4 months ago

Eurovision Song Contest 1984 - Date: 5 May 1984
HostVenue: Grand Theatre Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Presenter: Désirée Nosbusch - Conductor: Pierre Cao
Directed by Rene Steichen - Executive supervisor: Frank Naef
Host broadcaster: RTL Télévision (RTL)
Opening act: In an introductory video, Pierre Cao and the RTL orchestra performed instrumental versions of all the past Eurovision winners from Luxembourg and L'amour est bleu, one of Luxembourg's most popular entries.
Interval act: Prague Theatre of Illuminated Drawings
Number of entries: 19
Debuting countries: None - Returning countries: Ireland

Interesting "Behind the scene" footage:

https://youtu.be/HjwFrg0GIFg

The Eurovision Song Contest 1984, the 29th event of its kind, was held on 5 May 1984 in Luxembourg. The presenter, Désirée Nosbusch, only 19 years old at the time, hosted the show in a lax manner, which was quite unusual for the show at the time. She manifested her fluency in four languages by switching between a strong transatlantic English, French, German and Luxembourgish in the course of talking, often in the same sentence.

Sweden's the Herreys were the winners of this contest with the song, "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley". This was the Nordic country's second win, and the first one in Swedish, as ABBA performed Waterloo in English when they won in 1974. Richard and Louis Herrey became the first teenage males to win Eurovision and remain the youngest ever male winners, being 19 years and 260 days and 18 years and 184 days of age respectively.

Israel did not enter due to it conflicting with the country's Yom HaZikaron holiday. Iceland was going to participate but withdrew due to lack of financial support.[2] 1984 is also notable for the audible booing that could be heard from the audience, particularly at the end of the UK's performance. It was said that the booing was due to English football hooligans having rioted in Luxembourg in November 1983 after being knocked out of the UEFA European Football Championship.

Before the contest, Sweden was not expected to win or even achieve a high placing. In the run-up to the Contest, bookmakers Ladbrokes had the lowest odds on songs from Ireland, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Sweden was considered a "dark horse" entry with high odds.

Each country had a jury that awarded one to eight, 10 and 12 points for their top ten songs.

At the close of the penultimate jury's votes, there was only a difference of six points between Sweden and Ireland, at 141 and 135 respectively. However, Yugoslavia was the only country who had not given any points to Ireland, and Portugal, the last jury, gave that western country only two points, crushing their chances. Portugal's voting also cost Denmark, who had been holding at a strong third position, even leading the scoreboard for a short time, in that place, when Portugal's 12 lifted Spain from 94 to 106 points. Portugal at the same time had only given Denmark one point making Denmark's total 101 points. Despite this, this was the latter country's best position in over 20 years.

Halfway through the voting, the scoreboard turned blue and remained so until the end of the voting. This was visible only to television viewers.

Results:

Draw Country Artist Song Language Place Points
01 Sweden Herreys "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" Swedish 1 145
02 Luxembourg Sophie Carle "100% d'amour" French 10 39
03 France Annick Thoumazeau "Autant d'amoureux que d'étoiles" French 8 61
04 Spain Bravo "Lady, Lady" Spanish[a] 3 106
05 Norway Dollie de Luxe "Lenge leve livet" Norwegian 17 29
06 United Kingdom Belle and the Devotions "Love Games" English 7 63
07 Cyprus Andy Paul "Anna Maria Lena" (Άννα Μαρία Λένα) Greek 15 31
08 Belgium Jacques Zegers "Avanti la vie" French[b] 5 70
09 Ireland Linda Martin "Terminal 3" English 2 137
10 Denmark Hot Eyes "Det' lige det" Danish 4 101
11 Netherlands Maribelle "Ik hou van jou" Dutch 13 34
12 Yugoslavia Vlado & Isolda "Ciao, amore" Serbo-Croatian[b] 18 26
13 Austria Anita "Einfach weg" German 19 5
14 Germany Mary Roos "Aufrecht geh'n" German 13 34
15 Turkey Beş Yıl Önce, On Yıl Sonra "Halay" Turkish 12 37
16 Finland Kirka "Hengaillaan" Finnish 9 46
17 Switzerland Rainy Day "Welche Farbe hat der Sonnenschein?" German 16 30
18 Italy Alice & Franco Battiato "I treni di Tozeur" Italian 5 70
19 Portugal Maria Guinot "Silêncio e tanta gente" Portuguese 11 38