Eurovision 1963 - Denmark - May 5th 2025

Hello all. For today's entry in the Eurovision Histories series, we will be checking out our first winning entry and winding it back all the way before the show was even in colour ! Back to 1963, a time where the beatles became famous, we only had 2 TV channels and Eurovision was far more different to the show we all love today ! 

The 8th Eurovision Song Contest was held on March 23rd 1963 in London, United Kingdom. France, the previous years winner declined to host for a 3rd time in 5 years. This year's contest was held at BBC Television Centre in a bizarre way where the performers and the orchestra were in one studio and the host and scoreboard were in another. This year also featured boom microphones which led to some lip syncing allegations ... 

So now to come the facts before we dive into this entry further. A link to the performance is also here if you don't know it or have forgotten it. !  

Song : Dansevise
Artists: Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann
Place : 1st 🥇
Points : 42 

Denmark held a national final on February 24th 1963, Dansk Melodi Grand Prix to select their entrant for the contest. We don't have a voting breakdown ( well I couldn't find one) but it was Dansevise that won, sending the song off to London. 

Performing 8th during the evening, between the songs from Finland and Yugoslavia and conducted by Kai Mortensen, the song tells of someone reminiscing about their lover, wanting them to come back and dance again with them. Sung in Danish, it transitions between quieter verses and cresendos to bold choruses sung by Grethe. Jørgen is behind her, playing guitar and adding to the mood. The staging is simple, just the two of them with a swirling, almost hypnotic background behind them. The bridges of the song are fitting to this, soft to lure you in as well as its accompanying melody. 

The couple became the first duo to win Eurovision and also Denmark was the first Scandinavian country to win as well. In fact all the other competing scandies got the dreaded nul points that night ! I adore this song for a few reasons, one it's well performed, two I love the contrast between the verses and chorus and three, that hypnotised feeling you get when you hear it ! 

However, the voting this year caused a massive controversy. The voting system this year made the jurors vote for their top 5 songs. The favourite would get 5 and then so on down to 1. Norway, who were voting 5th in the running order, did not reveal their points in the correct way, asking to be come back to at the end. It emerged after the show that they hadn't finished tallying all the votes yet. When host Katie Boyle called on Norway again, they gave a different set of points to what they had done the first time, giving Denmark the victory of 2 points over runners up, Switzerland, who were the runners up lodged a formal complaint but after an investigation, it was deemed that Denmark's victory was fair and square.

Denmark received 5 lots of the top score of 5 points from Belgium,  Finland, Luxembourg,  Netherlands and Sweden. They themselves gave their top score to Italy. 

So how to describe this song in 3 words then... let's go for hypnotic, classy and interesting !  It was definitely the first Eurovision game changer in my opinion !!! If you want to listen to more classic Eurovision, then definitely check this one out ! 

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

Ellie x 




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