And it’s on to 1957, the first contest which we have a full recording of.
The UK, Austria and Denmark joined, bringing the total number of participants to 10. However, the number of entries decreased from 14 to 10 as each contry only sent one song.
Despite Switzerland winning last year, Germany hosted this one as the tradition of the winner hosting the next year’s contest wouldn’t be established until next year.
A pretty good songs that can be called the first “gimmicky” performance - in this case, it’s about the whistling. Now, gimmicky doesn’t mean bad - this song is enchanced by it. The singer has a nice voice, but the orchestration is nothing outstanding.
Score: 63
Lyrically, it’s not very interesting. The performer does own it though. She puts her all into the singing, her voice is emotional and expressive. The instrumental complements the performance too.
Score: 73
This is the second shortest entry in Eurovision history (and was the shortest until 2015). This works against it though. It feels like the song has just started, but it’s already ending. It doesn’t have enough time to develop its identity to stand out.
Score: 38
On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, this is the longest entry in ESC history. The length works against it. It starts out well enough, but it isn’t varied enough to justify being slightly over 5 minutes long. On a technical level, it seems perfectly fine. The guitar gives it a nice distinctness, the singer is expressive.
Score: 45
A very upbeat song. The orchestration feels almost jazzy at times. The singer manages to sell the song really well. It’s playful, fun and silly, but in a good way. It feels very Eurovision, if you could say it about a song from the second edition of Eurovision, back when nobody knew just how big it would become.
Score: 78
Great song, Corry Brokken gives it her all. The verses are quite sassy, the chorus is more sweet, which gives a nice contrast. The instrumental part at the end is very good. It’s much much better than her entry in 1956.
Score: 86
This song does a lot of what later entries will do as well - there’s a prop, in this case a telephone. It uses phrases in different languages, which would become quite popular in the coming years, both before and after the language restriction.
She seems to be enjoying herself a lot, which helps her performance a lot. You can’t help but feel warm and fuzzy from watching it.
Also, this may be about old landline phones, but this song is even more relevant in this day and age, when a lot of people (myself included) are stuck on their phones, “which [keep their] heart and [their] soul breathing, day and night”.
Score: 93
This is a fairly classic French chanson about love, rather waltzy. France stuck to what they were good at, and who can blame them for this?
Score: 55
The instrumental overpowers the singing in the first couple seconds, but becomes more muted almost immediately. The performance feels very intimate, the duo have amazing chemistry. Nobody takes up too much time, they both get to sing alone and as a duet, which is always enjoyable. After the instrumental becomes quieter, it almost fades away, which feels right for a song like this.
Score: 89
Lys Assia is back after winning in 1956 and her entry is… not as good as either of her entries the previous year. It’s quite reminiscent of Refrain, with the bombastic instrumental entry, the middle part. The lack of backing singers doesn’t help it though. It’s not bad by any means, but it also isn’t amazing. It’s just a fairly nice song.
Score: 59
| R/O | Country | Song | Score | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Germany | Telefon, telefon | 93 | 1 |
| 9 | Denmark | Skibet skal sejle i nat | 89 | 2 |
| 6 | Netherlands | Net als toen | 86 | 3 |
| 5 | Austria | Wohin, kleines Pony? | 84 | 4 |
| 2 | Luxembourg | Amours mortes | 73 | 5 |
| 1 | Belgium | Straatdeuntje | 63 | 6 |
| 10 | Switzerland | L’enfan que j’étais | 59 | 7 |
| 8 | France | La belle amour | 55 | 8 |
| 4 | Italy | Corde della mia chitarra | 45 | 9 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | All | 38 | 10 |
Average score: 68.500
Median score: 68.0
This contest was more consistent compared to the previous one. There were fewer outstanding songs, but fewer bad songs as well. This could be because of there only being one entry per country and just ten countries. You can also see that while some countries have started to experiment with what to send, other countries decided to stick to what worked the previous time.