Eurovision 1968: London

Britain had finally won, and the BBC gave the contest the grandest room it had: the Royal Albert Hall, 7,000 seats, open since 1871. Katie Boyle presented, as she had both previous times the show came to London.

Everyone expected Britain to win again. It lost by one vote, to a singer who had not been in the contest a fortnight earlier.

In colour, for some

This was the first contest made and broadcast in colour. Seven countries saw it that way: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Everywhere else the networks weren’t equipped yet, and viewers got black and white.

Some of the juries did better than their own audiences. The colour signal was already reaching broadcasters’ studios over the Eurovision network, so jurors in countries such as Spain could watch in colour a show their neighbours at home could not.

The same seventeen

Nobody joined and nobody left: the seventeen countries of 1967 all came back. One of the singers had won before — Isabelle Aubret, France’s winner in 1962.

Spain changes its singer

Spain’s song was “La La La”, and Televisión Española had entered Joan Manuel Serrat to sing it. Then Serrat insisted on singing it in Catalan. The broadcaster replaced him.

The replacement was Massiel, who was on tour in Mexico at the time. She had two weeks. In them she flew back to Spain, learned the song, recorded it in several languages, went to Paris for a dress and got to London in time for rehearsals. The arrangement was redone to suit her, and she sang it in Spanish.

Norway changes its song

Norway’s national final had been won by “Jeg har aldri vært så glad i noen som deg”, performed by both Kirsti Sparboe and Odd Børre. Then came the accusations, several of them, that it sounded too much like “Summer Holiday” — a Cliff Richard hit. Its composer, Kari Diesen, withdrew it.

Norwegian television sent the runner-up instead. It was called “Stress”. Odd Børre sang it, and it collected two votes.

Cliff Richard, as it happened, was the man everybody else had to beat.

One vote

The bookmakers had no doubts. Richard was dominating the charts, his song was “Congratulations”, and a second British win in a row was treated as settled.

The voting was the same as the year before: ten jurors in each country, one vote each. No song took more than six from a single jury; the songs from Spain, Ireland, Sweden and France all reached that.

There was one stumble. Katie Boyle misunderstood Yugoslavia’s votes and Switzerland was credited with three instead of two. The scrutineer had the Yugoslav votes read out again and the board was put right.

When it was over Spain had 29 and the United Kingdom 28. It was the closest finish the contest had seen. France was third, Ireland fourth and Sweden fifth; the Netherlands and Finland shared last place with a single vote each.

It was Spain’s first victory, and the first time it had finished in the top five at all.

The reprise

Winners sing their song again, and Massiel did something new with hers. Having won in Spanish, she sang part of the reprise in English — the first winner to switch languages for it.