Don't get fooled by the occasional second places of the UK.
Us germans and the british are engaged since 2000 in an epic battle to score the last place the most. It is 5 to 5.💪🏻

Waterloo by ABBA is the first Eurovision winner that wasn't performed in the performers native language.

Ireland 1996  "This song is very whimisical"

Lyrics: "I am the voice of the hunger and pain" XD

The live performance aspect is so important in Eurovision. There's many songs that people get excited about that fall flat at Eurovision, because it doesn't translate well live. And conversely, there's average songs that do very well because the performer has undeniable charisma on stage or the staging is really good, etc.

That norwegian winning song with the violin has lyrics

Before ABBA, in Sweden, both Agnetha and Anni-Frid were pretty well known as solo artists, especially Agnetha. Björn and Benny were also well known as members of popular bands, Björn in Hootenanny Singers and Benny in Hep Stars. But outside of Scandinavia they were not known at all before Eurovision. They had not been performing as ABBA very long before Eurovision. So Waterloo was the beginning of their International career.

I love how you lit up like a Christmas tree when ABBA first appeared 😂

The UK has a record of 16 second place finishes.

"Hey, we'll just start" I have NEVER seen this short of an intro 😂 love that

Having lyrics is mandatory in ESC, 'Nocturne' by Secret Garden had the minimum number of words required to participate, which was a bit controversial. :) I recall it was three sentences sung as an intro to the instrumental main song. One of the best winners in ESC history for sure though.

Ya, ABBA's breakout was definitely Eurovision. They did have recordings before their Eurovision performance though. But Eurovision was their big stage.

1995 Norway - the solo violinist was Irish - Fionula Sherry.
Secret Garden’s best known song as songwriters was “You Raise Me Up”.

12:47 When Nicole won in 1982 it was the first time Isreal had ever given Germany 12 points and for her victory performance she totally threw of her band as she performed the song in multiple different languages without telling them beforehand.

I remember the 'Danish kiss' at the 1957 Melodi Grand Prix between Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler performing "Skibet skal sejle i nat". (The ship must sail tonight) At the end of the song, they kissed each other for a full 13 seconds, while a ship's horn sounded, which created a lot of attention and a legendary Grand Prix scandal. The kiss was so long and intimate for the time that it is remembered better than the song itself, which nevertheless achieved third place. It is said that a stage director forgot to give a signal for the kiss to stop, which is why it lasted. 😂

Agree entirely. The change from the song being the focus, to the presentation being important came along with the change from experts from each nation doing the voting, to a general public phone in vote, the quality of songs then became the third most important factor after memorability of the show and national affinity and allegiance ( certain country's populations always vote for the particular country's entries ).

I love how her reaction to stefania was "ooh. This is a good one"  she genuinely liked it despite everyone saying it only won due to politics.  It is a genuinely good song.

For Eurovision there used to be a 'native language' rule where a country could only sing in a language  native to their country (so Sweden could only sing in Swedish, France in French etc). The rule was suspended for a few years in the mid 70s (hence why ABBA performed in English) but was brought back about 1977/78. It was dropped perminantly in 1999.

I was named after Niamh Kavanagh, her voice is amazing. Definitely holds up as a song even outside of Eurovision context.

Was having a panic attack this morning but couldn’t put YouTube away and saw your video and it helped calm me down. Nice to find just nice soft calm things to enjoy!

Celine Dion is Canadian, by at the time, the contest had no restrictions in regards to nationality, and the Swiss government invited her to represent them.
Since the show is organized and hosted by the last winner, and the cost of organizing and hosting the show is privative for small countries  (e.g. Island, Malta, San Marino, and others) it has been known that in many instances, countries that have no interest in hosting the show, would send bad artist with very slim chances on winning.