ESC Luxembourg City 1984 — “Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley”

Eurovision 1984

full show (Italy partially missing)

Date: 5 May 1984
Venue: Grand Théâtre, Luxembourg City
Winning country: Sweden (2^nd win)
Winning song: Herreys, “Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley”

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Last time we talked about the fall of an ESC giant, and the corresponding decline in prestige of the French language. This time we talk about the opposite: the rise of another ESC giant, and the part it played in the increasing dominance in another lingua franca of Europe. Yes: it’s time to talk about Sweden.

The Konungariket Sverige has always been a huge player in the world of music. Ever since ABBA and Blue Swede took the Anglophone world by storm in 1974, the Swedes have been expert craftspeople in pop songs; today, so much music around the world, from R&B to K-pop, can trace at least part of their roots back to a few music studios in Stockholm. Despite that burgeoning excellence, however, their record in Eurovision was a little patchy in the years following their first win: yes there were a couple of good offerings, but there were also forgettable schlager tunes and attempts at funk and disco; there was also one instance where the lead singer of Blue Swede himself tried to defy the native-language rule, chickened out onstage, and ended up singing gibberish for a whole minute. The Swedes punished this act of incompetence by sending him again in 1981.

During this period, the powerhouses of the ESC were the usual suspects: France and the UK kept on sending excellent tunes (more or less), while Israel and Germany caught a second wind and starting finding themselves near the top on a regular basis. But there were big shifts happening in the mid-1980s, and in 1984, another gibberish song announced the arrival of the Nordics as power players in the Contest.

As anyone possessing a slight familiarity with pop music will tell you, Swedish music lyrics don’t make much sense. Whether it’s “All That She Wants” or “Baby One More Time”, or some other forgotten pop song, the words are often little more than a word salad; trying to extract meaning from them ain’t nothing but a mistake. What is surprising, however, is that this also applies to “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley”.

I don’t just mean the notorious title phrase, though apparently that itself has bewildered generations of Eurovision aficionados. I mean the entire song: there is some stuff about dreaming of a pair of golden shoes, wearing them on the town, and then finding life massively improved. (Perhaps they started getting girlfriends.) But that’s about as much that can be gleaned: the rest reads less like a story about golden shoes, and more like a random assortment of phrases that just happened to be lying around when the songwriters had to fill in the words. “Lightning and thunder”, “I have visions for millions”, “happiness is made”… the list goes on. I am not kidding when I say that the English version of the song, which the Herreys performed as a reprise after their win, makes MORE sense than the Swedish original.

But this is the point: it was never about making sense. Regardless of whether they’re writing for Swedish, English or Korean audiences, Nordic songwriters usually make the tune of a song their priority; words are chosen more for the way they go with the melody rather than their actual meaning. That applies here as well: witness the moment in the second verse where the backing singers cry “säg mer, vi tror på ditt ord” (“say more! We believe all your words”). It amounts to nothing more than an interjection, but the Herreys picked the perfect words for it: it’s a sentence that echoes Richard Herrey’s enthusiasm, and bounces that energy right back at him.

This tendency to put melody before lyric, mirrored in so many Swedish (and to a lesser extent other Scandinavian countries’) entries before and since, reveals the gradual shift in the factors that determined the success of an ESC song. Luxembourg began to fall behind in Eurovision in the 1980s not because their entries were crude, tuneless confections, but they (or to be precise, their French writers) were getting so caught up in ideas of prestige and complexity. This had served the Francophones well back in the black-and-white days, when the Contest was still primarily broadcast on radio, but by the 1980s pop music was seeping in — from America and Britain, but also Germany and Italy — which wiped the floor with the overly complex melodies that the Francophones were still picking out. By contrast, what we hear in songs like “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley” are pop songs with a very hummable tune, combined with lyrics that you could sing even if you didn’t know Swedish; the song’s success is, in part, because of the title phrase, ridiculous yet a pleasure to say or sing.

It is this reliance on scansion, so integral to Swedish success at Eurovision over the subsequent four decades, that strikes at a matter at the heart of the Contest: is good wording necessary for a song to win? In recent years I’ve seen quite a few posts lauding a song because it is heartfelt, because the lyrics are poetry, because the singer is telling “their truth”. But the most recent winners all bely that: whether it’s “violins playing and the angels crying” or “you don’t want to go under/ So you let me go under”, no ESC song is winning the Nobel Prize for Literature anytime soon. And this has been the norm for ages: you only have to look at the number of times I’ve moaned “BUT THIS SONG DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE” over the past three years.

Your mileage may vary on whether this is a good thing: it has certainly brought the Scandinavians a lot of success over the past four decades, but it also means that every year there are complaints about juries promoting white-bread Swedish pop music over the “folkish”, “more culturally honest” tunes served up by other countries. (This also leads us to the whole “should songs be sung in a national language to be authentic” argument, but that’s a story for 1999.) And there’s some degree of truth to those accusations: if you compare “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley” and the things Sweden have sent in the past five years, there’s not much difference to be found in the songwriting; the production may have been updated, but the bright, crisp sounds of 1984 aren’t that far off from the bright, crisp sounds of 2024 either.

But on the other hand, there’s no doubt that the Swedish entries just sound better. “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley” doesn’t have the grandiosity of last year’s winner, but neither does it feel small and understated like Nicole; instead there’s energy and youth in Herreys’ performance — not the type exemplified by Bucks Fizz, which was all chaos and cacophony, but a harmonious fizz (heh) that lifts the song higher and higher. There are points during the chorus when the brothers positively soar and bring you with them; it’s all too brief, but for a few seconds the magic is palpable.

And that was the key: by 1984, everybody was listening to, and preferring, music produced the Swedish way. It was invigorating, it was fun, it was exactly the sort of thing that most Europeans, be they from Lisbon or Helsinki, could agree they liked. (Just look at the broad appeal of the 1974 winner.) So what if “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley” was a few simple elements hammered again and again? It’s good shit. Even after an entire double album’s worth of entries — Sweden performed first that year — it’s the one that sticks with you, the one that you keep humming even after the contest is over.

But I want to zone in on one specific aspect of this song’s legacy that best demonstrates the supremacy of Swedish popcraft. It should come as no surprise that “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley” is one of the few winners that has had a long afterlife; that, in turn, has ensured Herreys’ perennial appearance at ESC milestone celebrations. But regardless of whether they’re singing it in English or Swedish, there’s always sure to be loads of people in the audience joining in. A lot of people might see this as a vindication of the national language rule, but I think it’s more a testament to the pop power of the original: if a song is well-made enough, then that quality impresses into people’s minds, be it in English or Swedish or Nynorsk. It’s the reason why Sweden has become the dominant power at Eurovision, and it’s the reason why, despite its really rudimentary nature, “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley” still worms its way into the hearts of Eurovision fans forty years on.

Rating: 7/10

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Best song

Having already won for his adopted home country, Johnny Logan returned to Eurovision in an attempt to help another Irish singer reach the top of the scoreboard. They failed by a margin of just eight points, which is a shame because Linda Martin’s “Terminal 3” is the best of the four songs Logan ever sent to the ESC: it captures the anxiety of reunion, the seduction of nostalgia so perfectly that the song comes across less as a romantic ballad and more as a psychological thriller: every “Terminal 3, flight’s on time” seems to turn the screws just a little tighter, and I love it. In third place was Spain and “Lady, Lady”, a song that wants to marry flamenco with 80s pop music. Emphasis on “wants” — it’s a bit too genteel and refined to actually pull off the abandon and the ecstasy required for this type of song, but a valiant effort nonetheless.

1984 is a rather bad year for me; maybe the past couple of years have been too good, but this Contest seemed to serve up nothing but bland pop songs that absolutely fail on the Théâtre Municipal stage. I even had trouble picking a third place; originally I was going to go for Denmark, but on a relisten it became evident that it really stood out only because of the choreography. I ended up picking Italy’s “I treni di Tozeur” instead; neither Alice nor Franco Battiato are very good at singing, but you can never really go wrong with Italo disco, and the last minute is a definite earworm. Then we come to my top two, which is also the top two of the actual contest… but in which order? There’s no doubt that “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley” is good work, and I feel like it’s time I rewarded Sweden for their musical finesse — despite their consistent excellence, I’ve only awarded them first place once in 29 posts (and that was in 1958). But on the other hand, you have Ireland’s entry: when you listen to Linda Martin singing “Terminal 3”, you feel her hopes, you fear her fears; when she finally stops singing, you find yourself breathless, anxious… and eager for more.

(And more she shall give you, but that’s a story for another time.)

PLACE	ACTUAL RESULTS	MY PICKS
1st	Sweden, “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley”	Ireland, “Terminal 3”
2nd	Ireland, “Terminal 3”	Sweden, “Diggi-loo Diggi-ley”
3rd	Spain, “Lady, Lady“	Italy, “I treni di Tozeur“

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Next time

The Contest turns thirty, and everybody gets nostalgic.