1968

VENUE Royal Albert Hall, London		ENTRIES 17
HOST Katie Boyle		DEBUTS None

The UK's first victory meant that the 1968 contest was staged in the grandiose surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall in London. The UK had already staged the contest twice previously, in 1960 and 1963, both times because the winning country had declined to host. The home entry was none other than "Congratulations" by Cliff Richard, and had been virtually anointed a clear winner even before the contest started. How wrong can you be?.

In this era songs had to be in a native language, and the Spanish winning song, whose chorus consisted entirely of "la"s, circumvented the rules in a way that was to be copied with similar success by Norway in 1995 (with a de facto instrumental) and Israel in 1998 (with a polyglot chorus). The winning singer, Massiel was late replacement for Joan Serrat, who had insisted on singing in Catalan rather than Spanish.

The Norwegian entry "Stress", performed by the aptly named Odd Borre, has gone down in Eurovision folklore for it's unremitting banality. The aforementioned Odd stares at his watch singing "Bra Bra Bra Bra, Ma Ma Ma Ma". However to be fair this song was second in the Norwegian selection and was promoted when Odd's original song was deemed to be just too similar to Cliff's "Summer Holiday". Ireland's song was performed by the father of boxer Barry McGuigan.

Portugal	Verão	Carlos Mendes	11
Netherlands	Morgen	Ronnie Tober	16
Belgium	Quand Tu Reviendras	Claude Lombard	7
Austria	Tausend Fenster	Karel Gott	13
Luxembourg	Nous Vivrons D'Amour	Chris Baldo & Sophie Garel	11
Switzerland	Guardando Il Sole	Gianni Mascolo	13
Monaco	A Chacun Sa Chanson	Line & Willy	7
Sweden	Det Börjar Verka Kärlek Banne Mig	Claes-Göran Hederström	5
Finland	Kun Kello Käy	Kristiina Hautala	16
France	La Source	Isabelle Aubret	3
Italy	Marianne	Sergio Endrigo	10
United Kingdom	Congratulations	Cliff Richard	2
Norway	Stress	Odd Børre	13
Ireland	Chance Of A Lifetime	Pat McGuigan	4
Spain	La La La	Massiel	1
Germany	Ein Hoch Der Liebe	Wencke Myhre	6
Yugoslavia	Jedan Dan	Luci Kapurso & Hamo Hajdarhodzic	7

WINNER:

Spain

LA LA LA

Massiel

Voting

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