The Eurovision Song Contest 1966 was the 11th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Luxembourg City on 5 March 1966 at the stunning Villa Louvigny, which also housed the contest in 1962. Eighteen countries participated in the contest this year.
The winning country was Austria with the song "Merci Chérie", performed by Udo Jürgens.
Austria scored a stand-out 31 points. Then there were a bunch of countries fighting for the runners up places. Sweden @ 16 points, Norway @ 15 points, and Ireland/Belgium @ 14 points each.
It was a case of third time lucky for Udo. He had represented Austria in 1964 and 1965 and his persistence was rewarded in 1966. It was the first time a winning song was sung in the German language (plus a little French).
Another artist performing in their third Eurovision was Domenico Modugno from Italy.
It was a very mixed bag for other countries. Sweden (2nd), Norway (3rd) and Belgium (4th) achieved their best results in the song contest to date.
In contrast, a few of the now known “big five’ such as France, United Kingdom and Italy had a terrible contest with their worst outcomes in their ESC history to date.
What else was special or different about the 1966 contest?
· A new rule kicked in that each country could only enter a song that was sung in one of their country’s national languages. Hard to imagine it these days when many songs are in English!
· The first ever black singer performed in Eurovision. It was Milly Scott representing the Netherlands. Sha was also the first singer to ever use a portable microphone in the contest. What a ground breaker, go Milly. You looked fantastic!
· A change in the rules allowed music experts to be part of the national juries again. Weird that they had been excluded.
· 1966 was a year that saw the real emergence of ‘block voting’. The Nordic countries voted for each other, as did the Iberian Peninsula countries of Spain and Portugal. Other block voting was seen by Switzerland-Austria, France-Monaco, Ireland-UK, Netherlands-Belgium. So predictable nowadays.
· Udo was the last solo male pianist to win the contest until we saw Duncan Lawrence in 2019.
Overall, the telecast was a classy but subdued affair. Not much crazy sixties fashion on display, everyone was rather formal in their suits and gowns. Hopefully Luxembourg shall return one day and host again. Merci xx