1 year ago

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Date: 6 April 1968 - Host Venue: Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom
Presenter: Katie Boyle - Musical director: Norrie Paramor
Directed by Stewart Morris - Executive supervisor: Clifford Brown
Executive producer: Tom Sloan - Host broadcaster: BBC
Interval act: Impressions from London

This show is fully subtitled. It's never been easier to understand all the lyrics of the songs.

Youtube deleted the "Congratulations" sequence with Sir Cliff. Sorry about that. But you can watch his performance here on Sir Cliff's Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xJcE9tnY6E

The Eurovision Song Contest 1968 was the 13th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in London, United Kingdom, following the country's victory at the 1967 contest with the song "Puppet on a String" by Sandie Shaw. It was the third time the event took place in the UK; after the 1960 and 1963 editions, both of which also took place in London. The contest was held at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday 6 April 1968, and was hosted by Katie Boyle (for the third time).

The winner was Spain with the song "La, la, la", performed by Massiel, and written/composed by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa. This was Spain's first victory - and their first ever top five placing - in the contest.

Prior to the contest, the United Kingdom's entry, Cliff Richard with the song "Congratulations", was hotly tipped as the favourite to win, but lost out to Spain's Massiel by a margin of just one point. Originally Spain entered Joan Manuel Serrat to sing "La La La", but his demand to sing in Catalan was an affront to the Francoist State dictatorship. Serrat was replaced by Massiel, who sang the same song in Spanish.

The contest was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. 1968 was the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast in colour. The countries that broadcast it in colour were France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, although in the UK it was broadcast as an encore presentation in colour on BBC Two the next day. Also all of Eastern Europe and Tunisia broadcast the contest.

In May 2008, a documentary by Spanish film-maker Montse Fernández Villa, 1968. Yo viví el mayo español, centred on the effects of May 1968 in Francoist Spain, and alleged that the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest was rigged by the Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco, who would have sent state television officials across Europe offering cash and promising to buy television series and contract unknown artists. The allegation was based on a testimony by journalist José María Íñigo, a TVE employee at the time, who claimed the rigging was common knowledge and suggested that Spanish record label representatives offered to release albums by Bulgarian and Czech artists (neither Bulgaria nor Czechoslovakia were members of the European Broadcasting Union at the time, though in the 1968 Contest, Austria was represented by Karel Gott, who was from Czechoslovakia.).

The documentary claimed that the contest should in fact have been won by the United Kingdom's entry – "Congratulations" performed by Cliff Richard – which finished second by one vote. Massiel, the performer of the winning entry, was outraged by the allegations, and claimed that if there had been fixes, "other singers, who were more keen on Francoist Spain, would have benefited". José María Iñigo, author of the statement in the documentary, personally apologized to Massiel and said that he had repeated a widespread rumour. Both Massiel and Iñigo accused television channel La Sexta, broadcaster of the documentary, of manufacturing the scandal.

Results:

Draw Country Artist Song Language Place Points
01 Portugal Carlos Mendes "Verão" Portuguese 11 5
02 Netherlands Ronnie Tober "Morgen" Dutch 16 1
03 Belgium Claude Lombard "Quand tu reviendras" French 7 8
04 Austria Karel Gott "Tausend Fenster" German 13 2
05 Luxembourg Chris Baldo and Sophie Garel "Nous vivrons d'amour"
French 11 5
06 Switzerland Gianni Mascolo "Guardando il sole" Italian 13 2
07 Monaco Line and Willy "À chacun sa chanson" French 7 8
08 Sweden Claes-Göran Hederström "Det börjar verka kärlek, banne
mig" Swedish 5 15
09 Finland Kristina Hautala "Kun kello käy" Finnish 16 1
10 France Isabelle Aubret "La source" French 3 20
11 Italy Sergio Endrigo "Marianne" Italian 10 7
12 United Kingdom Cliff Richard "Congratulations" English 2 28
13 Norway Odd Børre "Stress" Norwegian 13 2
14 Ireland Pat McGuigan "Chance of a Lifetime" English 4 18
15 Spain Massiel "La, la, la" Spanish 1 29
16 Germany Wenche Myhre "Ein Hoch der Liebe" German 6 11
17 Yugoslavia Luci Capurso and Hamo Hajdarhodžić "Jedan dan"
Serbo-Croatian 7 8