LONDON 1977

The Eurovision Song Contest 1977 was the first contest which was troubled by a strike and was only organised five weeks after the planned date. That year’s Eurovision Song Contest took place at the Wembley Conference Centre in London. The event was postponed for five weeks because of the fact that the cameramen and technicians were on strike. The song contest was supposed to take place on the 2nd of April, but it did not take place before the 7th of May. 18 countries took part this year. Sweden returned, and Yugoslavia withdrew from the contest. Tunisia was supposed to take part as well, performing in 4th position, but the country withdrew its entry.

The rule of performing in one’s national language was brought back to the song contest as since 1973, countries could sing in a language they wanted. However, Germany and Belgium were allowed to perform in English because their entries had already been chosen before the rule was brought back. The German group Silver Convention had been hugely popular all over the world in the mid 70s with songs like Fly Robin Fly and Get Up And Boogie. Even if there were high hopes that their 1977 entry Telegram would mark the first victory for Germany, the song only ended up in 8th position. Anita Skorgan sang her first entry Casanova for Norway this year. She would return in 1979 and also try several more times to represent her home country, but always lost out in the Norwegian national heats. Austria gave a innovative performance as Boom Boom Boomerang by the group Schmetterlinge was performed with the artists wearing masks on the back of their heads.

France won its fifth victory – and last to date – with the song L’Oiseau Et L’Enfant performed by Marie Myriam. France’s victory was a record in Eurovision Song Contest history. The record was equalled by Luxembourg in 1983, and beaten by Ireland in 1994. The United Kingdom entry Rock Bottom by Lynsey de Paul and Mike Moran came second. It was the 11th consecutive time that a British entry came top 4.

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