Music
The night I won the Eurovision Song Contest!
As The Eurovision Song Contest celebrates its 60th birthday, Shay Healy recalls his triumph as the writer of Johnny Logan’s winning What’s Another Year
Shay Healy acknowledges the rapturous audience
As a tribute to the late Shay Healy we are republishing this article which first appeared in Senior Times in 2015 As the ‘What’s’ Another Year’ plane took off for Amsterdam I found myself in an unusual situation. As well as being the songwriter of Ireland’s entry to the contest, by default I had become Press Officer for the RTE delegation so I was obliged to present the best side of the Irish team and to stay close to Johnny Logan in case he hit any snags.
Another important item on the agenda was, which country would have the best craic and Ireland off to a glorious start. With Johnny Logan’s piano player, Andy O Callaghan at the piano, we had a talented, consummate musician who knows so many songs, from Skibbereen to Status Quo.
Turkish delight
We soon discovered that we were tipped as possible winners of the competition, but I dismissed the idea and settled down to an intense week of dinners, receptions and parties.
Dymphna my wife, was the first to make friends with the Turkish delegation. We were delighted to find out that they were just like us! The Turks gave up on her name, and rechristened her Dumptruck. We happily stayed up till dawn, drinking and carousing with our new best friends.
It’s mad to think that the Eurovision Song Contest is 60 this year! Historically, the contest still has no peers and over those sixty years has seen the pictures go from black and white to vivid color, from analogue to digital, from electricians climbing up on a ladder, to the computerised mega show it is today.
The word spread: every night, in the run up to the final, the lounge in the hotel was jammed with Andy filtering through the good singers, playing a blinder. He looked like he was about 11 and innocent. No way! But who was that standing behind the piano. Why it’s Louis Walsh, the man who discovered Johnny Logan. Wondered what became of him?
Sadly in 1981 orchestras were phased out and replaced with backing tracks. I hate backing tracks in competition because everything is too rigid. No natural swing. Metronome is King and that’s not good for music.
When we first arrived in The Hague people were getting a laugh from a t-shirt I was wearing, which said on the back ‘IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT I WIN THIS CONTEST’. Roy Esmonde our photographer friend suggested that we should do a thumbs -down pic in case we lost, and a thumbsup in case we won.
Besides the excitement singers with orchestra would give the judges a better chance to compare songs and find a worthy winner. We satisfied ourselves that the technical requirements for our song and our lighting cues were correct and then called for conductor Noel Kelehan who raised his baton and conducted us into the pub next door. Which became a regular stopover for us for the rest of the week. 16 Senior Times l May - Junel 2021 l www.seniortimes.ie
Back at home all our families were gearing up to watch the show. I was particularly anxious about my dad, who had suffered a minor heart attack two weeks prior to the contest so he was being minded. And then suddenly it’s on. You’re here and the contest is on in a couple of hours, the place is alive, with everybody from stagehands to the orchestra
