The Eurovision Song Contest 1967 was the 12th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Vienna, Austria, following Udo Jürgens' win at the 1966 contest in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg with the song "Merci, Chérie". It was the first time the event took place in Austria. The contest was held at the Großer Festsaal der Wiener Hofburg on Saturday 8 April 1967, and was hosted by Erica Vaal. Seventeen countries participated in the contest. This was one fewer than the record eighteen that competed in the 1965 and 1966 editions. Denmark did not enter after its 1966 participation, and left the contest at this point, not set to return until 1978. The winner was the United Kingdom with the song "Puppet on a String", performed by Sandie Shaw, and written/composed by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. This was the United Kingdom's first victory in the contest and also the first winning song to be performed in English. The entry had one of the widest margins of victory ever witnessed in the competition; it garnered more than twice as many points as the second placed song.. The presenter became confused whilst the voting was taking place, and declared the United Kingdom's entry to be the winner before the last country, Ireland, had announced its votes. Shaw intensely disliked the composition, though her attitude towards the song somewhat mellowed in later years, even releasing a new version in 2007. The contest long remained the only time Austria had hosted the event, until 2015.
The stage setup was a little unusual this year. There were two revolving mirrored walls on both ends of the stage and they started revolving at the start of each song and stopped revolving at the end of each song. The hostess, Erica Vaal ended the program by congratulating the winning song, country and saying good bye in several different languages. This was the last contest to be transmitted only in black and white.
Participating countries
The entry from Luxembourg, "L'amour est bleu", sung by Vicky Leandros, came in fourth; nonetheless, it went on to become the biggest international hit of the 1967 contest, and a year later would be a big instrumental hit for French musician, Paul Mauriat, under the English title, "Love is Blue". Denmark chose not to participate and left the contest at this point, to return in 1978. The reason was that the new director for the TV entertainment department at DR thought that the money could be spent in a better way. The United Kingdom's win was their first. Television presenter, artist and musician, Rolf Harris provided the commentary for BBC Television viewers. Switzerland received zero votes for the second time. Portugal was represented by Eduardo Nascimento who was the first black male singer in the history of Eurovision Song Contest, performing "O vento mudou". Rumours claimed that Portuguese prime ministerSalazar had chosen this particular singer to show the rest of Europe that he wasn't racist.
Conductors
Each performance had a conductor who was maestro of the orchestra. This was the first contest to have a unique conductor for every entry, as prior contests usually had the host conductor conduct multiple entries in addition to their own country’s entry.
Three artists returned in this year's contest. Claudio Villa from Italy whose previous participations were in 1962; and Kirsti Sparboe from Norway, who last participated in 1965; and Raphael for Spain who last represented the Iberian nation in 1966.
Results
Scoreboard
The voting sequence was one of the more chaotic in Eurovision history, with students from Vienna University operating the scoreboard making several errors during the telecast, which were corrected by the scrutineer. Hostess Erica Vaal also began to announce the winner before realising she had excluded the Irish jury.
Broadcasters, commentators and spokespersons
Spokespersons
Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1967 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.
