No, really. Actual fascists. Cliff Richard would have won Eurovision in 1968 if it weren’t for those darn fascists. Really.
A documentary was aired on Spanish TV last night claiming that Cliff Richard was the rightful winner of the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest in London, but General Franco‘s fascist regime rigged the vote in Spain’s favour.
These are just claims, of course, and we have no reason to believe that they’re true – firstly because if you can’t trust an all-powerful unblinking facist dictatorship then who can you trust, and secondly because Cliff Richard is going to be really sodding unbearable once he finds out about it.
The Eurovision Song Contest is now less than three weeks away, and while the British are busy rehearsing their traditional pre-Eurovision routine of violently disliking their own entry and then getting upset when the rest of Europe inevitably agrees with them, the Spanish have decided to try something different.
Rather than focus on this year’s song – which is probably for the best since this year’s Spanish Eurovision entry is a skinny tit in an Elvis wig and a tiny guitar singing a reggae song about how Hugo Chavez dances like a dog – the Spanish have decided to look back on their Eurovision victory of 1968 and blame it on the machinations of their fascist dictatorship.
Eurovision buffs will already know that the winning song was Spain’s La La La by Masseil, with Cliff Richard’s Congratulations coming second by a single point. But last night it was claimed that this was down to corrupt Spanish state television executives promising to buy TV shows from European countries in exchange for votes. The Press Association reports:
Sir Cliff Richard was robbed of victory in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest due to vote rigging by General Franco’s fascist regime, a documentary has claimed. The British singer’s tune Congratulations was beaten to the top spot by Spanish entrant Massiel in order to boost the country’s international image, a film-maker said… In a documentary aired on Spanish TV on Sunday night, director Montse Fernandez Vila claimed Spain’s win was “bought” by corrupt executives working for state-run television.
This isn’t a good state of affairs by any means. Cliff Richard has already elbowed his way into popular trends like giving music away on the internet and tormenting the young, so the last thing we need is for him to become a standard bearer of grumbling about how political Eurovision has got. What next? Will Wired For Sound be included on Guitar Hero 4? Is Cliff Richard going to start performing guest raps in the middle of Beyonce songs? We need to stop this madness while we can.
Anyway, if these claims are true, and General Franco’s fascist dictatorship really did rig the results of the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest, then maybe similar practises still go on today. For instance, perhaps Scooch didn’t win Eurovision for the UK last year because of an underhanded political agreement by east European countries to vote for each other.
Either that or because their song was objectively rubbish and European people have ears. One or the other.
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