“FASCISTS STOLE CLIFF RICHARD EUROVISION SONG CONTEST VICTORY!!!” screams the title of one blog post.
Those bastards. I always knew fascism was bad, but this? This is a step too far…..
Ok, so this is how the media has treated the news that Sir Cliff Richard was the true winner of the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest; with a mixture of delight and mock indignation.
Sir Cliff (top) and Franco
A new Spanish documentary named ‘1968: I lived the Spanish May’, has revealed that in a bid to boost good feeling towards his country and improve its image, Spain’s then dictator Francisco Franco fixed the Eurovision results.
The film’s director, Montse Fernandez Vila Franco reveals how Spanish TV executives were sent across Europe to buy series that were never intended to air and sign concert contracts, all in return for votes on the big night.
The Guardian has quite rightly recognised this as the disgrace it is (certainly not a laughing matter) dedicating the whole of the printed versions page 3 to its coverage. They interviewed Sir Cliff and found him to be: “….philosophical. He clearly doesn’t hold Massiel accountable for the vote 40 years ago; and if the adjudication is reversed, he has promised to send her a signed copy of Congratulations.”
And for extra depth, they even finished their article with a critics review. Caroline Sullivan noted: “Even in 1968, the Spanish entry’s trumpet-tootling, bodice-ripping melodrama would have sounded dated – though it’s unfair to claim that Massiel was completely oblivious to modern influences, as the chorus lifts the melody line of the Beatles’ With a Little Help from My Friends.”
An article posted by Reuters treated the news equally as seriously, quoting both the documentary-maker, and the Director of Eurovision TV Eurovision Bjorn Erichsen, who laughed: “Franco was really so keen for Spain to win it? We’re not talking about NATO here or the EU, or political influence, we’re talking about a pop song contest. [But] I can’t exclude the possibility it might be true.”
NME.com sourced the story from Reuters, specifically picking out another insensitive quote from Erichsen who discounted the idea of an investigation, saying: “Just to make Cliff Richard a little happier and the Spanish winner a bit more unhappy? I don’t think you should dig up old bodies to prove he was or wasn’t the Father. It’s history.”
Injustice is injustice, if it can be rectified it should.
