December 25: Dani

This is it - Christmas day and the end of this calendar. In Sweden or Finland, yesterday would have been the last entry but I include also the 25th. Because I can. And because I want to share one more jewel that never made it to Eurovision.

Not because it was rejected in any national heat. This one won the internal selection held by French television in 1974 and was all set for going to Brighton and collect a lot of points there.

Then something came between Dani and Brighton. Georges Pompidou, president of the republic, died unexpectedly four days prior to the ESC and was buried on the very day of the final. Not a chance that France would take part. Dani had to unpack her bags and stay at home.

I have often found myself wondering how this one could have changed the history of the contest. Hardly a winner - not direct enough for that, I'd guess - but could it have stolen points off Abba? And would the French jury have preferred the Italian ballad instead? The voting could have been much more of thriller had France made it to the starting line.

The message of the song - there's nothing bad with doing yourself a bit of good - is also a good motto for the holiday and for the new year. Cheers!



Dani / La vie à 25 ans (France 1974 preview)

December 24: Seyyal Taner

It is Christmas Eve, everyone! It is time to be happy. Maybe to dance around if you feel like it. And to be very very happy.

Few people in the world were ever happier than the people representing Turkey at Eurovision in the 1980's. Or the people fighting it out for the right to represent Turkey. They were all happy and never far from breaking out into neck breaking dance routines.

Few people ticked as many boxes in the "happy and dancing"-department as Seyyal Taner did. In 1986 she ended in second place of the national heat with this piece of bounciness. One year later, she went on to win and flew off to Brussels where quite a few people expected her to get an unusually good placing for being a singing Turk.

Instead, she famously returned home without a single point. A disgrace. Red card for the juries. (And the colour red suits Christmas very well as well.)



Seyyal Taner / Dünya (Turkey NF 1986)

December 23: Nurlaila

What is the worst kind of bad luck you can have at your national final? Is it perhaps the musical ketchup effect? First comes nothing, then nothing, then nothing and then all at once. And then the bottle is empty.

The Netherlands had had some problems finding really solid entries after their 1993 smash "Vrede" but put great effort into their 1998 final and found themselves with not just one but two fantastic entries.

I think they made the right choice, sending Edsilia off to Birmingham with the remarkable "Hemel en aarde" which secured the best Dutch showing since 1975. But Nurlaila would have been an equally strong choice.

Sounding like a Broadway musical showstopper, "Alsof je bij me bent" was written by John Ewbank who had previously taken part himself in the 1990 Dutch final as part of Shift.

Only a few years later, the Dutch would lose their grip on Eurovision totally and fail to reach the finals on eight consecutive occasions. Too bad they couldn't save Nurlaila for later and bring her out instead of that seemingly endless string of weak entries. That would have been something.



Nurlaila / Alsof je bij me bent (Netherlands NF 1998)

December 22: Anna Mjöll

One of my universal truths is this: nice is a bad idea at Eurovision. Nice won't do. People enjoy nice things, but nice will never stand out and nice will never win.

Nobody votes for nice.

Iceland has had a bad case of nice for the last couple of years, where most of their entries have been sweet, lighthearted and inoffensive. It goes some way but never far enough.

This little ditty is a good case for my point. Everything here is very enjoyable; Anna Mjöll is a terrific performer whose company feels like a treat, the homemade dance moves, the infectious rhythm that is the result of Blame it on the Bossa Nova meets a geyser or two. I have a very good time for the two minutes and fifty seconds that this goes on.

And - mark my words - at Eurovision this wouldn't have gone anywhere. A few polite points from here and there and that would be it. Anna Mjöll represented Iceland in 1996 with an equally nice entry and ended up in the very middle of the result.



Anna Mjöll / Eins og skot (Iceland NF 1993)

December 21: Nina Badrić

It was such good news when Croatia finally decided to send Nina Badrić to Eurovision in 2012. A long overdue decision. Unfortunately the song she took with her to Baku was good but not particularly direct and she didn't even make it to the final.

Too bad. Nina should have gone to Dublin in 1994 instead. She would have rocked the place. Or would she? There are many reasons why selecting her in 1994 would have been fantastic as well as reasons why it would have been a really bad idea.

The song is really catchy and very contemporary at the time. It would have been one of the most modern-sounding entries in Dublin and one of very few uptempo song. It would have needed a much better stage presentation but that would have been taken care of, for sure.

So why not, then? The biggest answer to that is - of course - that Dublin orchestra. With firm grips around their strings and brass, they would lash out at anything attempting not to sound frightfully old and not stop until the only things left were gloom and ruins.

Nobody in 1994 brought a backing track powerful enough to outdo that orchestra. Could Croatia had been the odd one out? The one upbeat track to sound really good on the evening?



Nina Badrić / Godine nestvarne (Croatia NF 1994)

December 20: Arja Saijonmaa

This will be short and snappy and in general just a very direct hommage to a performer that entered national finals for Eurovision four times and would have been a worthy winner on three of these.

("2005? Did she deserve to win in 2005?" I hear you cry. Maybe she wasn't the best but considering the hot mess Sweden sent to Kyiv, she would at least have made the event more fun.)

As for Finland 1990, I will insist - until I go blue in the face - that there is nothing really wrong with the chosen entry. It just didn't work, that's all. I still like it.

But imagine Arja Saijonmaa entering that stage in Zagreb, being the last of 22 participants, and just impose her presence onto everyone present. Preferably with a slightly more elegant stage performance than at the national final.

A top five for Finland? Not unthinkable, good people.



Arja Saijonmaa / Gabriela (Finland NF 1990)

December 19: Ines

For some years, Estonian tv didn't really get anything right when it came down to selecting an entry for Eurovision. The formerly so successful Baltic state suddenly found themselves doing really badly in the international finals.

In 2003, their seemingly fool-proof system of having international experts selecting the winner had backfired and lead to a dismal placing in Riga. After that, the Estonian public was allowed to chose by televoting for two years, but neither one of their winners made it to the big ESC final. It was time to bring the international experts back.

It could have been a good idea, had they themselves selected more relevant and up-to-date experts. Instead the bunch in question rejected Ines' big comeback in favour of a slick but anaemic schlager that would go on to crash and burn in Athens.

Personally, I can't remember making a longer face at any national final I have ever been to and I still wish for Estonia to send Ines to the big thing for a second attempt some day when the stars align.



Ines / Iseendale (Estonia NF 2006)