Turkey took part in the

Eurovision Song Contest 1990 The Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was the 35th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Zagreb, SR Croatia, Yugoslavia, following the country's victory at the with the song " Rock Me" by Riva. It was the only time Yugoslavia ...

. The country was represented by

Kayahan Kayahan Açar (29 March 1949 – 3 April 2015) was a Turkish pop music singer-songwriter. He was an accomplished composer, consistently ranking among the best-selling Turkish musicians of all time. Kayahan composed all of his own material and ...

(vocals by

Demet Sağıroğlu Demet Sağıroğlu (born 5 December 1966) is Turkish pop music singer. In 1989, she was part of the backing vocals group with Kayahan who bid to represent Turkey in 1989 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Ve Melankoli" coming close second t ...

) with the song "Gözlerinin Hapsindeyim" written and composed by Kayahan.

Before Eurovision

14. Eurovision Şarkı Yarışması Türkiye Finali

The final took place on 24 February 1990 at the Ari TV studios in

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

, hosted by

Korhan Abay Korhan Abay (born 1954) is a Turkish actor, author, film director and producer. Career Abay is a show-business icon in Turkey, well known for his work as an actor, writer, host and producer of numerous national and international TV shows and ev ...

. Fifteen songs competed and the winner was determined by the votes of eight regional juries. This contest was the only contest where everything is played entirely live. Despite the instruments shown on stage, they are all required to play live. The three previous editions (1987, 1988, 1989) allowed playback as long as there was an instrument presented on stage. The national final version of the song "Gözlerinin Hapsindeyim" is different from the version performed at the Eurovision Song Contest. According to Eroğlu, the TRT had a special budget ready when they decided they wanted their song to be improved. They hired Jean Claudric to rearrange the song. However, due to limited time, only some parts were made. Eroğlu used Jean's version and made an orchestration out of it for the contest. Most of the members in Kayahan's band preferred Eroğlu's old arrangement.

At Eurovision

On the night of the contest Kayahan performed 4th in the running order following Belgium and preceding The Netherlands. At the close of the voting the song had received 21 points placing Turkey 17th. 5 participants had voted for "Gözlerinin hapsindeyim". The Turkish jury awarded its 12 points to Yugoslavia. The members of the Turkish jury included Murat Türkoğlu, Selda Güneş, Mithat Kaya, Özlem Şen, Sıla Yavuz, Nazif Eke, Hülya Okçay, Kadir Gökdemir, Aydan Özbey, Özlem Çelik, Ziya Fırat Doğançay, Meltem Altınörs, Nihal Müftüoğlu, Zeki Tatlıgil, Ahmet Hüseyin Uluçay, and Mustafa Sarıkoç.

Voting

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 1990

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1990

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...