Do you like ‘firsts’ in Eurovision? The first song in Arabic perhaps? The first black performer? The first use of pyrotechincs?
Well today I’ve picked the first winner that didn’t include the title of the song in the lyric. It might also be the first (and only) occasion where a named performer didn’t actually sing a note. It’s not a recent song, but from 1963. We were in London, and today’s birthday boy Jørgen Ingmann Pedersen played his electric guitar, backing his then-wife Grethe. Legend surrounds the win, and in particular the votes of one of the competing countries. Nevertheless, it won and beat several highly-fancied songs by notable performers. Sadly, Jørgen died in 2015, but this was probably one of the coolest songs ever to win.
Jørgen would have been 93 today.