Eurovision Song Contest 1977


The Eurovision Song Contest 1977 was the 22nd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in London, United Kingdom, following Brotherhood of Man's win at the 1976 contest in The Hague, Netherlands with the song "Save Your Kisses for Me". It was the sixth time the contest took place in the UK, after 1960, 1963, 1968, 1972, and 1974. The contest was held at the Wembley Conference Centre on Saturday 7 May 1977, marking the first time the event took place in the month of May since 1956. The show was hosted by Angela Rippon.
Eighteen countries participated in the contest; Sweden returned after its absence from the previous edition, while Yugoslavia, which did participate in 1976, did not enter.
The winner was France with the song "L'oiseau et l'enfant", performed by Marie Myriam, written by Joe Gracy, and composed by Jean-Paul Cara. This was France's fifth victory in the contest, following their wins in 1958, 1960, 1962, and 1969. The five wins were also a record at the time, and one that France held onto for seven years, until being equalled by Luxembourg in 1983. This was later equalled by Ireland in 1993, United Kingdom in 1997, Sweden in 2012, and by the Netherlands in 2019.

Location

is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in Europe by most measures. London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history goes back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Wembley Conference Centre, which opened in 1977, was the first purpose-built conference centre in the United Kingdom. The centre was chosen as host venue for the song contest, which was presented by newsreader Angela Rippon.

Format

The language rule was brought back in this contest, four years after it had been dropped in 1973. However Germany and Belgium were allowed to sing in English, because they had already chosen the songs they were going to perform before the rule was reintroduced.
As noted in The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History by author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor, the contest was originally planned to be held on 2 April 1977, but because of a strike of BBC cameramen and technicians, it had to be postponed for a month. As a result, this was the first Eurovision Song Contest to be staged in May since the inaugural edition.
This was most possibly the Eurovision with the most scoring mistakes, as the scrutineer Clifford Brown had to stop the host Angela Rippon several times to correct the scores.
Due to the strike by the BBC camera staff, and lack of time to organise the contest, this is seen as the only Eurovision where there were no postcards between songs. Various shots of the contests audience where shown, with the various counties commentators informing the viewers of the upcoming songs.

Participating countries

was set to participate and had been drawn to participate in fourth place, but later withdrew. Yugoslavia did not enter this contest after having participated in 1976, while Sweden returned to the competition.
The Belgian act Dream Express had created some controversy in the press with reports that the three female members would wear transparent tops; this did not materialise for the actual event.
The British conductor Ronnie Hazlehurst used an umbrella and wore a bowler hat during the UK entry.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.
Several artists returned to the 1977 Contest. Beatrix Neundlinger and Günter Grosslercher from the group Schmetterlinge both represented Austria in 1972 as part of the band The Milestones. Patricia Maessen, Bianca Maessen, and Stella Maessen had previously represented the Netherlands in 1970 as part of the group Hearts of Soul, in 1977 they represented Belgium under the band name Dream Express.
Ireland's participant The Swarbriggs returned after their previous appearance back in 1975. Ilanit from Israel returned after previously representing the nation in 1973. Michèle Torr, Luxembourg's 1966 entrant participated for Monaco. And finally Fernando Tordo and Paulo de Carvalho returned once more after they previously represented the nation as solo acts back in 1973 and 1974 respectively.

Results

The following tables reflect the final official scores, verified after the contest transmission. During the voting sequence of the live show, several errors were made in the announcement of the scores, which were then adjusted after the broadcast. Both Greece and France duplicated scores, awarding the same points to multiple countries. From the Greek scores, The UK, Netherlands, Austria and Finland all had 1 point deducted after the contest and from the French scores, Austria, Germany, Israel, Italy and Belgium all had 1 point deducted. None of the adjustments affected the placing of any of the songs.
DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01The Swarbriggs Plus Two"It's Nice to Be in Love Again"English3119
02Michèle Torr"Une petite française"French496
03Heddy Lester"De mallemolen"Dutch1235
04Schmetterlinge"Boom Boom Boomerang"German1711
05Anita Skorgan"Casanova"Norwegian1418
06Silver Convention"Telegram"English855
07Anne-Marie B"Frère Jacques"French1617
08Os Amigos"Portugal no coração"Portuguese1418
09Lynsey de Paul and Mike Moran"Rock Bottom"English2121
10Paschalis, Marianna, Robert & Bessy"Mathima solfege" Greek592
11Ilanit"Ahava Hi Shir Lishnayim" Hebrew1149
12Pepe Lienhard Band"Swiss Lady"German671
13Forbes"Beatles"Swedish182
14Micky"Enséñame a cantar"Spanish952
15Mia Martini"Libera"Italian1333
16Monica Aspelund"Lapponia"Finnish1050
17Dream Express"A Million in One, Two, Three"English769
18Marie Myriam"L'oiseau et l'enfant"French1136

Notes:

Scoreboard

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
N.ContestantVoting nation
6United KingdomAustria, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal
4IrelandIsrael, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom
3FranceFinland, Germany, Switzerland
2MonacoGreece, Italy
1BelgiumNetherlands
1FinlandIreland
1GreeceSpain

International broadcasts and voting

The table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1977 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.

Voting and spokespersons

  1. – Brendan Balfe
  2. – Carole Chabrier
  3. – Ralph Inbar
  4. – Jenny Pippal
  5. – Sverre Christophersen
  6. – Hans-Joachim Scherbening
  7. – Jacques Harvey
  8. – Ana Zanatti
  9. – Colin Berry
  10. – Naki Agathou
  11. – Yitzhak Shim'oni
  12. – Michel Stocker
  13. – Sven Lindahl
  14. – Isabel Tenaille
  15. – Mariolina Cannuli
  16. – Kaarina Pönniö
  17. – An Ploegaerts
  18. – Marc Menant

    Television commentators

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

Participating countries

Some participating countries did not provide radio broadcasts for the event; the ones who did are listed below.