Eurovision 1967: Vienna

Austria staged its first contest in a palace. The 1967 show came from the Festival Hall of the Hofburg in Vienna, the biggest room in the Habsburgs’ winter residence — built as a throne room and never used as one. A theatre, the Ronacher, had been considered first.

It was the last contest made in black and white.

Seventeen

Denmark dropped out. The new head of entertainment at Danish television thought the money could be better spent, and the country did not come back until 1978.

Three singers had been here before: Italy’s Claudio Villa, Norway’s Kirsti Sparboe and Spain’s Raphael, who had sung in Luxembourg the year before.

Portugal’s Eduardo Nascimento was the first black male singer to take part.

A disqualified song

Claudio Villa had won Sanremo with “Non pensare a me” and was meant to sing it in Vienna. It had been released before the EBU’s deadline and was thrown out. He sang a different song, “Non andare più lontano”, and finished eleventh.

Two years earlier, when Italy was the host, the same offence had been waved through.

The set, and the jury

There was a staircase in the middle of the stage and, at either end, a revolving wall of mirrors. The walls started turning when each song began and stopped when it finished.

The voting went back to the old way: ten jurors in each country, one vote each. There was one new condition. Half of every jury had to be under thirty.

The voting falls apart

The scoreboard was operated by students from the University of Vienna, and they got it wrong several times during the live show. The scrutineer had to keep correcting them.

The presenter, Erica Vaal, lost track as well. She declared the United Kingdom the winner while one country, Ireland, still had its votes to give. Ireland duly voted, the result stood, and Vaal closed the programme by saying goodbye in several languages.

The result

It hardly mattered who voted last. Sandie Shaw’s “Puppet on a String” won with 47 votes, more than twice as many as the runner-up. Three separate juries gave it seven of their ten votes. It was the United Kingdom’s first victory, after five second places.

Ireland was second, its best result so far, and France third. Switzerland was last with nothing.

Shaw could not stand the song. She said so for years, though she softened later and recorded a new version in 2007.

The song that came fourth

Luxembourg’s entry, “L’amour est bleu”, was sung by Vicky Leandros, credited simply as Vicky, and finished fourth. It outlived almost everything else from Vienna. The following year the French bandleader Paul Mauriat recorded it as an instrumental under the title “Love Is Blue”, and it became a hit around the world.