Eurovision Song Contest 1965

The Eurovision Song Contest 1965 was the 10th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 20 March 1965 at the in Naples, Italy, and presented by Renata Mauro. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (RAI), who staged the event after Template:Esccnty's entry, "" by Gigliola Cinquetti, won the Template:Escyr. Broadcasters from eighteen countries participated in the contestTemplate:Snda new record number of participants. Joining the sixteen countries which had participated in the previous year's event were Template:Esccnty, who returned after a one year absence, and Template:Esccnty, making its debut in the contest.

The winner was Template:Esccnty with the song "", written by Serge Gainsbourg, and performed by the French singer France Gall. It was Luxembourg's second contest victory, following the nation's win in Template:Escyr. The Template:Esccnty finished in second place for the fifth time, Template:Esccnty placed third, Template:Esccnty achieved its best-ever result with a fourth-place finish, and four countries received nul points and finished in joint last place. It was the first time that a pop song had won the contest, and marked the beginning of a sea change in the contest that saw it develop from an event dominated by and ballads in its early years to one more greatly associated with schlager and pop music for the remainder of the 1960s and into the 1970s and 1980s.

Location

The 1965 contest took place in Naples, Italy, following the country's victory at the Template:Escyr with the song "" performed by Gigliola Cinquetti. It was the first time that Italy had hosted the event. The chosen venue was the , in the Fuorigrotta suburb of the city. A part of the production centre of the Italian public broadcaster (RAI) within the city, the auditorium was built between 1958 and 1963 and had space for an audience of around 1,000 people.Template:Sfn Naples had been chosen by RAI as the host city due to the availability of the necessary equipment within the city's production facilities, as well as to honour Naples' history as a center for music in Europe, including the prestige which the holds.

Participants

Template:Interlanguage link info Template:ESC 1965 participants Broadcasters from a new record number of eighteen countries submitted entries for the contest. Template:Esccnty returned after a one-year absence, and Template:Esccnty made its first ever appearance. For the first time in the contest's history a competing entry was performed entirely in a language which was not the official language of the country it represented, namely the Template:Esccnty which was performed entirely in English.

Three of the competing artists at this year's event represented their countries for the second time: Conchita Bautista had represented Template:Esccnty, Vice Vukov had represented Template:Esccnty, and Udo Jürgens had represented Template:Esccnty.

Eurovision Song Contest 1965 participantsTemplate:Sfn

Country	Broadcaster	Artist	Song	Language	Songwriter(s)	Conductor
Template:Esc	ORF	Udo Jürgens	""	German	Template:Hlist	Gianni Ferrio
Template:Esc	BRT	Lize Marke	""	Dutch	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	DR	Birgit Brüel	""	Danish	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	YLE	Viktor Klimenko	""	Finnish	Template:Hlist	George de Godzinsky
Template:Esc	ORTF	Guy Mardel	""	French	Template:Hlist	Franck Pourcel
Template:Esc	NDRTemplate:Efn	Ulla Wiesner	""	German	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	RÉ	Butch Moore	"I'm Walking the Streets in the Rain"	English	Template:Hlist	Gianni Ferrio
Template:Esc	RAI	Bobby Solo	""	Italian	Template:Hlist	Gianni Ferrio
Template:Esc	CLT	France Gall	""	French	Serge Gainsbourg	Alain Goraguer
Template:Esc	TMC	Marjorie Noël	""	French	Template:Hlist	Raymond Bernard
Template:Esc	NTS	Conny Vandenbos	""	Dutch	Template:Hlist	Dolf van der Linden
Template:Esc	NRK	Kirsti Sparboe	""	Norwegian	Jolly Kramer-Johansen	Øivind Bergh
Template:Esc	RTP	Simone de Oliveira	""	Portuguese	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	TVE	Conchita Bautista	""	Spanish	Antonio Figueroa Egea	Adolfo Ventas Rodríguez
Template:Esc	SR	Ingvar Wixell	"Absent Friend"	English	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	SRG SSR	Yovanna	""	French	Template:Hlist	Mario Robbiani
Template:Esc	BBC	Kathy Kirby	"I Belong"	English	Template:Hlist	Eric Robinson
Template:Esc	JRT	Vice Vukov	"" ()	Serbo-Croatian	Template:Hlist	Radivoje Spasić

Production and format

File:Inaugurazione Auditorium RAI Napoli 31 marzo 1963.jpg

The stage of the (pictured in 1963 at its inauguration); the auditorium's pipe organ was prominently featured during the contest.

The contest was produced and broadcast by the Italian public broadcaster RAI. Template:Ill served as director, Francesco De Martino served as designer, and Gianni Ferrio served as musical director of the RAI Orchestra comprising 48 musicians.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Each participating delegation was allowed to nominate its own musical director to lead the orchestra during the performance of its country's entry, with the host musical director also conducting for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor.Template:Sfn The event was presented by Renata Mauro and was overseen on behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), by Miroslav Vilček as scrutineer.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The stage design within the venue had the orchestra situated in the centre, on top a transparent dais which allowed for special lighting effects to be made during the performances.Template:Sfn Stage left was a performance area which the majority of artists used for their performances, with a backdrop featuring the Eurovision logo, while stage right was the scoreboard. The performance area was also used by Mauro in her opening and closing remarks, and introduce the competing acts. The large pipe organ within the RAI auditorium, with over 9,000 pipes, featured prominently behind the orchestra during the contest, as well as during the voting sequence when Mauro was pictured standing in front of it.Template:Sfn

Each country, participating through a single EBU member broadcaster, was represented by one song performed by up to two people on stage. No entry was allowed to be commercially published before 10 February 1965; this caused an issue for the Template:Esccnty, "Se piangi, se ridi" by Bobby Solo, which had won the 15th Sanremo Music Festival on 30 January, as around 240,000 copies of the single release had been available in Italy by the cut-off date. Although a small number of the other broadcasters participating in the event raised objections to the song competing, given that RAI was hosting the event, with disqualification of the host broadcaster considered impossible, and an understanding that there was little time available to select a new song, "Se piangi, se ridi" was ultimately allowed to compete.Template:Sfn

The results of the event were determined through jury voting, with the same voting system introduced for the previous year's event retained. Each jury comprised ten individuals representing the average television viewer and radio listener; as such no individuals in the music industry, including composers, music publishers, and people employed by record companies, were able to sit on the jury. Each jury comprised twenty members, who each had three votes to award in total, which could be given to one song or divided across two or three songs. Jurors could not vote for their own country, and no abstentions were allowed. The song which was awarded the most votes received five points, the second-highest three points, and the third-highest one point. If only two songs had been awarded votes they would receive six and three points for first and second respectively, and if only one song was awarded votes they would receive nine points.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The draw to determine the running order took place on 9 February 1965 in Geneva, Switzerland. Each country's delegation was provided a 45-minute slot to rehearse with the orchestra in the contest venue.Template:Sfn Rehearsals commenced on 17 March 1965, starting with Switzerland, followed by the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany and Austria also rehearsing on the first day. Rehearsals continued on 18 March for Norway, Portugal, Monaco, Sweden, France and Belgium, and on 19 March for Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland, Yugoslavia and the Netherlands.Template:Sfn Technical rehearsals were held on 20 March, followed by two full dress rehearsals ahead of the live broadcast that evening; the second dress rehearsal was also heard by the national juries.Template:Sfn

Contest overview

The contest was held at 20 March 1965 at 22:00 (CET) and lasted 1 hour and 38 minutes.Template:Sfn The interval act was a performance by the Italian operatic tenor Mario Del Monaco, who gave a rendition of "O sole mio", although rather than singing live he mimed his performance to a previously recorded version.Template:Sfn The prize for the winning artist and songwriters, a medallion engraved with the Eurovision logo designed by Template:Ill, was presented by Del Monaco.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The winner was Template:Esccnty represented by the song "", written by Serge Gainsbourg and performed by the French singer France Gall. It was Luxembourg's second contest win, following victory at the Template:Escyr. The Template:Esccnty came in second for the fifth time, while Template:Esccnty placed third.Template:Sfn Template:Esccnty, in fourth place, achieved its best-ever result, while four countries, namely Template:Esccnty, Template:Esccnty, Template:Esccnty and Template:Esccnty, finished in joint last place with nul points.

The contest was a tumultuous experience for Gall who, at 17 years old, was the youngest competitor at this year's event. During rehearsals the musicians in the orchestra were displeased with the fast tempo of the song, resorting to booing and whistling towards Gall as a form of disrespect and protest.Template:Sfn This infuriated Gainsbourg, who insulted the orchestra and stormed out while threatening to leave Naples entirely and return to Paris, leaving Gall alone with an angry orchestra to finish the rehearsal.Template:Sfn While the fractious relationship between Gainsbourg and the orchestra was eventually settled, the experience had a continued impact on Gall's confidence during the contest; as Gall recounted in 2015, this led to what she perceived to be a shaky and nervy performance during the event, which she believed diminished her chances of doing well in the contest. When she looked for support over the telephone from her then-boyfriend, the French singer Claude François, he supposedly reinforced her doubts, telling her she sang out-of-key. Ultimately, however, Gall would take the lead from the first round of votes, and retain the lead until the very end, beating the UK's Kathy Kirby by six points.Template:Sfn Upon her victory, before going out on stage for the award presentation and reprise performance of the winning song, Gall called François again, who broke up with her over the phone; Kirby meanwhile, who had been the pre-contest favourite to win, was upset at losing to the young Gall and stormed into the Luxembourgish delegation's dressing room, claiming the contest had been rigged in Gall's favour, and slapped her. Gall was subsequently in tears as she went back on stage, which were interpreted as tears of joy by the assembled press.Template:Sfn

Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1965

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Template:Esc		""	5	11
2	Template:Esc		"I Belong"	26	2
3	Template:Esc		""	0	15
4	Template:Esc		"I'm Walking the Streets in the Rain"	11	6
5	Template:Esc		""	0	15
6	Template:Esc		""	16	4
7	Template:Esc		""	1	13
8	Template:Esc		""	0	15
9	Template:Esc		""	7	9
10	Template:Esc		"Absent Friend"	6	10
11	Template:Esc		""	22	3
12	Template:Esc		""	1	13
13	Template:Esc		""	15	5
14	Template:Esc		""	10	7
15	Template:Esc		""	32	1
16	Template:Esc		""	0	15
17	Template:Esc		""	2	12
18	Template:Esc	Yovanna	""	8	8

Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue via telephone lines and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1965 contest are listed below.

• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndTemplate:IllTemplate:Sfn
• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndDick van Bommel
• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndTemplate:IllTemplate:Sfn

Detailed voting results

Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in the order in which they performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in ascending order.Template:Sfn The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below, with voting countries listed in the order in which they presented their votes.

Detailed voting results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1965

		scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header	scope="col" Template:Vert header
rowspan="18" Template:Vert header	Netherlands	5							5
United Kingdom	26			5				1	6		3			1	5				5
Spain	0
Ireland	11												3	5				3
Germany	0
Austria	16		3		5								5	3
Norway	1						1
Belgium	0
Monaco	7		5															1	1
Sweden	6														3		3
France	22	1		3	1	3				5						3	1	5
Portugal	1									1
Italy	15	3	1			1			3	3		3				1
Denmark	10										5					5
Luxembourg	32	5		1	3	5	5	3			1				1		5		3
Finland	0
Yugoslavia	2											1	1
Switzerland	8						3					5

5 points

The below table summarises how the maximum points available were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. Luxembourg and the UK each received the maximum score from four of the voting countries; Austria, Denmark and France received two sets of maximum scores each; and Ireland, Monaco, the Netherlands and Switzerland each received one maximum score.

Distribution of 5 points awarded at the Eurovision Song Contest 1965

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 5 points
4	Template:Esc	Template:Esc, Template:Esc, Template:Esc, Template:Esc
	Template:Esc	Template:Esc,Template:Efn Template:Esc, Template:Esc, Template:Esc
2	Template:Esc	Template:Esc, Template:Esc
	Template:Esc	Template:Esc, Template:Esc
	Template:Esc	Template:Esc, Template:Esc
1	Template:Esc	Template:Esc
	Template:Esc	Template:Esc
	Template:Esc	Template:Esc
	Template:Esc	Template:Esc

Broadcasts

Broadcasters competing in the event were required to relay the contest via its networks; non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest. Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. These commentators were typically sent to the venue to report on the event, and were able to provide commentary from small booths constructed at the back of the venue, with 20 booths ultimately constructed for the event.Template:Sfn

For the first time the contest was broadcast by members of the International Radio and Television Organisation (OIRT), the counterpart of the EBU within Eastern European countries, via its Intervision network.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In addition to the participating countries, the contest was reportedly broadcast in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union, with an expected global audience of 100 to 200 million.Template:Sfn Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators, are shown in the tables below.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Template:Refh
Template:Flagu	ORF	ORF
Template:Flagu	BRT	BRT
	RTB	RTB,
Template:Flagu	DR	DR TV
Template:Flagu	YLE		Template:Ill
			Template:Ill
			Jerker Sundholm
Template:Flagu	ORTF	, France Inter	Pierre Tchernia
Template:Flagu	ARD		Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	RÉ		Bunny Carr
			Kevin Roche
Template:Flagu	RAI	,	Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	CLT
Template:Flagu	NTS		Teddy Scholten
	NRU
Template:Flagu	NRK	, NRK	Erik Diesen
Template:Flagu	RTP	RTP
Template:Flagu	TVE	TVE, TVE CanariasTemplate:Efn	Template:Ill
	RNE	RNE
Template:Flagu	SR	, SR P1	Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	SRG SSR	TV DRS
		TSR	Template:Ill
		TSI, Radio Monte Ceneri
		Radio Sottens
Template:Flagu	BBC	BBC1	David Jacobs
	BFBS	BFBS Radio	Ian Fenner	Template:Sfn
Template:Flagu	JRT

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Template:Refh
Template:Flagu	ČST	Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	DFF	DFFTemplate:Efn
Template:Flagu	MTV	MTVTemplate:Efn
Template:Flagu	MBA	MTV	Victor Aquilina
Template:Flagu	TP

Legacy

File:Gainsboug-Gall-1965-Italie.png

A colourised photo of Gall (right) and Gainsbourg (left) the day after the contest

File:Ingvar Wixell 1965.jpg

Ingvar Wixell, the Swedish entrant, performing at the

The 1965 contest, and in particular its winner, has since been viewed as a monumental moment in the event's history. Although pop music had been present in the contest in past editions, the vast majority of songs and winners had fit more into the "", "" or ballad categories. "", considered emblematic of the genre, is thus commonly referred to as the contest's first pop winner, as well as the first winner which was more reflective of European popular music at the time, and its win had a big impact on the types of songs and performers which would be selected to compete in future contests. Following another pop winner in Template:Escyr, the UK's Sandie Shaw and "Puppet on a String", pop songs, and in particular schlager music, would go on to become a staple of future editions of the contest, with several winners from the 1970s onwards fitting into this genre.

Although past contest entries had achieved commercial success outside of their countries of origin, no previous winner had achieved the chart success that "" went on to accomplish in the weeks and months after the contest, reaching the top 10 in singles charts in Belgium, Finland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and West Germany, as well as in Argentina, French-speaking Canada, Japan, and Singapore. Gall became one of Eurovision's first breakthrough stars, and the commercial success of "" helped pave the way for the contest to be seen as a platform to drive forward professional careers and achieve commercial success across Europe and worldwide.

Gall and Gainsbourg, who had first developed a creative partnership in 1964 with "" ("Template:Langx"), continued to work together after the contest, spawning further hits including the controversial " ("Template:Langx"); although on the surface it is a song about a girl who likes lollipops, just as with "", Gainsbourg's lyrics were laced with subtext, in this case double meanings about fellatio. Although Gall claimed that she was too young to understand this when she recorded it, it dented her artistic image and led to a rift between herself and Gainsbourg and her career soon dipped. Upon meeting her future husband, the French singer Michel Berger, her career had a resurgence, and she only performed songs written by him in future years. This partnership led to her most successful album, Babacar, in 1987, which featured "", which became a worldwide hit the same year. The ending of her previous relationship with Claude François would serve as inspiration for his 1967 song ""; Paul Anka would subsequently buy the rights to adapt the song into English, which would eventually become "My Way", a hit song for Frank Sinatra in 1969.

Gainsbourg returned to the contest two times as a songwriter: in 1967 he contributed another song, "Boum-Badaboum", which represented Template:Esccnty at that year's contest where it was performed by Minouche Barelli and finished in fifth place; and in Template:Escyr his song "White and Black Blues" performed by Joëlle Ursull came second for Template:Esccnty. Also a singer, Gainsbourg gained notoriety himself in 1969 with his song "", a duet with his then-girlfriend Jane Birkin, which although a commercial success was controversial for its overly sexual content, leading it to be banned from radio play in several countries and denounced by the Vatican.

"" was subsequently nominated in 2005 to compete in Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest, a special broadcast to determine the contest's most popular entry of its first 50 years as part of the contest's anniversary celebrations. One of 14 entries chosen to compete, "" ultimately finished in fourteenth place.

Although the contest had no specific rules about the language in which a song should be performed in, there was an implicit understanding that each country should perform in the language, or one of the languages of that country.Template:Sfn While some previous entries had been partly performed in a foreign language to that country, e.g. the Template:Esccnty and Template:Esccnty, which had one verse each in French,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the Template:Esccnty, which had one verse in English,Template:Sfn the Swedish entry at this year's entry was the first song to be performed entirely in a language other than that of the country it represented, in this case completely in English. This led to protest from several of the other broadcasters following the event, which led to a rule change being implemented for the 1966 contest, explicitly stating that all countries had to be represented by a song in one of that country's official languages. This language rule would remain until Template:Escyr, when freedom of language was once again permitted, only to be reintroduced ahead of the Template:Escyr; the rule was finally abolished indefinitely for the Template:Escyr and all future contests.