probably accidentally &#8211; the following year with the entirely unmemorable &#8220;Hallelujah&#8221;).  All of Scandinavia takes part, and with the collapse and break up of the USSR, most of the Eastern Bloc enter as well, with previous winners hailing from Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Serbia, and Russia.<\/p>\n<p>The Contest begins each year with a cheesy film promoting the host country, cutting to the cheesiest pair of hosts the country has managed to muster, who will invariably at some point attempt to deliver a joke which was never going to travel well in English.  At this point English speaking viewers are torn between the agony of realisation that their Norwegian or Azerbaijani will never be as good as the hosts&#8217; English, and the agony of embarrassment that anyone could ever have thought that a bad joke delivered in faltering English by a couple of presenters who possibly have no idea what they have just read from the autocue, but are required to laugh and congratulate one another on having done so and appear convincing without the talent to do so, could possibly ever be a good idea.  The non-English speaking world meanwhile, just assumes they&#8217;ve slipped into another accent and wishes they&#8217;d get on with it.<\/p>\n<p>Then &#8211; bang! &#8211; straight into last year&#8217;s winner, and then &#8211; let Eurovision commence!<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-d2mnuhJahU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>The songs are played live, one after another with only a break long enough between them for the cheesy hosts to crack a few jokes and congratulate one another, and to run a short and cheesy clip to introduce the song of the next country, invariably picking on a national stereotype and running it through the Eurovision Cheese Vat.<\/p>\n<p>When all countries have had their turn, the voting commences.  Now that most people own a telephone, most countries allow their audiences to vote &#8211; it used to be done by a committee of industry types, but is more democratic these days.  You are not, for instance, allowed to vote for your own country, although the voting in countries with 18 inhabitants carries the same weight as those with several hundred million.<\/p>\n<p>In each country the act with most votes gets 10 points, the second 9 points and so on down to 1 point for the 10th.  Norway scored a memorable first, but nothing else, in 1978 when their entry became the first song to score &#8220;nul points,&#8221; a feat they replicated in 1981, and since when only another 14 acts have followed in their footsteps.  It took Norway until 1997 to complete their hat-trick.<\/p>\n<p>While the voting is taking place there is an interval act.\u00a0<strong>Riverdance<\/strong>, for instance, was created for one of the Irish intervals, and is now inescapable over here.  Most are unmemorable.<\/p>\n<p>About half an hour later the votes are in and each country reports their votes via a live link to the venue.  This is conducted in both the language of the country announcing its votes and English, and takes about as long as it took to run through the songs.<\/p>\n<p>It does not take, of course, the brain of a great military tactician to realise that while in the days when 12 or 15 countries took part it was possible for each of the 12 or 15 to play their songs, have a cup of tea, and then come on and report in 2 languages all of their votes in ascending order and still be done by sunrise.  When over 40 countries take part, however, it takes a bit longer.  A lot, lot longer&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It was decided a few years ago that a system of semi-finals would be introduced, with only the top 20 or so appearing on the big night, which cut back the musical element to between 90 minutes and 2 hours, but all 40 or so countries still vote and report their results, and it was only in the last couple of years that the results bit was changed so that the board is populated automatically with each country&#8217;s sixth to tenth place, but it has reduced the section to about 2 hours instead of all night and well into the next morning.<\/p>\n<p>At the end the winner comes on and performs their song again, everybody cheers and then they all go home.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gXvHpQjhepk?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>It&#8217;s clunky, it&#8217;s creaky, the format has only grudgingly changed through absolute necessity in almost 60 years, and yet &#8211; despite the technology it was designed to demonstrate being superseded several times over (the first satellite hadn&#8217;t been invented when the first one took place) &#8211; it remains hugely popular.  People all over Europe hold Eurovision parties and invite all of their friends, families and neighbours around to all watch it together &#8211; it is unlike any other annual television event, a sort of indoor street party.<\/p>\n<p>And the main, if not only, reason it remains so popular is that it is so consistently, predictably terrible.  The presenters are selected for their ghastliness, the film clips are at best idiosyncratic, while the commentators are unable to contain their derision throughout as it rolls like my first car would have done had it only had three wheels and no  brakes to the moment when the winner is announced and get up to do their thing again at whatever hour of the morning it finishes.<\/p>\n<p>And, of course, the songs are almost invariably completely shocking.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/REHS12tsj7c?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>In an average year there might be one which stands out as having some merit, at least in comparison with the others, but it is by no means a foregone conclusion that it will win, as householders in 40 nations with little enough in common with their neighbouring countries, let alone those not only at the other end of Europe but in the Middle East, some of which use different musical notation.<\/p>\n<p>Since the addition of the former Soviet Bloc countries, it has been difficult to overlook their tendency to vote for one another as a matter of course regardless of the quality of the songs tendered, and also their tendency to not vote for anyone who has irritated Putin recently.<\/p>\n<p>I tend to the theory that they generally vote for one another because they are culturally more used to the sort of music being made by countries to whom they used to be politically as well as geographically linked, just as Greece or Macedonia will tend to enter a song featuring banks of bouzouki and balalaika players and vote for one another because they like bouzoukis and balalaikas.<\/p>\n<p>Greece and Cyprus ALWAYS give one another 12 points, and would probably insist on doing so even if the other were not taking part.<\/p>\n<p>The Contest is further complicated by countries competing against one another who spend the rest of the year denying one another&#8217;s right to exist, or in the case of Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus who owns which bit of which land-mass.  I defy anyone to read the Wikipedia article on Northern Cyprus and emerge without a headache.<\/p>\n<p>Armenia are boycotting this year&#8217;s contest after the Azerbaijani president declared Armenians to be their mortal enemies.  Italy pulled out of the contest for 14 years, as far as I can ascertain because in 1974 the song chosen to represent their own country was claimed to contain subliminal messages aimed at influencing a referendum due to be held a month later on the issue of abortion, and the organisers refused to censor the broadcast.  Lebanon were due to participate in 2005, but pulled out because they do not recognise the existence of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>But, anyway, the songs&#8230;  For many years all of the songs were sung in English, but in 1973 that was dropped.  Mainly there is a mix of power ballads, bouncy pop songs with choruses accessible to all nations regardless of which language they speak &#8211; &#8220;Boom Bang-a-Bang,&#8221; &#8220;Ding-a-Dong,&#8221; &#8220;La La La,&#8221; and the aforementioned &#8220;A-Ba-Ni-Bi&#8221; all being worthy former winners, odd (to Western ears) Eastern music played in unfamiliar scales with banks of bouzoukis or things that look as if they are carved out of alien pumpkins &#8211; and songs which have been entered because the country they represent doesn&#8217;t want to win for fear of having to host next year&#8217;s competition.<\/p>\n<p>There are always one or two of these which manage to get through to the final, and you can almost sense the fear among the participants that their avant garde performance art might actually backfire, and they will have to face the president when they get home and work out how a country with two-hundred-and-fifty inhabitants and an economy built entirely on the export of soft cheese is supposed to be able to put on an international music festival, and how they would be able to afford to build a major concert venue even if they could get it to stand up on a geological base of fine sand.  I am fairly certain in my own mind that Finland did not expect this song to win in 2006.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mh3hj9-J76Y?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>It is very easy to mock, and indeed can be a great deal of fun to do so, but for almost 60 years the Eurovision Song Contest has done far more to bring people together than any other annual event that I can think of.  No one anywhere in the world takes it seriously, but every year everyone turns up, millions of people all over the world switch it on to watch it, and everyone goes home happy.  It started before I was born, and it will almost certainly still be going on long after I&#8217;m gone.<\/p>\n<p>This year <strong>Jedward<\/strong> are representing Ireland again, and are, apparently, the favourites to win.  <strong>Engelbert Humperdinck<\/strong> is representing Great Britain, but won&#8217;t win because none of the Eastern Bloc countries will vote for us, while the Russian Grannies could put up a stronger showing than one might expect.  I&#8217;ve only ever picked about three of the winners in forty years, but that won&#8217;t stop me watching &#8211; if only to see if the Russian Grannies can go all the way.<\/p>\n<p>International harmony at its best!<\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/where-did-abba-come-from-daddy\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/where-did-abba-come-from-daddy\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/where-did-abba-come-from-daddy\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/where-did-abba-come-from-daddy\/4\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">4<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s coming&#8230; I have been watching the Eurovision Song Contest since about 1971, which means that, even allowing for the years when I have had other demands on my time, I have devoted something like a whole week of my life to the event. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, there were <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/where-did-abba-come-from-daddy\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[609,607],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}