Best EVER Eurovision Song
OK, tonight is the Eurovision Song Contest. For those not familiar with this cultural delight, countries in the European Broadcasting Union submit a song and then we all vote on which is the best. There is absolutely no bias in the voting and under no circumstances do countries like Greece and Cyprus consistently give each other top marks. Never happens.
Anyway, I thought we could have a little piece of crowd-sourcing. Nominate below your favourite ever Eurovision Song from the whole history of the contest. As we get near the time of the contest I’ll produce a poll and we can then vote on which is the best.
The song MUST have been a national winner, even if it didn’t make it to the Eurovision Final (these days there are semi-finals to knock out songs before the final round).
To insert a YouTube video of your nomination, simply paste the URL into the comment form below and the video should appear when you post the comment.
So, to start us off, I nominate Verka Serduchka  – Dancing, Ukraine’s entry from 2007.
It’s enough to make you want to tear up your Elizabeth Moberly book.
Come on then, what’s your favourite all-time Eurovision song contest tune?
OK, testing video embedding in comments, here’s “Vampires are Alive” from Switzerland, 2007 which amazingly didn’t get through it’s semi-final (but went on to be enormous all over Europe that Spring).
What in the name of all that is good and holy is Father Christmas doing playing chess with Moomin? And don’t get me started on the video!
My nomination is the Norway song which won in 2009Â
One of my favourites as well.
Via Twitter and Facebook we have nominated…
Dustin the Turkey, Ireland -Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv2IJw-a1xQI don’t think this will be shortlisted. Come back Jedward, all is forgiven.
And then this offering…
We are the Winners, Lithuania 2008 -Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGhr8HZju6s
The song that never was…
Nice try…
Ah, memories…
I like the winner from 2006 from Finland, “Hard Rock Hallelujah”:
And this song should have been a Eurovision hit:
And, of course, this one:
I believe you meant this -Â
Oh! I assumed the Haiducii version was canonical. I’ve got a copy of that, and like it.
Good fun post, Peter! Here in South Africa the Eurovision Song Contest is not high on my list of priorities. I must confess I thought that it had gone the way of other memories from my ’60’s and ’70’s childhood, like space hoppers. So I was woken up with a shock recently to see that Engelbert Humperdinck was singing the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The Contest was still running? EH was till alive? What a deliciously retro moment!
Judging by the video you’ve posted, the show has entered Eurotrash heaven and gone supernova. I could never decide whether the ’70’s Eurovision Contest was sending itself up but there’s no doubt with the modern version. ‘Camp’ doesn’t even begin to do it justice! And, to echo Kneewax, Father Christmas playing chess with a Moomintroll? ……. !!!???
Anyway, there can obviously only be one winner of your competition, Peter. I present you the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest winner from Sweden, the song that launched a pop career of cosmic proportions – plus a thousand enthusiastic tribute acts, a few Australian movie stars and gave us the delicious sight of Meryl Streep bouncing around a Greek island …..
Abba singing ‘Waterloo’. Enjoy a slice of the Eurovision in its ’70’s pomp …
I can never go past the nearly as lovely as my wife Ruslana for best Eurovision performance.
In the “so bad it’s good” category, I choose Austria’s 2003 effort.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZJt6Gv4XPk
In the “just plain bad” category, I choose Tatu from Russia. Although Albania’s entry last night was a close 2nd.
I’m gonna go with Belgium’s 2006 entry: Kate Ryan’s ‘Je T’Adore’. The Eurovision performance wasn’t great – but the National quarter final was great and looked like this:
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Fly On The Wings Of Love, Denmark 2000. If you argue with me I’ll hunt you down and put your windows through.