Eurovision 1973 - Finland- 29th April 2025

Hello everyone. For today's edition of Eurovision Histories, we are going back 52 years to a time where we only had 17 countries competing, people ate angel delight like it was going out of fashion and my parents were still children ! 

The Eurovision Song Contest 1973 was held in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg on April 7th. This Eurovision was infamous for being the edition where you couldn't stand up to clap or there was a risk of being shot due to the participation of Israel who were debuting this year. This was also the year where the rule of singing in your countries native language was dropped ( not that it lasted long when songs in English started to dominate and win) 

Because of this relaxing of languages, Finland's song was, in fact sung in English ( Rung herself is actually a Swedish speaking Finn). Here's the facts first (and a video link if you've not seen it or if you've forgotten this one) 


Song: Tom Tom Tom
Artist: Marion Rung 
Place : 6th 
Points : 93 

Finland held a national final to select their entrant this year on February 3rd 1973. Tom Tom Tom was the winner of this selection of 12 entries with 69 points, 5 more than the runner up. It also had a weird rule where the highest and lowest juror score was taken out ( in this case a 10 and a 6).The song was performed in Finnish in the national selection but then written into English for the contest.

Marion Rung returned to Eurovision after previously representing Finland in 1962 with her song Tipi Tii where she placed 7th. At the contest,  Marion was the opening entry of the evening, preceding the song from Belgium. The conductor for this entry was Ossi Runne. 

So now it's time for what I think of this song. Well it's just adorable. A love song about a guy called Tom where she tells us how she hears music with him and that his smile makes life worth living. It's very feel good, bringing a smile to your face and her enthusiasm is very infectious. 

Dressed in a brown and orange striped dress (God bless 70s fashion ) , Marion performed alone, clapping her heart out in time to the chorus and the instrumental section which she lah'd along with. The orchestra and accompaniment was very heavy on the woodwind and percussion to add to the bouncy feeling. The song itself has an interesting structure as well, starting on the chorus , then a verse, then a bridge. It also finishes with a verse, not a final chorus. 

This would be Finland's best place in the contest until their win in 2006 and remains their 4th best place in the contest as of 2024 ! As for points, the early 70's had a unique scoring system where every song was marked by 2 jurors our of 5 and then these were added together. In theory the lowest score someone could have gotten in 1973 was 32 and the highest would have been 180. Individually per country, the least a song could get was 2 points and the most was 10 points. Finland's highest score was a 9 from both the UK and Belgium. The lowest was a 2 from Italy. The highest score the Finnish jurors gave was a 9 to the UK (very reciprocal) and they gave 2's to Germany and Italy (also very reciprocal, that seems to be a theme here) 

If I had to sum up this song in three words, I'd go for fun, whimsical and enthusiastic! It's definitely one to put a smile on your face and whilst this was a strong year,  I wish it had squeaked up the leaderboard into the top 5 ! 

Until next time, remember history is important especially if it's Eurovision History !!! 
 
Ellie x 


 

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