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1974 was a uniquely bonkers year at Eurovision. The previous year’s winners, Luxembourg, didn’t want to host due to the costs so it was held at the Brighton Dome, hosted by Katie Boyle. A radical, ludicrous, new voting system was installed and then immediately discarded the following year.
Far more seriously, an actual political revolution was started in one country, with their entry song used as the signal to storm the streets, and a European President died, forcing his country to withdraw from the competition
In the middle of all the madness was also the launch of the biggest and certainly most iconic stars to ever come out of The Eurovision Song Contest (sorry Celine Dion).
And the UK voters (a foolish jury, not the great British public) got it completely wrong. Nul points, indeed.
The UK entry was Olivia Newton-John, who we claimed since she was born in Cambridge to a Welsh father and German mother. The family emigrated to Australia when she was five.
She hadn’t wanted to sing Long Live Love, but it was selected by the public after a postal vote. In the end she came third, behind Spain’s Mocedades with Eres Tú, and, of course, a certain fab four from Sweden.
France withdrew from the competition after President Georges Pompidou died four days before the event and the country entered a state of mourning.
Two weeks after the broadcast on April 24 the Portuguese entry E Depois Do Adeuswas played on an independent radio station in Lisbon as one of two secret signals which alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to begin the Carnation Revolution against the Estado Novo regime.
The UK, of course, incredibly gave ABBA nul points on the night under the quickly abandoned head-scratching system where each participating country had ten jury members, who could only award one single point each to one song. ABBA won with 24 points, and no country awarded more than 5 points to any song that night.
In grand celebration of the Swedish supergroup’s historic win, a bundle of goodies has been announced today. For starters, not only can you buy official costumes, you can then wear them at a vertigo-inducing party perched on top of the O2 with views across London.
The Waterloo album is now reissued as a Half-Speed mastered 45RPM 2LP Vinyl, along with a limited edition box set of the three vinyl singles originally released by Polar in 1974. The singles are also available as separate picture discs, plus a unique 10-inch vinyl disc featuring ‘Waterloo’ in four different languages.
