Eurovision 1979
Date: 31 March 1979
Venue: International Convention Centre, Jerusalem
Winning country: Israel (2nd win)
Winning entry: Milk and Honey, “Hallelujah”
One major benefit of writing a series on the Eurovision Song Contest is that it’s shattered quite a few of my previous beliefs about the ESC. I had not really known that “Un premiere amour” was one of the most beloved songs of the Contest; and as discussed some months earlier, ABBA’s win in Brighton was less of a booster to their career than I’d originally thought. With “Hallelujah”, I find another long-held belief shattered: for years I’ve had the idea that the 1979 winner held legendary status within Eurovision, that it was widely accepted as one of the most powerful songs that the Contest had produced — how else could one explain the fact that it was constantly being trotted out as a peace anthem, as a rousing finale to proceedings in years of strife?
Yet a closer examination of who’s trotting out “Hallelujah” complicates the picture. There have been two major singalongs of this song at the Contest; not by coincidence, they happen to have been during the two contests that Israel hosted. The EBU is more likely to plump for the 1997 winner, or even “Waterloo”, and the audience will belt it out more wholeheartedly, too. No doubt some part of this phenomenon can be attributed to its language — nobody has ever looked at a Hebrew text and gone, “man, this language looks like a hoot, I think I’ll learn it for fun” — but recent events, where the country has loudly proclaimed its peaceful intentions while bombing the shit out of its neighbours, can’t help but cast this song in a(n even more) cynical light. Are we sure that this song is truly about peace? Is there darkness to be found behind Gali Atari’s blissed-out face? And if there is… does it dent the song’s undeniable triumph?
“Hallelujah” marks a major milestone in our tale: it is the first time that “peace on Earth” has been directly invoked as the central theme in a Eurovision winner. Previous winners had been content to approach the subject at an angle, coquettishly saying things like “isn’t this a lovely world we live in?” while trusting their audience to connect the dots; actual peacemongering did not manage to make a breakthrough until well into the Contest’s third decade. This development is interesting for two reasons: one, this development didn’t come during the 60s or early 70s (famously the era where popular culture was at its most kumbaya), but during the late 70s when much of Europe seemed like it was on the verge of collapse — the German Autumn, the Winter of Discontent, the murder of an Italian prime minister, and so on. Peace songs, it seemed, flourished only when actual peace was hard to come by.
And two, there is a certain irony in how the first song of peace to win came from a country that has more or less been constantly involving itself in wars since its creation. “Peace” seems like a rather alien concept when it comes to Israel, and this is reflected in “Hallelujah” at the 1979 Contest: Gali Atari begins her performance alone and aloof, standing onstage framed in shadow; she sings words, but those words remain tentative and rote coming from her, as if she doesn’t know what they mean, as if she’s reciting them phonetically from memory. When one of the male singers joins her, things only become more awkward: they stand staring blankly at the audience, their arms hanging stiffly by their sides, looking and sounding like two young schoolchildren chosen to deliver the welcoming speech on Parents Day.
But of course, it’s just an act. Over the course of the performance, we see a subtle shift. As more and more performers accumulate onstage, they become more fluid, their song more complex. By the time we see all four members of Milk and Honey, they have become so much more at ease with the song, as if they’ve finally been converted round to its message; “hallelujah”s flow trippingly off their tongues, no longer mere lyrics written for a song contest, but rather sincere, almost spontaneous expressions of hope.
The question remains, however: do they really mean it? The lyrics of “Hallelujah” may be rather on-the-nose, yet it’s hard not to detect a harder edge when you pay attention to the lyrics, one that speaks from a position of might. Consider: “let them ALL sing with one word”. “And with us, they WILL say ‘hallelujah!’” Even the title itself carries an imperative: in the original Hebrew, “hallelujah” directly translates to “you SHALL praise the Lord”. Peace is achievable, the song seems to say, but only if it is achieved on our terms, if you subscribe to our point of view. This is why it is so easy to take a cynical view of Eurovision: while unrest rages on all about Europe, countries spout unedifying platitudes about peace in a song contest — sometimes while perpetrating the unrest themselves. Even when the artists truly believe in the things they’re singing (and in this case, there’s no reason to believe that Milk and Honey don’t), it would take a very large heart not to see the irony there. This makes songs like “Hallelujah” very hard to love: either you remain blissfully ignorant, or you implicitly embrace the things it stands for.
All of that, I admit, is very valid. But at the same time, it’s almost impossible to not be taken in by this song and its message. Songs about peace had been Israel’s bread and butter since it joined the Contest in 1973, and Milk and Honey deliver this latest instalment with aplomb. “Hallelujah” is a slow burn through and through: they may start out the song clunky and unrefined, but over the course of the song they slowly transition into a more coherent, complex unity — a gradual sorting-out of the discordant bits. By the second verse, when they’re all gathered onstage, it sounds like you’re listening to a sophisticated lounge act at work; having started the song singing just one simple melody, the song has layered harmonies and even coordinated choreography — that moment when Atari sings “hallelujah”, stops, and they all step out from behind the mic stands is the take-off moment for this song, the moment where they shake off all their former ungainliness and become relatable humans with a peace wish.
But it’s not just the singers that make this song so uplifting. As we go along, more and more instruments join the fray, turning this simple tune into an orchestral fiesta; it’s almost as if the message of the song is spreading, awakening everyone with its optimism. Then there are the key changes: most songs change key once and leave it at that, but “Hallelujah” makes it something of a feature, with every new verse climbing higher and higher, like it’s on a quest to conquer the highest peaks. In any other song this might prove extraordinarily distracting; but when Milk & Honey do it, it feels like they’re the ones bringing sunshine and hope to Europe. And of course there are the lyrics: lines like “praise be to tomorrow and yesterday”, or “join hands, and sing with one heart” may be extremely corny on paper, but somehow the four of them imbue it with warmth and spontaneity; even if it ultimately is a performance, one could believe that they mean every single word.
I find the most striking image, however, to be from someone else entirely. The first two minutes or so of the clip up top focuses on Milk and Honey, but just before they launch into the final verse, the camera expands to a wide shot of the orchestra pit. Every time I watch that part, my eyes can’t help but gravitate to conductor and composer Kobi Oshrat, a man positively bouncing with energy; you watch as his arms reach far and wide, inviting the orchestra to turn up the volume for this last bit. You watch as he sways to the music, unconsciously mirroring the movements of the singers onstage; you are entranced as his arms swing higher and higher, and wonder just what he could be feeling in that moment. When the group belt out that final “HAL-LE-LU-JAH!”, his hands are clenched fists — a plea for peaceful coexistence? Or euphoria at what has already transpired? — and with a final blast on the horns and the pealing of tubular bells, he throws his arms wide. In that moment, his dream of peace becomes ours as well, one brief triumphant moment that we, too, find ourselves sharing.
In any case, it worked: propaganda or not, this song has left its mark; and even if its impact is nowhere near what Israel would like it to be, it’s still easily the country’s most celebrated entry. And more importantly, it established songs of peace as a viable path to victory in Eurovision: the German entry we’ll be discussing in a few entries’ time might be the more famous one, but it’s hard not to see that as a response to a song like this (especially considering that Ralph Siegel was among the audience for the 1979 Contest). In recent Contests, of course, peace anthems like these have come to be seen as cynical ploys and have fallen out of fashion; when Polina Gagarina invoked the subject for her second-placed entry in 2015, it sounded unconvincing from the get-go and has somehow managed to accelerate its fall from grace ten years since. And it is tempting to say that this peace offering from Israel is nothing but a Trojan horse, a fig-leaf for its dark actions. But listening to “Hallelujah”, one can’t help but be swept along by Milk and Honey — they believe in their peace, and in the face of such naked emotion, what else can we do, but join hands, and sing?
Rating: 9/10
Best song
Israel’s win at the 1979 Contest was an absolute buzzer-beater; up until the final national jury announced its votes, Spain had been leading the pack and only lost out by a handful of points. But I count my blessings that I am not writing about “Su canción”, a cheesy children’s song that cycles round and round while its singer does a boring impression of a sorceress. (And you thought Bambie Thug was original.) In third place behind Israel and Spain was 1973 winner Anne-Marie David, this time representing France with “Je suis l’enfant soleil”. This one is both an improvement and a deterioration from her song for Luxembourg; the connection with the audience and the intensity of her vocals is still there, but the way the singer stares into my soul unnerves me a tiny bit.
After Izhar Cohen won with a disco(ish) song the previous year, the 1979 Contest saw a significant influx of disco and uptempo songs; sadly, though, most of these suffered from classic “Europe doesn’t really know how to have fun” syndrome, and came out as poor facsimiles of what was bouncing around the US at the time. One that WAS good, however, was Germany’s “Dschinghis Khan”, widely acclaimed as one of the most exhilarating songs to have come out of the Contest: like its namesake, it barrels out of the gate and never lets up — second place for me. Under them I would place the Netherlands’ “Colorado”, with ESC veteran Xandra having so much fun onstage that it’s easy to forget that there’s not much substance to her American Western cosplay. But I still think Israel deserves the win for 1979: amongst the nineteen entries this year, it alone manages to convince me that hope is possible, that belief can and should trump cynicism; perhaps I’m naïve that way, but this idealism is the backbone of Eurovision — and is always something to aspire to.
| PLACE | ACTUAL RESULTS | MY PICKS |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Israel, “Hallelujah” | Israel, “Hallelujah” |
| 2nd | Spain, “Su canción“ | Germany, “Dschinghis Khan” |
| 3rd | France, “Je suis l’enfant soleil“ | Netherlands, “Colorado“ |
Next time
You hear that smooth, smooth saxophone? It can only be the 80s.
Inkpot Shuffles in the Twilight 
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