ESC Dublin 1981 — “Making Your Mind Up”

Eurovision 1981

full show (Swiss song muted)

Date: 4 April 1981
Venue: RDS Simmonscourt Pavilion, Dublin
Winning country: United Kingdom (4^th win)
Winning entry: Bucks Fizz, “Making Your Mind Up”

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Like it or not, it’s never the same. The studio version of any Eurovision song will always sound different compared to what’s presented onstage: there’ll be more instruments, less screaming, a change in the degree of sultriness. Whether these changes are good depends on the band: I happen to think that the winning entries of ABBA and France Gall were much better as pop hits confected in a studio than as stage performances; but there’s no denying that Johnny Logan and even Corry Brokken vastly improved on their songs when they brought them out into the ESC stage — it might have been the charisma of these performers, or just some visual effects that could catch the eye of a wandering viewer, but those performances made me so much more excited about their songs. I wouldn’t have given Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann that score, for instance, had they just stood in their spotlights and sang.

But then there’s “Making Your Mind Up”. Bucks Fizz were always a band of varied quality when it came to their studio work, but for me the studio version of their Eurovision winner is not really a highlight: it’s a hard song to sing, and a little bit repetitive. But for me, it is still hugely, vastly preferable compared to the monstrosity that was their ESC performance. And so a word of warning: since my reviews here are all based on what viewers saw on the night of the Contest, this is not going to be a very happy review.

Let’s get the famous scene-stealer out of the way first. A minute and a half into their performance of “Making Your Mind Up”, the two men of Bucks Fizz put their hands on the hips of the two female singers. Just as they sing “but if you wanna see some… MORE!” there’s a quick flurry of movement, and suddenly the women’s skirts are torn off, revealing… slightly shorter skirts underneath. This incident is then allowed to pass without mention (Jay Aston is the only member to even acknowledge that something has happened); there is no attempt to build on this potential game-changer of an event, and Bucks Fizz merely continue swaying their hands left and right, like parents swishing the bathwater for their little one.

I imagine that this would have counted as scandalous behaviour at the time — family show or not, there had been nothing like this over the past quarter of a century — but looking back at it now, it all seems a bit silly. The United Kingdom is certainly no stranger to the risqué; I’ve talked about its fondness for music-hall entries and wink-wink humour before. But if this particular episode of déshabillé was designed to honour that grand old tradition, then it fails: nobody, even in 1981, would have been titillated by this sort of thing. If anything, I think they’d have just been baffled: with their colour-coordinated sweaters and skirts, Bucks Fizz look less like ABBAesque glam stars and more like Blue Peter presenters, an image that’s hard to shake even AFTER the skirts have been whipped off. Seeing these child-friendly figures attempt something so naughty so half-heartedly just feels odd and off-putting; appealing to neither kids nor adults, it comes across as an obvious cheap grab for votes.

But of course, those ten seconds are only one problem with the UK entry, a song that is simply shot through with flaws. Take the lyrics, for example: the very first sentences of this song are “You gotta speed it up, and then you gotta slow it down/ Cause if you believe that our love can hit the top, you gotta play around!” We are two sentences in, and already we are in the realm of self-contradiction, if not outright incomprehensibility. This is a problem that only worsens as we go along; having told us that we “gotta play around”, we are told that we should “burn it up”, “get a run for our money”, and “bend the rules of the game”. For a song that’s literally called “Making Your Mind Up”, the lyrics show an astounding inability to actually do so.

The thing is, you notice none of this when you’re listening to the studio version. The original recording is a buzz of energy; the words, meaningless as they are, are lost in a swirl of music and production magic. But for some reason, the performance amplifies the song’s lyrical iniquities: every contradiction, every absurdity becomes a thorn in the listener’s side; and still it goes on, verse after verse of nonsense, until you are thoroughly irritated. I am aware, of course that this is par for the course when it comes to Eurovision: this is not even the first time that the winning song was a word salad, and just last year we discussed at length the problem of songwriter recourse to over-simplified inanities. But the UK is nothing if not capable of lyrical finesse and subtlety, and I expected better from the English songwriters of the British entry. Even Björn Ulvaeus did better than this claptrap, for Christ’s sake!

But the worst thing about it all is the performance — my God, what an inexcusable performance. Up till quite recently three members of the Fizz were still regularly touring and selling out venues around the UK, and despite being in their sixties and early seventies these days, by all accounts they regularly put on a good show. But 44 years ago, on the Eurovision stage, that chemistry was practically non-existent: instead they look stiff, artificial, disconnected from one another. They don’t even seem to look at each other that much; you can see Mike Nolan gritting his teeth during the dance sequence. They speedrun their choreography, almost as if they’re dying to get this over with and rush offstage as soon as possible — an impression heavily supported by the frantic, almost frazzled looks on their faces. At no point does it look like they believe a word of what they’re singing, or even care.

Then there’s the singing: all the members of Bucks Fizz were decent singers (and still are), but again most of that competence seems to have utterly disappeared on Eurovision night. Not only do the girls sing their harmonies much higher and louder than is necessary, but one of them is audibly struggling to get her high notes out, her voice getting alternately breathy and screechy. (I haven’t been able to tell whether it’s Aston or Baker, and I have no desire to subject myself to additional misery to find out.) It’s been suggested that the mics at the Simmonscourt Pavilion had been accidentally switched around that night, ensuring that the men’s vocals were completely submerged in a sea of instrumentation and harmonies; perhaps I would have given “Making Your Mind Up” a higher score had this cock-up not happened — or perhaps I would have downgraded it even more once I’d heard the other members. I don’t know, I don’t care less anyway; it’s all very bad, and I, too, wish they’d just finish and leave the stage.

But it is a fact that no matter how bad a performance can be, they can still have long lives in the Eurovision psyche; these days the skirt-rip from “Making Your Mind Up” is still regularly touted as one of the more exciting moments that the ESC had to offer. Yet zoom out and listen to the whole song in context, and that particular gimmick becomes nothing more than a baffling manoeuvre in a song full of baffling manoeuvres. I listen to this song, and I am astounded that it managed to win the hearts of so many jury members; surely not all of them were so base as to be charmed by a flash of skin and nothing else? And surely we, four and a half decades on, have grown up and moved on from such base ploys? Other people might still be making their mind up, but I, for one, have absolutely no desire to see some more.

Rating: 2/10

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Best song

Germany continue their newfound Eurovision streak with another second-place finish; German is rarely thought of as a melancholic language, but Lena Volantis imbues the tale of “Johnny Blue” with a sadness that sounds like she’s about to collapse at any moment. It’s a bit too ponderous and static for me, but there’s no doubting its sincerity. In third place behind them was Jean Gabilou representing France with “Humanahum”, and if you’re wondering what on earth that title is supposed to mean, then well join the club. This one sees France retreating back to their artsy chanson ways, in an obvious attempt to replicate the success of “L’Oiseau et l’Enfant” — sadly it doesn’t have the impact of the latter, but the effort is there and I kind of like it.

This year isn’t a very fun year for me — many of the entries seemed confused by the very large stage (a problem that repeated itself when the Contest was held at the Simmonscourt Pavilion again seven years later) and the staging felt off for many performances; the songs, not very good to begin with, suffered even more as a result. There are a couple of good ones though: despite beating the chorus to death in its final moments, I have a fondness for Cyprus’ warm and catchy debut entry “Monika”, enough to give it my third place. One place above I’ve put the Belgian entry “Samson”, a song that not only proves that disco never really went away but, in the hands of someone like Emly Starr, could still be enjoyable and exciting (even if this one has shades of Orientalism in it). But the entry that caught my eye the most comes from the host country: Sheeba’s “Horoscopes” is that rarest of things, an adominshment of astrology and superstition delivered with pep and flair, and that makes for such a refreshing change from the normal sappy love songs of the ESC. Ireland’s entries in Eurovision may be somewhat hit or miss, but this was definitely the former.

PLACE	ACTUAL RESULTS	MY PICKS
1st	United Kingdom, “Making Your Mind Up”	Ireland, “Horoscopes”
2nd	Germany, “Johnny Blue“	Belgium, “Samson“
3rd	France, “Humanahum“	Cyprus, “Monika“

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Next time

We’re all doomed — might as well sing about it!