Eurovision 1982
Date: 24 April 1982
Venue: Harrogate International Centre
Winning country: Germany (1st win)
Winning entry: Nicole, “Ein bißchen Frieden”
Vote-counting is not often a magical business, especially when the results are a landslide. But there is one moment in Eurovision 1982’s voting sequence that’s pretty damn unforgettable: during Israel’s turn to present their results, the IBA spokesman goes through the points slowly, steadily, betraying no signs of the imminent earthquake: “Spain, eight points… Switzerland, ten points.” Then, as if he knows just how much of a response his next words will provoke, he waits a bit before delivering the wham line: “and, er… Germany, twelve points.” Gasps percolate through the TV cameras; spontaneous applause breaks out. The people of Israel have just given their mortal enemies, their former persecutors, the highest vote imaginable.
Eurovision means nothing. It is a song competition broadcast on television; for all the millions that watch the Contest every year, billions don’t know or don’t care it exists. There have been efforts to make it mean something: witness all those attempts to tie ABBA’s meteoric rise to the ESC, or the frequent mentions of how the Portuguese entry that same year helped kick-start the Carnation Revolution. But all of this is correlation, and it has as much heft on the world stage as I do — yet still its reputation as an event for peace persists, and every so often moments pop up, moments that remind us that such starry-eyed visions aren’t entirely misguided. That moment from the Israelis up there is one of them. The song that engendered it is another one — an even better one.
“Waterloo” (and perhaps the 1997 winner) notwithstanding, “Ein bißchen Frieden” is perhaps the most emblematic song that Eurovision has ever produced. The lyrics are basically one long mission statement for the Contest: “A little peace, a little sunshine/ For this Earth, on which we’re living”, sings Nicole during the chorus; “a little peace, a little dreaming/ That people won’t be crying as often.” If you were to ask your average joe on the street to sum up the ESC in a sentence, they might very well come up with this: this is stock Eurovision, the type of generic lyric favoured by so many contestants over the years, both before and after Nicole Hohloch.
It is this generic quality, however, that has led to this song being roundly panned in music critic circles (“a crass bid for campfire immortality”, says my favourite reviewer) and forgotten in music history — even though the English version was a #1 single in places including the UK, apparently it’s nowhere to be found on streaming these days. Of course, a saccharine peace-loving song winning Eurovision was nothing new, even back in 1982; but given that this is the song that best represents the ESC, what does that say about it? Does it imply that the Contest, too, is nothing but a showcase of lightweight, idealistic songs that are all show but no substance?
Actually, there’s not even much show available when “Ein bißchen Frieden” is involved. The first German winner is a rather artless song: bare stage layout, simple costumes, no sign of a dance break anywhere — a far cry from previous German entries, which had such diverse elements as mimes mincing around the stage or exotically-dressed dancers proclaiming the virility of Genghis Khan. Those entries were all about flamboyance and energy: after all, West Germany was where Kraftwerk and Boney M and Nina Hagen were, and they all projected confidence and drive. The no-frills simplicity of this song stands at odds with all that.
But IS it really that simple? It’s not hard to catch Nicole grimacing during her performance, to sense that darkness is lying not far from the surface — and indeed, one look at the lyrics reveals a narrator who, far from achieving any sort of serenity, is scared out of her mind and on the verge of giving up: “In fear of the dark, I sing my song/ And hope that nothing happens”. There are also references to past traumas: she sings her song, she says, “so that I may never lose hope again.” But the most damning line comes at the beginning of the second verse:
“I know that my song, it won’t change very much…”
And there it is, the white flag: far from being a puffed-up, self-important singer, Nicole is powerless and fully aware of it; she sees everything going to shit around her, and yet she is helpless, unable to do anything else but sing, which is very cute but achieves practically nothing. Rather than being a forerunner in Eurovision’s tradition of dewy-eyed calls for peace, “Ein bißchen Frieden” is much cannier than that: this is a song written and sung by people who are battle-scarred, traumatised, and more than a little desperate — and as Germans, they certainly knew something about that.
From a certain angle, this might make the song seem pre-emptively defensive — but I think this is instead something that makes “Ein bißchen Frieden” much more vulnerable. Nicole may not exactly be “alone” onstage (she has a full backing band, including a harpist, behind her) but she’s seated quite some distance from other people; when she sings about how “alone I am helpless, a bird in the wind/ That senses the beginning of a storm”, we feel that helplessness, that sense of doom. What’s more, there’s no attempt to resolve this: she doesn’t find the peace she’s been looking for, and there’s no sign that it’s coming anytime soon. Her final appeal to us (“sing with me a little song/ So everyone can live in peace!”) is more of a last-ditch plea than a naïve platitude; she knows that what she’s singing will fall on deaf ears, but she’s giving it a go anyway.
And that, I think, is what lifts this song a cut above the rest. So many songs in Eurovision, while nominally about peace, don’t really FEEL sincere: they stuff their performances with gimmicks, or use it as an excuse to showcase their vocal chops; their message may (MAY) be no less commendable, but it seems more complex, more calculated. I don’t know whether Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger had any complex calculations behind their composition, but Nicole’s unvarnished performance feels a lot more sincere and direct than the others. You hear it, and you feel like actually striving for something with her, so that “people won’t cry as often”.
There’s also the fact that “Ein bißchen Frieden” is just a very beautiful song. From the softness of the harps to the angelic backing singers, from the pastoral lyrics (“I see the clouds above us/ And I hear the cries of birds in the wind”) to the singer herself, everything here seems to radiate loveliness and gentleness, seems to remind us of the goodness of the world we have. Sure, the substance of the song might be much darker than you’d expect, but I don’t think we’ve had a better balance as yet of tenderness and bleakness than there is in this song; its magic is immediate, and undeniable.
Everyone seemed to agree. “Ein bißchen Frieden” swept to the top of the leaderboard early in the voting and widened its lead with every country reported, leading to an epic margin of victory; after the Contest, the European public responded in kind, sending the song and its foreign-language derivatives to the top of the charts across Western and Central Europe. Back in 1982, it must have felt like a triumph for the Eurovision project: a song which beautifully summed up everything it stood for had just garnered unanimous acclaim across the continent. Marcel Bezençon, the founder of the Contest who had died the previous year, would no doubt have been proud.
But then Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, and the world moved on: the host nation continued its territorial spat with Argentina over the Falklands, the Soviets continued to invade Afghanistan, and in June Israel — the country, remember, that had previously beat the drum loudest for peace — would start a brutal two-decade invasion of Lebanon. You would be forgiven for thinking “Ein bißchen Frieden” had never happened, that all of the peace and love of that April evening was just for show. You would probably be right, even.
So we return to a question that we’ve asked, time and time again: what good is the Eurovision Song Contest, if all it produces are footnotes in history and bland chansons (and the occasional skirt-rip)? Over the years we’ve looked at a variety of songs, but ultimately they are no more than musical mayflies: they exist for a while, and then they dissolve into the ether. But then I think of those magic moments they create: of international forgiveness, of true vulnerability and atonement, and most of all of that spontaneous audience reaction, that joy that the crowds of Europe have when they react, as one, to a song which touches their hearts. Those are the moments that bring us hope, that allow us to not completely lose faith in a better world; it is this faith, in turn, that keeps the dream of Eurovision going, that encourages everyone who believes in it to create moments that bring the world together, and make it a slightly less awful place for one night.
For there is one more magical moment concerning “Ein bißchen Frieden” that isn’t in the Contest performance itself: after that landslide win, Nicole returns to the stage to deliver her winner’s reprise — except she performs it in not one, not two, but FOUR languages. With every change, the applause from the audience becomes more and more pronounced, and she seems to give it more and more oomph; her English “SING WITH ME A SONG OF PEACE” during the coda is practically heart-wrenching in how sincere, how raw it feels. The ovation that greets her at the end, even before she has even finished singing, is deafening: you can barely hear the orchestra over the cheers and applause.
It remains the closest I’ve ever been to shedding a tear over any Eurovision performance; in that moment, you suddenly feel that world peace could just be round the corner, and it’s all thanks to this young woman from the Saarland. It’s this kind of moment that I live for when I watch the ESC: a moment of connection, a little sincerity, and the feeling — however delusive and fleeting — that peace and harmony might just be possible amongst peoples.
Happy Eurovision, everyone!
Rating: 8/10
Best song
Having taken a break from firing on all cylinders for a couple of years, Israel roared back to standard ESC greatness and placed second with their stirring patriotic song “Hora”, named after a traditional dance. Although I much prefer Avi Toledano’s previous and future songs, “Hora” has grown on me — listening to it is like being on a rollercoaster, albeit one bedecked with Levantine instruments, and it’s a worthy runner-up. Third place went to Switzerland, where Arlette Zola pranced around clumsily on stage while singing “Amour on t’aime”; it’s a genial little ballad that reminds one of the earlier days of Eurovision, and my reaction is the same: fine, but disposable.
This year has been quite exciting to watch: although the songs aren’t that much higher in quality than last year, many of the 1982 entrants have gone on to be cult hits within the fandom — I’ve read posts here and there, gushing over the entries for Norway, Cyprus, Spain and many more. There’s also a sizable fanbase for the aforementioned Israel, which is my third place; however, the same cannot be said for my second place. Where are the thinkpieces on the Austria entry? Sure, they’re literally called Mess and “Sonntag” is really just a song about enjoying Sundays, but they’re attractive, dance well together and keep up the energy, so why can’t we talk about them? But I cannot possibly talk about Eurovision, and not reward Germany’s entry: it practically presents the Contest with a raison d’être, and is a damn good song to boot. It’s still celebrated in the annals of the ESC, and rightly so.
| PLACE | ACTUAL RESULTS | MY PICKS |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Germany, “Ein bißchen Frieden” | Germany, “Ein bißchen Frieden” |
| 2nd | Israel, “Hora” | Austria, “Sonntag“ |
| 3rd | Switzerland, “Amour on t’aime“ | Israel, “Hora” |
Next time
Down with the French! Long live the English!
Inkpot Shuffles in the Twilight 
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