Country Austria Selected entrant Bob Martin Final result 10th, 3 points | Selection process Internal Selection Selected song "Wohin, kleines Pony?" 1957 • 1958► | |
Austria took part for the first time in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957. The country was represented by Bob Martin with the song "Wohin, kleines Pony?" written by Kurt Svab and Hans Werner.
Contents
Before the contest
Austria actually wanted to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1956 but was, like Denmark and the United Kingdom disqualified because no entry was subimitted before the submission deadline. For the 1957 contest, Bob Martin was selected internally to represent his country with the song “Wohin, kleines Pony?” (Where, little pony?), a typical schlager for that time with a cowboy theme.
At Eurovision
Carl de Groof conducted the song at the Eurovision Song Contest. It was the fifth song presented that tonight following Italy with “Corde della mia chitarra” and proceeding the Netherlands with “Net als toen”. At the close of voting, Austria had received three points in total (two from the United Kingdom and one from the Netherlands) and would be the debuting country in the Eurovision Song Contest to finish last. As only the winner was announced in 1956, Austria is also the first country at all to finish last in the competition. Austria gave six of its ten points to the Netherlands, which marked the second highest vote for the winning country that evening.
Voting
Every country had a jury of ten people. Every jury member could give one point to his or her favourite song.
Commercial success and critical reception
Bob Martin has never recorded the song and it was therefore also never released as a single. After the contest, a German newspaper stated that Austria's three points “for this musical confectionery, a mixture of a schmaltzy song and a cowboy song à la Bruce Low” were a decent proof that the judges “could not be improved by the random taste of the masses”.