Eurovision Song Contest 1973


The Eurovision Song Contest 1973 was the 18th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest.
It was held in Luxembourg. In a back-to-back victory, the country won the contest with the song "Tu te reconnaîtras", this being Luxembourg's fourth win. The voting was a very close one, with Spain finishing only 4 points behind and Cliff Richard of the United Kingdom another 2 points further back. The winning song scored the highest score ever achieved in Eurovision under any voting format until 1975, recording 129 points out of a possible 160, which represented almost 81% of the possible maximum. This was partly due to a scoring system which guaranteed all countries at least two points from each other country.

Location

is a commune with city status, and the capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is located at the confluence of the Alzette and Pétrusse Rivers in southern Luxembourg. The city contains the historic Luxembourg Castle, established by the Franks in the Early Middle Ages, around which a settlement developed.
The Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, inaugurated in 1964 as the Théâtre Municipal de la Ville de Luxembourg, became the venue for the 1973 contest. It is the city's major venue for drama, opera and ballet.

Format

The language rule forcing countries to enter songs sung in any of their national languages was dropped, so performers from some countries sang in English. The event was marked by controversy when the Spanish song, "Eres tú", was accused of plagiarism due to reasonable similarities in the melody with the Yugoslav entry from the 1966 contest ; however, "Eres tú" was not disqualified. After finishing second in the contest, the song went on to become a huge international hit.
The somewhat elliptical lyrics to Portugal's entry "Tourada" provided sufficient cover for a song that was clearly understood as a blistering assault on the country's decaying dictatorship. Also, the word "breasts" was used during Sweden's song entry. However, no action was taken by the EBU. An argument broke out between the singer Maxi and her Irish delegation over how the song should be performed. During rehearsals she repeatedly stopped performing in frustration. When it began to appear possible that Maxi might withdraw from the contest, RTÉ immediately sent over another singer, Tina Reynolds, to take her place just in case. In the end Miss Reynolds wasn't needed as Maxi did perform, with her entry earning 10th place on the scoreboard.
This contest holds the record for the most watched Eurovision Song Contest in the United Kingdom, and is also the 18th most watched television show in the same country, with an estimated 21.54 million tuning in on the night. Cliff Richard represented the UK with the song Power to All Our Friends. He came 3rd with 123 points. The winner though was Anne-Marie David with 'Tu te reconnaîtras'. In the UK it was released in English under the title "Wonderful Dream" and released on Epic. It made number 13.
In the light of events at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, there were fears of a terrorist threat, particularly directed against Israel's first-ever entrant, leading to unusually tight security for the contest. This gave rise to one of the best-known Eurovision anecdotes, frequently recounted by the UK's long-serving commentator Terry Wogan. He recalled that the floor manager strongly advised the audience to remain seated while applauding the performances, otherwise they risked being shot by security forces.

Voting

Each country had two jury members, one aged between 16 and 25 and one aged between 26 and 55. They each awarded 1 to 5 points for each song immediately after it was performed and the votes were collected and counted as soon as they were cast. The juries watched the show on TV from the Ville du Louvigny TV Studios of CLT and appeared on screen to confirm their scores.

Participating countries

Seventeen nations took part in this year's contest. Malta was drawn to perform in 6th place between Norway and Monaco, but the Maltese broadcaster withdrew before the deadline to select an entry.
This was the first year Israel competed in the contest.
The 1973 contest marked the first time that women conducted the ESC orchestra. Monica Dominique conducted the Swedish entry and Nurit Hirsh conducted the Israeli entry.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who was the maestro of the orchestra.
Three artists returned to the 1973 contest, Finland's Marion Rung, who last represented the nation in 1962; 1971 entrant Massimo Ranieri from Italy; and Cliff Richard, who last performed "Congratulations" for the United Kingdom in 1968.

Results

DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01Marion Rung"Tom Tom Tom"English693
02Nicole & Hugo"Baby, Baby"Dutch1758
03Fernando Tordo"Tourada"Portuguese1080
04Gitte"Junger Tag"German885
05Bendik Singers"It's Just A Game"English, French789
06Marie"Un train qui part"French885
07Mocedades"Eres tú"Spanish2125
08Patrick Juvet"Je vais me marier, Marie"French1279
09Zdravko Čolić"Gori vatra"Serbo-Croatian1565
10Massimo Ranieri"Chi sarà con te"Italian1374
11Anne-Marie David"Tu te reconnaîtras"French1129
12The Nova & The Dolls"You're Summer"English594
13Ben Cramer"De oude muzikant"Dutch1469
14Maxi"Do I Dream"English1080
15Cliff Richard"Power to All Our Friends"English3123
16Martine Clémenceau"Sans toi"French1565
17Ilanit"Ey Sham" Hebrew497

Scoreboard

10 points

Below is a summary of all perfect 10 scores that were given during the voting.
N.ContestantVoting nation
3LuxembourgFrance, Switzerland, United Kingdom
3SpainIreland, Italy, Netherlands
2United KingdomNetherlands, Luxembourg

Broadcasters, commentators and jury members

Jury members

Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1972 contest along with the names of the two jury members who voted for their respective country. Each country announced their results in groups of three, with the final two countries voting in a group of two.
  1. – Kristiina Kauhtio and Heikki Sarmanto
  2. – Unknown
  3. – José Calvário and Teresa Silva Carvalho
  4. – Unknown
  5. – Inger Ann Folkvord and Johannes Bergh
  6. – Unknown
  7. – Teresa González and José Luis Balbín
  8. – Paola del Medico and Yor Milano
  9. – Dušan Lekić and Ivan Antonov
  10. – Unknown
  11. – Unknown
  12. – Lena Andersson and Lars Samuelson
  13. – Unknown
  14. – Unknown
  15. – Catherine Woodfield and Pat Williams
  16. – Adeline Estragnat and Danièle Heymann
  17. – Unknown

    Broadcasters and commentators

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.