ESC Covers have google translated the Norwegian post from ESC NORGE to English.
This is a blog post and only represents the writer Morten Thomassen’s own views.
Before the year ends, I think it might be a good idea to look at some memorable songs from Austrian ESC history, and this time I’m focusing on 1977.
After sending songs well placed within the rather typical popular music genre, our Austrian friends decided to do something a little different.
In some countries, the ESC was seen as a kind of tool for the commercial music industry and our Swedish friends stood by the ESC-1976 because powerful forces believed that our beloved competition was an overly commercial gimmick with no particular value for real music.
Real music or not, the group Schmetterlinge sang the song “Boom Boom Boomerang” and this group was known for being a political rock band, so perhaps it’s not surprising that they came up with a song that had something musically political about it.
The group consisted of Kurt, Erich, Galadriel, Günther and Beatrix and the latter two were part of the group Milestones who participated 5 years earlier, so some ESC experience in other words there.
The song itself is a pretty pop song that we have often heard in ESC, what was more special here was the stage show where the guys in the band, when they turned around, had a face mask on the back of their heads and were “bad businessmen” and you can hardly say that the choreography was outstanding, but a bit like what you saw on the ESC stage in the 70s.
Whether this was a joke or a sarcastic way of expressing their opinion about the commercial part of the music industry, the fact was that those who voted did not find the humor or criticism in this and they ended up in second to last place and they only beat Sweden who that year took their only last place alone, in 1963 they shared last place with three other countries.
Swedish last places or not, Austria’s ESC entry in 1977 was perhaps the entry that those who disliked the ESC in Sweden could have imagined they would have sent in 1977 and then they might have avoided last place with a cry for help, but now you will probably see a bit of boom and boomerang with many emergency rhymes thrown into the mix.
Featured image – Youtube