In my last post I concluded that Eurovision (or Eurovision juries, rather) were not ready for pop and youthful sounds in 1964, explaining why the excellent Dutch entry was left with only two points far back in the results.
Of course, you can never know for sure about these things. Maybe it was just another case of "the curse of number two", as Anneke was drawn to sing as the second act on the night (and no song ever won being performed second on the night)? Maybe the juries just didn't think "Jij bent mijn leven" to be all that?
I wonder what they would have made of Wenche Myhre, had she won the 1964 Norweigan final with the almost violently up-to-date "La meg være ung".
Wenche Myhre - La meg være ung (Norway 1964 national final)
Composer Arne Bendiksen (who happened to sing the winning song of that selection) blames the failure on NRK - every song was performed twice by different performers and the second version, by a male pop band, was (according to Bendiksen) impossible to recognise and only confused the juries.
Anyhow, this song was the start of Wenche's long career in Germany (where she spelt her name Wencke Myhre to facilitate pronounciation) where she, among many other things, sang the 1968 German entry to a sixth place in London.
Wencke Myhre - Ein Hoch der Liebe (Germany 1968)
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