Séverine recalls glory days of Eurovision Song Contest

By Gerry Buckley

A couple of weeks ago, a segment in a popular early morning programme on a national radio station featured unusual names from a bygone era when ‘John’ and ‘Mary’ predominated in this country.

A lady by the name of Séverine rang in and it immediately struck a chord with many of us of a certain vintage, especially fans of the Eurovision Song Contest at the height of its popularity.

When she explained its origin, it was precisely what I had anticipated – she had been called after the winner of the first staging of the competition in Ireland on April 3, 1971 in the Gaiety Theatre.

Colour televisions were few and far between in Ireland at the time, and RTÉ was widely applauded for hosting the huge event which was hosted by Bernadette Ní Ghallchóir.

A glutton for nostalgia – albeit normally just in sporting matters – I managed through a variety of modern IT links to track down the ‘original’ Séverine, who is now aged 72 and living in France, and I had a heart-warming chat with her last week.

Séverine, whose original name is Josiane Grizeau, was asked by the famous lyric writer Georges Aber if she would like to enter the Monaco song selection for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1971, and Jean-Pierre Bourtayre and Yves Dessca wrote the song ‘Un banc, un arbre, une rue’.

A total of 18 countries competed in Dublin in an attempt to succeed Dana, whose victory with ‘All Kinds of Everything’ in Amsterdam 12 months earlier had generated an outpouring of national pride in this country, five years after Ireland had first competed.

The Derry teenager went on to have quite a successful musical career and mixed luck with her political ambitions (she became an MEP, but twice failed in bids for the presidency).

Coincidentally, another young lady from the North, Angela Farrell from Portadown, was Ireland’s entry in 1971 and finished a disappointing 11th with ‘One Day Love’, while Warrenpoint’s Clodagh Rodgers (she of ‘hot pants’ fame) represented the UK, the widely-held suspicion being that she may have been deemed a suitable representative of ‘Royaume-Uni’ south of the border at a time when the ‘Troubles’ were at their zenith. She ended up in fourth position.

The winning song was a classic French ballad, whose lyrics focused on the loss of childhood innocence and people following their dreams. “It was not jazz or blues, my normal type of song. What can I do with this song? That was my reaction when I heard it first. It was a big surprise to win. Did I think I would win? Absolutely not,” Séverine reflects.

But win she did, and in impressive fashion to boot. She topped the poll with 128 points, including a maximum 10 (the now-infamous ‘douze points’ was not possible at the time) from six juries – Belgium, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.

Séverine spent a week in Dublin. “It was a very nice town, I was very young and people were very sympathique to me,” she says, mixing her languages, while also admitting that many years spent in Germany sometimes makes it awkward for her to hold conversations in languages she now seldom uses.

She was back in France the day after her win (Monaco’s sole victory to date). In sharp contrast to Dana’s glitzy homecoming, there was no royal contact from Monaco’s ruling couple, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace (the former actress Grace Kelly).

“However, many years later, their son Prince Albert invited me to Monaco for a big party,” Séverine recalls, before adding, “they were disappointed that they could not hold the Grand Prix in Monaco in 1972”, (when it was relocated to Edinburgh).

One shot at Eurovision sufficed for Séverine. “Years later, I almost represented Germany on two separate occasions, but I didn’t want to go. People still say they like my winning song,” she adds, and when asked how often she has sung it in the 50 years since 1971, she replies, “thousands of times!”.

The Eurovision concept has changed radically since its inaugural staging in 1956. Séverine agrees: “It is crazy, it’s another show now, and it’s not about la chanson,” (the song).

She feels that the policy now of almost every song being performed in English “is disturbing, as the German song should be in German, Italy should be in Italian, and so on. Also, for Australia it means nothing to compete and we would not go there for the Grand Prix if they won. Nobody remembers the winning song now.”

Incidentally, while her winning song title literally means ‘a bench, a tree, a street’, when Séverine was asked to do the song in English, it was called ‘Chance in Time’. The original French version made number nine in the UK singles chart in May 1971, whereas the English version did not chart.

Some Eurovision winners went on to have great international success – and Séverine is very aware of Johnny Logan’s unique treble-exploits as a winning singer and composer – while the 1974 contest sparked the career of one of the world’s most famous bands, ABBA.

Indeed, while on a soccer weekend in Brighton a couple of years ago, I took the opportunity to visit the city’s Dome theatre, where the colourfully-dressed Swedish foursome had famously won the day with ‘Waterloo’.

Séverine is philosophical when comparing the later career paths of the winners. She had further success in France and Germany, but never again on an international scale. In this regard, she uses a French expression with which we are all familiar, “C’est la vie!”

In conclusion, Séverine, who comes across as a very charming and particularly jolly lady, is happy to state: “I’ve got no Covid, my health is OK, so I’m lucky.” Not half as lucky as the spotty 14-year-old who got to speak to one of his teenage heroines half a century later!