Tim: We discussed Love Shine A Light a few weeks back, and I discovered that, with an average of 9.46 points per country, it’s the third most successful Eurovision song ever. (Well, ish – pre-1975’s tricky to work out, but we’ll leave that for now). First is Brotherhood of Man’s “Save Your Kisses For Me”, slightly understandably; second is this, utterly mystifyingly.
Tim: That song does absolutely nothing for me, and yet not only did it do remarkably, it went on to be number one in every country it was released in. That includes the UK – and no other Eurovision winner’s done that here since. I haven’t a clue why, so does it do anything for you?
Tom: It doesn’t do anything for me, but I’ll tell you why it’s successful: it sounds like a lot of other songs. There’s nothing surprising about this at all: but the chord progression, the melody, even the switching-into-the-harmony bits: they’re all familiar.
Tim: Maybe, but they’re a very dull familiar.
Tom: Except in 1982, I’m not sure they would be as familiar. Not to an audience that didn’t have any music they wanted, on tap, right now. Back when you had to buy actual singles, or wait for one song on the radio. It’s using every trick in the book on a public that probably wasn’t used to them. It sounds… nice.
Tim: I’ll leave you with something I can get behind: a cover of it performed at Eurovision 1996 by, of all people, Rednex. Yep, them off Cotton-Eyed Joe: