Tearful Olivia walks out of party
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, close to tears after being beaten into fourth place in the Eurovision Song Contest, said she sang the wrong song.
And she walked out of a VIP celebration party given by the BBC for the singers.
While other competitors celebrated Sweden’s win at Brighton she made an excuse and left with her mother.
And later Livvy said: “I sang the wrong song. I would have preferred a nice ballad. I was never happy with the song I had to sing.”
But she said she was “not particularly upset at not winning although she went into the contest a firm favourite with Long Live Love.
Her manager Peter Gormley said: “Olivia is obviously a very disappointed girl. But I thought she did quite well and this is not the end of the world. She is off to America next Sunday for a couple of months, and we have a lot of things planned for her.”
Harold Spiro and Valerie Avon, who wrote the song, said Olivia gave a good performance. Valerie added: “We just hope the song still makes No. 1 in the British pop charts.”
BBC head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton said: “I thought Olivia did a great job for us. We have no regrets at all about the song she sang. It was picked from a short list of six by the British viewing public”
OFFERS began to pour in yesterday from all over the world for Sweden’s sweetheart group Abba. The singing foursome, based in Stockholm, is made up of Frida Lyngstad and her fiance, Benny Andersson, and Anna Faltskog and her husband Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Frida, 28, and 27-year-old Benny plan to marry this summer. Anna and Bjorn have been married three years and have a 14-month-old daughter Linda.
Benny said yesterday: “Ours was a fun song and we just went on and did the whole thing for a giggle. We honestly never thought we were in the contest with more than an outside chance. There were three or four songs I thought might have won.”
The two men dressed up in sparkling Gary Glitter-style outfits with high-heeled silver boots for the contest. Benny said: “We don’t usually dress up like this. But we will in future.”
A ROW broke out shortly before the contest about the voting system. Some countries complained that they did not like the now. system of voting - with each jury panel from the various countries registering only 10 votes.
A new voting system is to be worked out by TV officials in the European Broad casting Union next month.
BLAME THE SONGS FOR THIS BORE
By Donald Bruce
That annual bore, the Eurovision Song Contest, has just ended.
And the only country that can be pleased about what happened on Saturday in Brighton is first-time winners Sweden.
For those who were mercifully spared the almost two hour telly show, Abba, Swedish group of two girls and two men, won with a song called Waterloo.
It was, at least, different, although I rated the Italian song. Yes, sung by Gigliola Cinquetti, as most distinguished of a clutch of rubbishy songs.
That lovely girl, Olivia Newton-John, who had been freely tipped to knock it off with Long Live Love, came a very poor fourth equal. Just about the worst performance in the contest ever from the United Kingdom
But don’t blame Olivia, blame the song,
Despite the cosy backing from the bookies for her, just as they backed Clodagh Rodgers three years ago with Jack In The Box, the song was never in with a real chance.
Everything was in its favour, except the vital spark merit. It was an amalgam of every European song we’ve heard for the past five yawning years in this competition.
The worst thing that ever happened to the contest and to Britain was when Bill Martin and Phil Coulter won it for the first time for us with Puppet On A String.
It is without significance that, apart from writing Congratulations for Cliff Richard. Martin and Coulter have been noticeably absent from writing any morе songs for Europe.
Sandie Shaw got to No. 1 with Puppet On A String, a big song aimed clearly at the European market with oompapahs and all the other accoutrements of European common musical market sounds.
Every song writer since has Based himself of themselves on that format.
Lulu with Boom-Bang A-Bang. Even The New Seekers last year with Beg Steal, Or Borrow.
The contest is in danger of becoming debased because of a too rigid dedication to a rigid formula.
A major rethink is needed for next year’s contest from Britain and the other competing countries as well as the competing song writers and singers.
The songs should be aimed not just at Europe but at the world of song. Main concern should be melody and good lyrics, not just a sound of music that writers think will appeal to European punters.
And it is worth noting that few of the songs which have won the Eurovision Song Contest in the past few years have ever really been heard of again.
The danger is that, because of the lowering of standards, more top song writers in Europe will think less and less of writing a song for Europe.
One reason is that they don’t like the trend any more. The other is, of course, that if they are big enough, they can’t afford to lose.
If Saturday night’s performance is anything to go by, we are a long way off that target.
Yet it wasn’t always this way.
Years ago, an Italian song got nowhere in the Eurovision Song Contest, yet Matt Monro made it into the hauntingly beautiful Walk Away. Matt still regards it as the best song he has ever heard and the best song he has ever recorded.
It would be nice to think that next year we might get back to that kind of standard of song.
Otherwise, we’ll all walk away from the Eurovision Song Contest of 1975 and subsequent years.