Glasgow’s Eurovision history: winning Glaswegian performances and a songwriter from Govan

Glasgow has a storied past with the Eurovision song contest - producing winning performers and songwriters.
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Following the disappointing news from the BBC on Friday that Liverpool won the bid to host Eurovision 2023 - we looked back at Glasgow’s history with the European song contest.

It looked likely that Glasgow would be the city to host Eurovision 2023 - with bookies favouring us over Liverpool to win the bid - before the unfortunate announcement on Friday evening.

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In 2008, Glasgow was named the UK’s first UNESCO City of Music - thanks to our heritage, and buzzing music scene that hosts over 130 music events a week.

Not to mention the Hydro arena appearing in the Netflix film ‘Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga’.

Back in 1969, a Glaswegian artist called Lulu wrote and performed a song at the 14th Eurovision in Madrid which won the UK the contest.

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns won Eurovision 1969 with ‘Boom Bang-a-Bang’ - in a controversial decision that saw her tie at 18 votes with Spain, the Netherlands, and France.

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Lulu later spoke about the song with John Peel on his show, she said:"I know it’s a rotten song, but I won, so who cares? I’d have sung "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" standing on my head if that’s what it took to win....

"I am just so glad I didn’t finish second like all the other Brits before me, that would have been awful."

Despite her dislike for the song, it is her second biggest UK hit to date, reaching number two on the chart in 1969.

Lulu continued to appear on Eurovision in hosting and judging capacities up until 2009 - she also sang at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

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Most recently, Lulu appeared as a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK in October 2021.

A songwriter from Govan also had a lot of influence on Eurovision, writing several winning songs for the European song contest.

Bill Martin co-wrote ‘Puppet on a String’ - performed by Sandie Shaw - who became the first British entry to win the Eurovision song contest in 1967.

Bill then went on to co-write ‘Congratulations’ which was performed by Cliff Richard in London at Eurovision 1968 and won second place behind the Spanish entry. The song went on to reach number 1 in many countries including Spain.

The Govan songwriter co-penned another winning song in ‘All Kinds of Everything’, performed by Dana at Eurovision 1970.

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