Eurovision 1973: Full Lux | Song super cut and animated scoreboard

An edited down version of the Eurovision Song Contest 1973 from Luxembourg, with a scoreboard using today’s technology. This all started as a lockdown project!

This edit will give a flavour of the evening (Sat 7 April, 9:30pm) with commentary for the first time on TV, from Terry Wogan.

We’re in the full glare of Eurovision’s glory as the Contest comes of age with its 18th edition. Lux, if you don’t know, is the measure of illuminance from a light source. The night in Luxembourg’s [enter name] Theatre is certainly one that always makes it to super-cuts of Eurovision history.

The 3 songs that ended up at the top of the scoreboard in the first close scoring sequence since 1969 all became big hits, but unsurprisingly for Eurovision, the winner only registered a #1 in Belgium. ‘Eres tú’ would have to wait until 1974 to get a US top-10, one of only five Spanish musical acts to do so in history. The biggest success was Cliff’s ‘Power to All Our Friends’ - described as a ‘British-schlager’, it reached the top spot in 6 countries, and #4 in the UK. After the Contest, Cliff went immediately to do a lucrative tour of Australia. Music is a business after all, and accounts from his team say he wasn’t bothered by being beaten for a second time (and being bested by Spain again), in fact he approached Mocedades in rehearsals and told them that in a just world, Spain would take their third title.

It’s widely accounted that Cliff’s nerves got the better of him and he had to take Valium - what’s verifiable is that he didn’t want to be in the artist’s ‘enclosure’ for the voting. Spared of being on camera in 1968, Cliff was hiding in the toilet of a third-floor dressing room. He was perhaps right to be nervous, not just of the voting, or the backing track issue (see comments), but security was stepped up as Israel joined the Contest, just 7 months after the brutal massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

1973 shone light on the role of women in Eurovision too - the conductor’s baton had been solely held by men up until this year. Monica Dominique of Sweden just pipped Israeli Nurit Hirsch to being first by luck of the draw. The warm glow of English (or any language you choose) was finally allowed – the new voting system hadn’t liberated the Nordics from the bottom of board it seemed. All three finished in the top 10 this year– an unlikely result for the bloc at the time, with Finland securing it’s best position until 2006’s win.

There was drama elsewhere too. Ben Cramer (NED) was tough with the technicians; Sweden’s lyrics ruffled a few feathers in Stockholm (see comments) after beating a yet unnamed ABBA with ‘Ring Ring’ in Melodifestivalen. Ireland’s Maxi eventually won a battle with the RTÉ delegation about how ‘Do I Dream’ should be performed. A replacement was flown out but Tina Reynolds sat in a hotel room and watched Ireland rack up another unimpressive finish (their average position being 12th since winning in 70).

The winner, ‘Tu te reconnaîtras’ sung by another product of the Parisian music industry, 20-year-old Anne-Marie David, who ended with the highest proportion of points ever, a record that still stands, and one that is unlikely to be topped with the post-2016 voting system. Although the result comes from such a small constituency nevertheless Luxembourg won on home soil, by a margin of 4 points.

In the autumn, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East would lead to an oil embargo affecting several European countries, prices would skyrocket by 300%. In the UK, by the winter, its own energy crisis involving coal miners would lead to electricity supply for only 3 days a week. Together with the largest stock market crash since the Great Depression, the lights were starting to go out in Europe somewhat, at least in the UK anyway.

*DESIGN AND THE BOARD*
Well Bauhaus rules on this one, with the microphones keeping to the aesthetic! The font is pre-War, although I’m using 1975’s ITC version which has lots of diacritical marks. I’m most comfortable with geometric shapes and functionality and that’s what we get here, with a groovy edge. This was fun to do, and I added some functionality to the arrows. I hope you like green!

*TRANSFER NEWS*
OUT: AUT, MLT. Despite Austria’s good performance in 72 they enter a 3-year break. Malta, without a good record will sit out for 2 yrs.
IN: ISR – the first Middle Eastern/African nation within the EBU borders tto compete. A lot of Israel’s population were from or descended from European nations of course. Unfortunately, their inclusion meant the exclusion of the other contenders.

*INTERVAL ACT*
Charlie Rivel. Not for me, thank you.

*CREDITS*
@SvenskTV - another awesome reconstruction.
@Ulrik Daniel Frich Wiksaas for the bulk of Wogan, with Joris Peters from Delft saving the day with the first part!
Flags: countryflags.com

00:00 Clip
00:43 Intro
05:03 Song super-cut
35:43 Interval
37:13 Voting intro
38:47 The reorder board 73
57:49 Recap, data & reprise

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