Morten Thomassen from Norway decided to write about some of his memories of Eurovision and the Norwegian Eurovision selection. ESC Covers again will publish it after google translating it from Norwegian to English.
The year 2023 is slowly coming to an end and there are only days until we write 2024 and if you put on the MGP and ESC glasses you have to say that it was a year of joy.
Yes, I’m aware that some people are still whining about the fact that Finnish Käärijä didn’t take home the win after he won the saddle in Liverpool, so a small sliver of 2023 joy is enough for some.
Would not have been upset if our Finnish friend had won, but all in all, Loreen was the big winner, both on the results list in ESC and on charts over large parts of the world.
And our Norwegian representative Alessandra also caused a furor and despite her young age already has a chart position high up on the British hit list on her CV and very few Norwegian artists and even fewer Norwegian ESC artists can boast of that.
All in all a year of joy and since this series has been about memories I should probably remember the year I remember with the greatest joy in ESC history and that is actually 1976.
The Norwegian final had a winning song called “Mata Hari”, Anita Skorgan had her debut in the competition where she sang the song “Hastverk” with a large orchestra and a certain Jahn Teigen sang the same song with a small orchestra.
Hang also sang a song with a large orchestra, that song was called “Voodoo” and although he sang it together with Inger Lise Rypdal, we all remember the skeleton suit he wore and he himself said that this particular performance was what made him solo- artist, until now he had mostly been a vocalist in various pop and rock groups.
And yes, Mr. Teigen’s solo career was enjoyed by all of Norway and he is forever a big star in the MGP and ESC sky.
But, we’re going to talk about joy and to the extent that music can be a happy pill, my stash of pills is in this year’s edition of the international final and unlike this year’s international final, I have a Finnish winner, we’re talking about Fredi & Friends.
Talk about an effort on stage, excellent proof that Finnish sisu really is a thing and if you are not happy with this, you should possibly seek professional help.
“Pump, pump” they sang and every time I hear that song it pumps happiness hormones into my body and the mood automatically improves, so with this party on a stage I wish everyone a really good and yet another festive new MGP/ESC- year.
By 1976 I was not watching Eurovision. We actually got TV only that year in South Africa but 1976 had 4 great songs, Switzerland, United Kingdom, France and Austria.
Featured image – Wikipedia