Nul Points Blog Tribute To Will & Kate

In honour of Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton, a quick gander through the Eurovision archives for something vaguely appropriate, and what a struggle it has been. Apart from one very conspicuous year in the early Seventies (more of that anon), Eurovision history is surprisingly bereft of lovey-dovey one man and one woman tunes. (Before going any further, Nul Points isn't being discriminatory here as it is penned by a gay man, but we thought we'd focus on a tradional heterosexual template for this exercise!).

Only one male/female duo have won the contest, and that was brother and sister Grethe & Jorgen Ingmann for Denmark in 1963. Since then we have had male duos winning three times (in 1994, 2000 and 2001 for Ireland, Denmark and Estonia respectively) and a female duo once in 1985 for Norway. Even when boy/girl duos have occasionally surfaced, it has tended to be with songs based on either angst or jocularity (or sometimes both).

Denmarks two wins so far have come from decidedly unromantic duets so it's appropriate that they produced our first clip in our paean to heterosexual romance, especially as this was in only very second contest in 1957 and the very first non-solo entry. If it seems like heavy going, keep the faith for the spectacular ending that was very racey for it's time. Not too racey though to capture enough jury votes to claim third place.



As mentioned above, one contest stands out for thinking this tactic was a great idea. In the 1972 contest in Edinburgh, no less than one third of the eighteen entrants plumped for a boy/girl duo. Quite why has never been apparent. The only reason we can come up with is that a year earlier the European Broadcasting Union had opened up the contest to groups for the first time, so maybe Norway, Malta, Finland, Monaco, Belgium and the Netherlands thought a happy compromise between soloists and groups were the way forward. Five of the six fell flat on their combined arses, the exception being this Dutch delight:



Fast forward to the mid 70s and a couple we really can't ignore in this post. In 1976 American actress Romina Power, the daughter of Hollywood legend Tyrone Power, was working in Italy as a singer and actress. In 1970 she married Italian singer Albano Carrisi (known professionally as "Al Bano", and they would represent Italy both in 1976 and 1985, bringing some much needed happy couple vibe to the contest. Both entries finished seventh but here is the lovely 1976 song:



In 1989 the Cypriots were smarting. After a stupendously bright Eurovision debut their 1988 entry had suffered the unique indignity of being disqualified late on, after the Eurovision CD had been pressed, as it was a national final reject from a few years before. They sent to Lausanne a sweet couple called Fani Polyméri & Yiánnis Savvidákis, with arguably the most "wedding" Eurosong of them all, that finished exactly half way down the scoreboard and is cute as hell.



The Nineties were as barren as a very barren thing for such romance and as Eurovision entered the new millennium the theme became even less popular, but we leave you with a classic from 2004. The Maltese, probably along with the Danes the most prolific purveyors of fine boy/girl cheese, regaled us with this delight from Julie & Ludwig, which finished (as Cyprus above), exactly halfway down the scoreboard in 2004.



Whatever you're up to on Royal Wedding Day we hope you enjoy yourselves!

BACK TO NUL POINTS NET