The Eurovision Song Contest went back to the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France for the 1961 Contest, and pretty much it was a redux of the 1959 contest with the same host on the same stage. Three countries--Finland, Spain, and Yugoslavia--made their debut and the juries from the 16 participating countries decided that the best song was this song.
Jean-Claude Pascal "Nous les amoureux" Luxembourg
"Nous les amoreux" is a prime example of the chanson style that dominated in the early years of the contest and to my ears was nothing special, so I sent this year's contest out to the Alaskan jurors, and they agreed with me. Pascal came in ninth in the voting.
So, I sent the songs out to the Alaska Eurovision jury, and or choice was the song that came in a distant second in the voting in 1961.
The Allisons "Are You Sure?" the United Kingdom
I can understand why this song topped the vote, because it's recognizably pop and the style of song, doo-wop, was distinctly different than every other song in the contest.
But there are two suprising things that have come out of our voting on 1961. The first is that this is the first time an English language song topped our voting. As a bunch of English speakers, I would have figured the the United Kingdom's song would have one sometime before the sixth contest,
The second is that our rankings were wildly different that the voting of the European juries on the night of the contest. It's best explained by this song:
Lili-Babs "April, April" Sweden
On the night of the contest, Lili-Babs got only two points, coming in fourteenth place, while our jury had it coming in second. I suppose we prefer peppy upbeat numbers.
Sadly, it was a different case for the song we ranked last
Ljiljana Petrović "Neke davne zvezde" Yugoslavia
On the night, she came in joint tenth, but her tendency to be off key sadly put her at the bottom of our ranking.
And that's 1961 in a nutshell. Stay tuned for 1962...
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