Eurovision 1969 was the 14th edition of the contest, and for the first time, the contest was hosted in Spain. The contest took place on the 29th of March, and was held at the Teatro Real in Madrid. The host of the show was Laurita Valenzuela.
A total of 16 nations competed at this edition of the contest, with Austria choosing to withdraw from the competition. Officially, it was said that the nation withdrew as they could not find a suitable representative, however it was rumoured that they refused to participated in a contest staged in Franco-ruled Spain.
This edition of the contest was the second to be filmed and transmitted in colour, even though the Spanish broadcaster TVE didn’t have the technology at the time. The broadcaster had to rent colour TV cameras from the German broadcaster ARD, and even so, the broadcast in Spain was seen in black and white due to the local transmitters not supporting colour transmissions. The equipment for archiving the contest didn’t arrive in time, so TVE had the archives in black and white only. Later on, a colour copy was discovered in the archives of Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Here is the full list of participants:
- Belgium
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy
- Luxembourg
- Monaco
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Portugal
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- Yugoslavia
There were five returning artists to the contest in 1969. Siw Malmkvist returned to the contest after previously competing in 1960 for Sweden, however this time, she was representing Germany. Romuald previously competed for Monaco in 1964, however returned to represent Luxembourg.
Portuguese representative Simone de Oliveira previously participated in 1965 for Portugal, and Louis Neefs once again represented Belgium after previously participating in 1967. Kirsti Sparboe returned for Norway, having participated in 1965 and 1967.
Here are the competitors:
- Ivan & 4M – Pozdrav svijetu (Yugoslavia)
- Romuald – Catherine (Luxembourg) 🇱🇺
- Salomé – Vivo Cantando (Spain) 🇪🇸
- Jean Jacques – Maman maman (Monaco) 🇲🇨
- Muriel Day & The Lindsays – The Wages of Love (Ireland) 🇮🇪
- Iva Zanicchi – Due grosse lacrime bianche (Italy) 🇮🇹
- Lulu – Boom Bang-a-Bang (United Kingdom) 🇬🇧
- Lenny Kuhr – De Troubadour (Netherlands) 🇳🇱
- Tommy Körberg – Judy, min vän (Sweden) 🇸🇪
- Louis Neefs – Jennifer Jennings (Belgium) 🇧🇪
- Paola del Medico – Bounjour, Bonjour (Switzerland) 🇨ðŸ‡
- Kirsti Sparboe – Oj, oj, oj, så glad jeg skal bli (Norway) 🇳🇴
- Siw Malmkvist – Primaballerina (Germany) 🇩🇪
- Frida Boccara – Un Jour, un Enfant (France) 🇫🇷
- Simone de Oliveira – Desfolhada portuguesa (Portugal) 🇵🇹
- Jarkko & Laura – Kuin silloin ennen (Finland) 🇫🇮
This is where it gets interesting. A total of four nations finished in equal first place, all receiving a total of 18 points. As it was unprecedented at Eurovision, there were no rules in place for this scenario. Because of that, France, The Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom were all declared as joint winners. Due to that, there were not enough medals to go around, so only the singers received medals while the songwriters received them at a later date.
This marked France’s fourth win at the contest, and the third win for The Netherlands. This was the second win for the United Kingdom and Spain, and for the latter, it was the first time a nation had won two years in a row.
On the bottom end of the table was Norway, who finished in last place with just 1 point.
Watch all of the winning performances below: