Eurovision 1958: Italy lose with one of the Contest's biggest ever hits. France makes its maiden victory

By Jamie McLoughlin on Jun 22, 09 05:23 PM

The third Contest was held in a Dutch TV studio (Host city Hilversum is - and remains - the centre of the Netherlands telly world) filled with tulips and Hannie Lips (the latter being the name of the hostess, stop that childish giggling at the back).

Winner 1958: Andre Claveau performs Dors, Mon Amour for France

Britain, unimpressed with its seventh place in 1957, stayed away for the second and final time (the UK has sent an entry every year since 1959) and their gap in the line-up was filled by debutantes Sweden, who finished fourth.

And some other things 1958ish:

(a) Italy came third with this. Domenico Mudugno singing Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu. It translates as 'The blue painted in blue' and was inspired by an image on a cigarette packet. You wouldn't get away with that these days.

You'll know it better as Volare. The song which Italy seriously considered making its national anthem and the very first song to win the Record of the Year Grammay award.

It was also the first Eurovision song to make the UK Top 10 (even though Britain didn't enter so the broadcast itself wouldn't have had received much publicity).

The song, first on stage, was even performed again at the end of the running order because the transmission had failed in many of the countries carrying the feed so the juries wouldn't have been able to judge it fairly.

Despite all this, it still scored fewer than half the votes awarded to the (frankly, dull) tune which took the trophy.

Why?

(b) Lys Assia was back for the third year running for Switzerland - and with her singing both of the Swiss entries in 1956 - this was her fourth Eurovision song in three Contests, a feat that's never going to be equalled.

Giorgio was a far more uptempo offering than she had previously been known for and the race for the trophy quickly became a two-horse one between Lys and Andre.

(c) But Volare/Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu should have won. As time goes by, the popular concensus seems to back up this opinion. In 2005, in a show celebrating 50 years of the Eurovision Song Contest, this was voted the second-best entry ever to emerge from the event (hmm, wonder what won...?). Neither Dors, Mon Amour nor Giorgio came close to threatening the judges' shortlists.

(d) And in a pointless piece of trivia, the surname of the first Eurovision winner began with 'A', the second 'B' and the third 'C'. Rather annoyingly, the 1959 winner soon put a stop to that little run of fun, but you can find out a bit more about that in our next Bluffer's Guide. Betcha can't wait...