Country United Kingdom Selection date(s) 22 February 1969 Selected song "Boom Bang-a-Bang" | Selection process A Song For Europe Selected entrant Lulu | |
Selected songwriter(s) Alan Moorhouse
Peter Warne | ||
The United Kingdom held a national pre-selection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1969. It was held on 22 February 1969 and presented by Michael Aspel. All six songs were sung by Lulu. Song No. 4: "I Can't Go On Living Without You", was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, before both found songwriting fame. The winning song was Boom Bang A Bang.
Contents
Although technically a joint win in terms of points between four countries; four countries (the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands and France) won the contest, the first time ever a tie-break situation had occurred. However, there was no rule at the time to cover such an eventuality, so all four countries were declared joint winners.
France's win was their fourth. France became the first country to win the contest four times. The Netherlands' win was their third. Spain and the United Kingdom each won for the second time. And it was the first time that any country (Spain, in this case) had a winning ESC entry two years in a row.
David Gell provided the television commentary for BBC 1 at the Eurovision final on 29 March, Michael Aspel was acting as the standby commentator. Pete Murray provided the commentary for BBC Radio 1 listeners and John Russell provided the commentary for British Forces Radio.
Results
The results were announced on Saturday 1 March. Song No. 5, "Boom Bang-a-Bang", won the public postcard vote, and went on to finish in a four-way win in Madrid with the songs from host country Spain, plus the Netherlands and France.
Voting
Every country had a jury of ten people. Every jury member could give one point to his or her favourite song.