The Eurovision Song Contest 1975 was the 20th edition of the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...

, held on 22 March 1975 in the in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, Sweden and presented by

Karin Falck Anna Karin Margareta Falck (; born 6 February 1932) is a Swedish television director, hostess and producer. Career Falck was born in Säffle, Värmland County and lived her first six years of life in Karlstad. She moved with her mother and yo ...

. Organised by the

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...

(EBU) and host broadcaster (SR), the contest was held in Sweden following the country's victory at the with the song "

Waterloo Waterloo most commonly refers to: * Battle of Waterloo, 1815 battle where Napoleon's French army was defeated by Anglo-allied and Prussian forces * Waterloo, Belgium Waterloo may also refer to: Other places Australia * Waterloo, New South Wale ...

" by

ABBA ABBA ( ) were a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. They are one of the most popular and successful musical groups of all time, and are one of the List ...

. Nineteen countries were represented at the contesta new record number of participants. made its first entry in the contest, and and returned after a one- and two-year absence, respectively. , after participating for the first time in the previous year's event, opted not to participate in 1975, due to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The winner was the with the song "

Ding-a-dong "Ding-a-dong" is a song recorded by Dutch band Teach-In, with music composed by Dick Bakker and lyrics written by Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens. It in the Eurovision Song Contest 1975, held in Stockholm, winning the contest. It reached numbe ...

", composed by

Dick Bakker Dick Bakker (born 23 May 1947) is a Dutch composer, conductor and music producer. He succeeded Rogier van Otterloo as conductor of the Metropole Orkest, serving between 1991 and 2005. Bakker composed the winning Eurovision Song Contest entry ...

, written by and Eddy Ouwens, and performed by the group

Teach-In A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific tim ...

. This was the Netherlands' fourth contest victory, matching the record number of contest wins previously set by France and . Having been the opening song of the contest, it was also the first time that a country had won from first position in the running order. The , , France and Luxembourg rounded out the top five positions, with the UK achieving a record-extending ninth second-place finish. A new voting system was introduced at this contest; each country gave 12 points to its favourite, 10 points to its second favourite, and then 8 points to 1 point to other countries in descending order of preference. This numerical order of awarded points has since been used in every subsequent edition of the contest.

Location

The 1975 contest took place in

, Sweden, following the country's victory at the with the song "

" performed by

. It was the first time that Sweden had hosted the event. The chosen venue was the , an exhibition centre in the

Älvsjö Älvsjö () is a district of the city of Stockholm Municipality in Sweden, located in the borough Älvsjö in Söderort. It has the biggest rentable facility in northern Europe called Stockholm International Fairs, and also the hotel Scandic ...

district of southern Stockholm opened in 1971; in 1976 the venue was renamed to . The Swedish broadcaster (SR) had initially been reluctant to stage the event, mainly due to the high costs that came with it which would have been placed on the organisation. There had also been considerable pressure and disquiet from left-wing groups in the country that initially opposed the amount of money being spent by the public broadcaster on a commercial event, which subsequently developed into a wider protest against the general commercialisation of music in Sweden; this led to street protests and a counter-festival, (), being held during the week of Eurovision 1975. SR had attempted to negotiate with the

(EBU) and other participating broadcasters to enact a form of cost-sharing to fund the event, however a solution failed to materialise prior to the contest and SR was ultimately faced with funding the contest alone. These discussions, however, did eventually lead to the introduction of a new financing system for and future events, with the running costs of the event being split across all participating countries. However, fears of the potential costs required to host the event should Sweden have won again, coupled with the pressure from left-wing groups, meant that SR ultimately decided not to participate in the 1976 event.

Participants

A total of 19 countries participated in the 1975 contesta new record number of participants. This included the first ever appearance of , and entries from and , which last participated in and , respectively. Broadcasters in , which participated for the first time in , and , last seen in the contest in 1972, had also considered participating in the contest, however no entries from these countries were ultimately submitted; Greece had reportedly decided against participating at a late stage, and may have opted to refuse to compete alongside Turkey following the

Turkish invasion of Cyprus The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974 and progressed in two phases over the following month. Taking place upon a background of Cypriot intercommunal violence, intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots, Greek and Turkish Cy ...

Ellen Nikolaysen Ellen Helen Nikolaysen (born 10 December 1951) is a Norwegian singer/actress.Ellen Nikolaysen
in

< ...

competed in the contest for a second time, having previously participated for as a member of the

Bendik Singers The Bendik Singers were a four-member Norwegian vocal group, brought together by singer and composer Arne Bendiksen to participate in the Norwegian Eurovision Song Contest selection, Melodi Grand Prix, in 1973. The group consisted of Anne-Kari ...

. Additionally,

John Farrar John Clifford Farrar ( ; born 8 November 1946) is an Australian Record producer, music producer, songwriter, arranger, singer, and guitarist. As a musician, Farrar is a former member of several rock and roll groups including The Mustangs (1963 ...

, a member of

the Shadows The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters between 1958 and 1959) were an English instrumental rock group, who dominated the British popular music charts in the pre-Beatles era from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. They served as the bac ...

, had previously supported the as a

backing vocalist A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are u ...

Production and format

The Eurovision Song Contest 1975 was produced by SR. served as executive producer, served as producer and director, served as production designer and Mats Olsson served as musical director, leading the orchestra. A separate musical director could be nominated by each country to lead the orchestra during their performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those countries which did not send their own conductor. On behalf of the contest organisers, the EBU, the event was overseen by

Clifford Brown Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car crash, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Sprin ...

scrutineer A scrutineer (also called a poll-watcher or a challenger in the United States) is a person who observes any process that requires rigorous oversight. Scrutineers are responsible for preventing corruption and detecting genuine mistakes and problem ...

. Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration. As in 1973 and 1974, artists were able to perform in any language, and not necessarily that of the country their represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only

backing track A backing track is an audio recording on audiotape, CD or a digital recording medium or a MIDI recording of synthesized instruments, sometimes of purely rhythmic accompaniment, often of a rhythm section or other accompaniment parts that live m ...

s, however any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers. Rehearsals in the contest venue for the competing entries began on 19 March 1975, with each participating act having a 50-minute slot on stage to perform through their entry with the orchestra. The first full rehearsals for all entries were held over two days on 19 and 20 March and conducted without their stage costumes. A second round of rehearsals, this time in full costume, was held for all acts on 21 March, with each country given 20 minutes on stage. This was followed that evening with a general

dress rehearsal The dress rehearsal is a full-scale rehearsal shortly before the first performance where the actors and/or musicians perform every detail of the performance. Dress rehearsal is often the final rehearsal before the premiere A premiere, also ...

, including a dummy voting process. Technical rehearsals and a final dress rehearsal were held on the morning of 22 March. During the dress rehearsals some of the artists performed their songs in different languages to that which they would be presented during the live broadcast; specifically, the Yugoslav and Portuguese acts performed their entries in English in the dress rehearsal, and then in Slovene and Portuguese in the final, respectively. The Dutch entrants were given an additional rehearsal shortly before the live transmission; this was requested by

, the composer of the Dutch song. Bakker felt that during the general rehearsals the sound quality was noticeably poorer during their entry, the first to perform each time, and that the sound technicians needed time to fix their equipment, which was generally done during their rehearsal slot. There was a tight security situation at the venue in the run-up to, and during, the event; the

Swedish Security Service The Swedish Security Service ( , SÄPO , , formerly , RPS/Säk, until 1989) is a Sweden, Swedish Government agencies in Sweden, government agency organized under the Ministry of Justice (Sweden), Ministry of Justice. It operates as a security ...

() had received intelligence reports that the contest may become a target of the West German

far-left Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...

militant group the

Red Army Faction The Red Army Faction (, ; RAF ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang ( ), was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998, considered a terrorist organisat ...

(RAF). The threat to the contest did not ultimately materialise, however one month after the event the RAF targeted the West German embassy in Stockholm.

Voting procedure

Following the abandoned attempt at introducing a new voting system at the previous year's event, plans for a new system to replace both the system used between 1971 and 1973 and that used in 1974 came to fruition in autumn 1974. A sub-group, comprising individuals from Germany's ARD, Sweden's SR, and Finland's

YLE Yleisradio Oy (; ), abbreviated as Yle () (formerly styled in all uppercase until 2012), translated into English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, founded in 1926. It is a joint-stock comp ...

, was set-up, and various new voting systems were proposed: ARD suggested that each country should identify its top nine entries and award points ranging between 1 and 10, while YLE proposed a scoring system to award points to eight countries, with the favourite of each country given 14 points, then 10, 7 and 5–1. The Finnish broadcaster also proposed as a compromise awarding to nine countries 10 and 8–1 points. Based on the above ideas, the UK's

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

proposed the 12, 10 and 8–1 pattern which was later adopted for this contest, and which had been used in all subsequent editions . Each country had a jury of eleven members ranging from ages 16 to 60, with a recommendation that there should be a balance between the sexes and that half should be under 25 years old. Each jury member awarded all songs a score between one and five immediately after they had been performed, with no abstentions allowed and without voting for the country they represented. The song which gained the most votes received 12 points, followed by 10 points to the song which got the second highest number of votes, and then between 8 and 1 points for the third- to tenth-placed songs. Ties for any of the positions would be decided by a show of hands. The order of presenting the points by each country's spokesperson was done in performance order; it would not be until that the points would be awarded in ascending order, starting at 1 point and finishing with 12 points.

Contest overview

The contest was held on 22 March 1975, beginning at 21:00 (

CET CET or cet may refer to: Places * Cet, Albania * Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus * Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England Arts, entertainment, and media * Comcast En ...

) and lasting 2 hours and 12 minutes. The contest was presented by the Swedish television presenter, producer and director

. Following the confirmation of the 19 participating countries, a draw was held in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

on 24 January 1975 to determine the running order (R/O) of the contest. The contest was opened by a film montage portraying various cultural stereotypes of Sweden and the

Swedish people Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...

. Each entry was preceded by a video postcard, which served as an introduction to that country's entry and to create a transition between entries to allow stage crew to make changes on stage; the postcards showed each country's entrant backstage painting a portrait of themselves and the flag of their nation onto a blank canvas. The interval act was entitled "The World of John Bauer" (), comprising a montage of examples of the Swedish illustrator's work, particularly from his anthology '' Among Gnomes and Trolls'', set to music from the orchestra. The medallions awarded to the winning songwriters were presented by the Secretary-General of the European Broadcasting Union . The winner was the represented by the song "

", composed by Bakker, written by and Eddy Ouwens, and performed by

. It was the Netherlands' fourth contest win, following victories in , and ; the Netherlands thus joined and as the countries with the most contest wins at that point. It was additionally the first time that the song which was performed first had gone on to win the contest. The UK came second for a record-extending ninth time, and Malta, which had come last in its two previous contest appearances, achieved their best result to date with a twelfth-place finish. Turkey, meanwhile, finished in last place on its debut appearance.

Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue via

telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or oth ...

s and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1975 contest are listed below. * Kaarina Pönniö *

José María Íñigo José María Íñigo Gómez (4 June 1942 – 5 May 2018) was a Spanish journalist, radio and television presenter, and stage and screen actor. Biography Career Born in Bilbao, Íñigo began his professional career in his hometown as he was hi ...

Sven Lindahl Sven Gustaf Lindahl (born 25 June 1937, in Stockholm) is a Swedish journalist, songwriter, radio and television presenter. As a teenager, he played in a boogie-woogie band. After leaving school, he worked briefly as a welding apprentice in Luton ...

* Ray Moore

Detailed voting results

Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in the order in which they performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in performance order. The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below, with voting countries listed in the order in which they presented their votes.

12 points

The below table summarises how the maximum 12 points were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. The Netherlands received the maximum score of 12 points from six of the voting countries, with the UK receiving four sets of 12 points, Finland and France each receiving two sets of maximum scores, and Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland receiving one maximum score each.

Broadcasts

Broadcasters competing in the event were required to relay the contest via its networks; non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest. Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. In addition to the participating nations, the contest was also reportedly aired, live or deferred, by broadcasters in Eastern European countries via Intervision, and in Australia, Denmark, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Japan, Jordan, Morocco and South Korea. The contest was reported to have had a possible maximum audience of over 700 million people. A planned broadcast in Chile by its public broadcaster was prevented by SR, following pressure from the

Swedish Musicians' Union The Swedish Musicians' Union (, Musikerna) is a trade union representing musicians in Sweden. The union was founded on 19 December 1907 in Stockholm, with about 700 members. It grew very slowly until World War II, but this changed after it joi ...

in opposition to the Chilean military dictatorship.

Rolf Rembe Rolf Douglas Rembe (7 March 1926 - 20 February 2022) was a Swedish trade unionist and theatre director. Born in Sövde, Rembe studied at the University of Lund, training as a school teacher. While at the university, he became president of Stud ...

, spokesman for the union, said that broadcasting the festival to Chile "would give the impression that relations between Chile and world artists are normal". Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

* {{Portal bar, Music

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

Music competitions in Sweden 1975 in music 1975 in Sweden 1970s in Stockholm March 1975 in Europe