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 1981.
The registration deadline for a country’s ESC song is about two months before the international final takes place and those two months must be used well, you have to figure out what to wear and how the song will look visually when all of Europe is watching and you are competing for your country with the hope of victory and fame.
Sometimes the result is remembered because it is amazing in some way, but other times it is remembered because you simply wonder what they were thinking when they decided how to appear on prime time TV on a Saturday night.
One of the songs that definitely falls into the latter category is the entry from 1981 called “Wenn Du Da Bist” which means something like “When You Are Here” and it was sung by Marty Brem who had already been on the ESC stage as 1 of 5 in the group Blue Danube the previous year.
The song itself is a fairly standard, slightly melancholic ballad and young Mr. Brem is immaculately dressed in a white blazer and dark pants, but most people have probably forgotten that, it’s what the four female dancers do that makes you remember.
One of the ladies is also a chorister and she possibly wins awards as the least flatteringly dressed chorister of all time where she walks around in knee socks, a legally low-cut swimsuit and a hockey helmet, while the other three ladies have a choreography that is nowhere near matching the music, perhaps not so strange, they are all wearing heavy headphones so maybe they are listening to a completely different song.
Where on earth did they get this idea from? I thought and figured I should check out what the song looked like in the national final and realized then that the madness had already begun, there were no less than 4 girls in knee socks, reasonably low-cut swimsuits and hockey helmets, but in addition they were equipped with roller skates where three of them sat in a lip sofa while the last one wobbly sailed around on her roller skates until gallant Marty guided her to his sofa.
Featured image – Youtube