The winner wasLuxembourg with the song "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", written bySerge Gainsbourg, and performed by the French singerFrance Gall. It was Luxembourg's second contest victory, following the nation's win in1961. TheUnited Kingdom finished in second place for the fifth time,France placed third,Austria achieved its best-ever result with a fourth-place finish, and four countries receivednul points and finished in joint last place. It was the first time that apop song had won the contest, and marked the beginning of a sea change in the contest that saw it develop from an event dominated bychansons and ballads in its early years to one more greatly associated withschlager and pop music for the remainder of the 1960s and into the 1970s and 1980s.
The 1965 contest took place inNaples, Italy, following the country's victory at the1964 contest with the song "Non ho l'età" performed byGigliola Cinquetti. It was the first time that Italy had hosted the event.[1] The chosen venue was theSala di Concerto della RAI, in theFuorigrotta suburb of the city.[2][3][4] A part of theproduction centre of the Italian public broadcasterRadiotelevisione italiana (RAI) within the city, the auditorium was built between 1958 and 1963 and had space for an audience of around 1,000 people.[5][6] Naples had been chosen by RAI as the host city due to the availability of the necessary equipment within the city's production facilities, as well as to honour Naples' history as a center for music in Europe, including the prestige which thecanzone napoletana holds.[4]
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Eurovision Song Contest 1965 – Participation summaries by country
Broadcasters from a new record number of eighteen countries submitted entries for the contest.Sweden returned after a one-year absence, andIreland made its first ever appearance.[2] For the first time in the contest's history a competing entry was performed entirely in a language which was not the official language of the country it represented, namely theSwedish entry which was performed entirely in English.[7][8]
The stage of theSala di Concerto(pictured in 1963 at its inauguration); the auditorium's pipe organ was prominently featured during the contest.
The contest was produced and broadcast by the Italian public broadcaster RAI.[2]Romolo Siena [it] served as director, Francesco De Martino served as designer, andGianni Ferrio served asmusical director of theRAI Orchestra comprising 48 musicians.[6][16][17][18] Each participating delegation was allowed to nominate its own musical director to lead the orchestra during the performance of its country's entry, with the host musical director alsoconducting for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor.[18][13] The event was presented byRenata Mauro and was overseen on behalf of the contest organisers, theEuropean Broadcasting Union (EBU), by Miroslav Vilček asscrutineer.[2][17][19][20]
The stage design within the venue had the orchestra situated in the centre, on top a transparentdais which allowed for special lighting effects to be made during the performances.[6]Stage left was a performance area which the majority of artists used for their performances, with a backdrop featuring theEurovision logo, whilestage right was the scoreboard. The performance area was also used by Mauro in her opening and closing remarks, and introduce the competing acts.[16] The large pipe organ within the RAI auditorium, with over 9,000 pipes, featured prominently behind the orchestra during the contest, as well as during the voting sequence when Mauro was pictured standing in front of it.[5][6][16]
Each country, participating through a single EBU member broadcaster, was represented by one song performed by up to two people on stage.[2][21] No entry was allowed to be commercially published before 10 February 1965; this caused an issue for theItalian entry, "Se piangi, se ridi" byBobby Solo, which had won the15th Sanremo Music Festival on 30 January, as around 240,000 copies of the single release had been available in Italy by the cut-off date. Although a small number of the other broadcasters participating in the event raised objections to the song competing, given that RAI was hosting the event, with disqualification of the host broadcaster considered impossible, and an understanding that there was little time available to select a new song, "Se piangi, se ridi" was ultimately allowed to compete.[18][22]
The results of the event were determined through jury voting, with the same voting system introduced for the previous year's event retained. Each jury comprised ten individuals representing the average television viewer and radio listener; as such no individuals in the music industry, including composers, music publishers, and people employed by record companies, were able to sit on the jury. Each jury comprised twenty members, who each had three votes to award in total, which could be given to one song or divided across two or three songs. Jurors could not vote for their own country, and no abstentions were allowed. The song which was awarded the most votes received five points, the second-highest three points, and the third-highest one point. If only two songs had been awarded votes they would receive six and three points for first and second respectively, and if only one song was awarded votes they would receive nine points.[23][24][25][26]
The draw to determine the running order took place on 9 February 1965 inGeneva, Switzerland. Each country's delegation was provided a 45-minute slot to rehearse with the orchestra in the contest venue.[6] Rehearsals commenced on 17 March 1965, starting with Switzerland, followed by the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany and Austria also rehearsing on the first day. Rehearsals continued on 18 March for Norway, Portugal, Monaco, Sweden, France and Belgium, and on 19 March for Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland, Yugoslavia and the Netherlands.[3][6] Technical rehearsals were held on 20 March, followed by two full dress rehearsals ahead of the live broadcast that evening; the second dress rehearsal was also heard by the national juries.[6]
The contest was held at 20 March 1965 at 22:00 (CET) and lasted 1 hour and 38 minutes.[13][27] The interval act was a performance by the Italian operatic tenorMario Del Monaco, who gave a rendition of "O sole mio", although rather than singing live hemimed his performance to a previously recorded version.[4][17][18] The prize for the winning artist and songwriters, a medallion engraved with theEurovision logo designed byHans Mettel [de], was presented by Del Monaco.[17][24][28]
The contest was a tumultuous experience for Gall who, at 17 years old, was the youngest competitor at this year's event. During rehearsals the musicians in the orchestra were displeased with the fast tempo of the song, resorting tobooing andwhistling towards Gall as a form of disrespect and protest.[32][33][34] This infuriated Gainsbourg, who insulted the orchestra and stormed out while threatening to leave Naples entirely and return to Paris, leaving Gall alone with an angry orchestra to finish the rehearsal.[32][35][36] While the fractious relationship between Gainsbourg and the orchestra was eventually settled, the experience had a continued impact on Gall's confidence during the contest; as Gall recounted in 2015, this led to what she perceived to be a shaky and nervy performance during the event, which she believed diminished her chances of doing well in the contest.[34][35][36] When she looked for support over the telephone from her then-boyfriend, the French singerClaude François, he supposedly reinforced her doubts, telling her she sang out-of-key.[35] Ultimately, however, Gall would take the lead from the first round of votes, and retain the lead until the very end, beating the UK'sKathy Kirby by six points.[26][35] Upon her victory, before going out on stage for the award presentation andreprise performance of the winning song, Gall called François again, who broke up with her over the phone;[34][36] Kirby meanwhile, who had been the pre-contest favourite to win, was upset at losing to the young Gall and supposedly stormed into the Luxembourgish delegation's dressing room, claiming the contest had been rigged in Gall's favour, and slapped her.[34][35][36] Gall was subsequently in tears as she went back on stage, which were interpreted as tears of joy by the assembled press.[32][34][36]
Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue viatelephone lines and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country.[38][39] Known spokespersons at the 1965 contest are listed below.
Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in the order in which they performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in ascending order.[16][26] The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below, with voting countries listed in the order in which they presented their votes.
Detailed voting results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1965[43][44]
The below table summarises how the maximum points available were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. Luxembourg and the UK each received the maximum score from four of the voting countries; Austria, Denmark and France received two sets of maximum scores each; and Ireland, Monaco, the Netherlands and Switzerland each received one maximum score.[43][44]
Distribution of 5 points awarded at the Eurovision Song Contest 1965[43][44]
Broadcasters competing in the event were required to relay the contest via its networks; non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest.[38] Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. These commentators were typically sent to the venue to report on the event, and were able to provide commentary from small booths constructed at the back of the venue, with 20 booths ultimately constructed for the event.[6][45][46]
For the first time the contest was broadcast by members of theInternational Radio and Television Organisation (OIRT), the counterpart of the EBU within Eastern European countries, via itsIntervision network.[2][6][32] In addition to the participating countries, the contest was reportedly broadcast in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union, with an expected global audience of 100 to 200 million.[6][47][48][49] Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators, are shown in the tables below.
Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries
A colourised photo of Gall(right) and Gainsbourg(left) the day after the contestIngvar Wixell, the Swedish entrant, performing at theSvensk sångfestival
The 1965 contest, and in particular its winner, has since been viewed as a monumental moment in the event's history. Althoughpop music had been present in the contest in past editions, the vast majority of songs and winners had fit more into the "chanson", "canzone" orballad categories. "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", considered emblematic of theyé-yé genre, is thus commonly referred to as the contest's first pop winner, as well as the first winner which was more reflective of European popular music at the time, and its win had a big impact on the types of songs and performers which would be selected to compete in future contests.[23][84][85] Following another pop winner in1967, the UK'sSandie Shaw and "Puppet on a String", pop songs, and in particularschlager music, would go on to become a staple of future editions of the contest, with several winners from the 1970s onwards fitting into this genre.[85][86][87]
Although past contest entries had achieved commercial success outside of their countries of origin, no previous winner had achieved the chart success that "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" went on to accomplish in the weeks and months after the contest,[88] reaching the top 10 in singles charts in Belgium, Finland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and West Germany,[89][90][91] as well as in Argentina,[92] French-speaking Canada,[91] Japan,[93] and Singapore.[94] Gall became one of Eurovision's first breakthrough stars, and the commercial success of "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" helped pave the way for the contest to be seen as a platform to drive forward professional careers and achieve commercial success across Europe and worldwide.[35][88][95]
Gall and Gainsbourg, who had first developed a creative partnership in 1964 with "N'écoute pas les idoles" ("English:Don't listen to idols"), continued to work together after the contest, spawning further hits including the controversial "Les sucettes ("English:Lollipops"); although on the surface it is a song about a girl who likeslollipops, just as with "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", Gainsbourg's lyrics were laced withsubtext, in this casedouble meanings aboutfellatio. Although Gall claimed that she was too young to understand this when she recorded it, it dented her artistic image and led to a rift between herself and Gainsbourg and her career soon dipped. Upon meeting her future husband, the French singerMichel Berger, her career had a resurgence, and she only performed songs written by him in future years. This partnership led to her most successful album,Babacar, in 1987, which featured "Ella, elle l'a", which became a worldwide hit the same year.[30][35][96] The ending of her previous relationship with Claude François would serve as inspiration for his 1967 song "Comme d'habitude";Paul Anka would subsequently buy the rights to adapt the song into English, which would eventually become "My Way", a hit song forFrank Sinatra in 1969.[30]
Gainsbourg returned to the contest two times as a songwriter: in 1967 he contributed anotheryé-yé song, "Boum-Badaboum", which representedMonaco at that year's contest where it was performed byMinouche Barelli and finished in fifth place; and in1990 his song "White and Black Blues" performed byJoëlle Ursull came second forFrance.[23] Also a singer, Gainsbourg gained notoriety himself in 1969 with his song "Je t'aime... moi non plus", a duet with his then-girlfriendJane Birkin, which although a commercial success was controversial for its overly sexual content, leading it to be banned from radio play in several countries and denounced by theVatican.[97][98]
"Poupée de cire, poupée de son" was subsequently nominated in 2005 to compete inCongratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest, a special broadcast to determine the contest's most popular entry of its first 50 years as part of the contest's anniversary celebrations. One of 14 entries chosen to compete, "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" ultimately finished in fourteenth place.[99][100]
Although the contest had no specific rules about the language in which a song should be performed in, there was an implicit understanding that each country should perform in the language, or one of the languages of that country.[32] While some previous entries had been partly performed in a foreign language to that country, e.g. the1960 and1961 German entries, which had one verse each in French,[101][102] and the1963 Austrian entry, which had one verse in English,[103] the Swedish entry at this year's entry was the first song to be performed entirely in a language other than that of the country it represented, in this case completely in English.[7][8] This led to protest from several of the other broadcasters following the event, which led to a rule change being implemented for the 1966 contest, explicitly stating that all countries had to be represented by a song in one of that country's official languages.[2][7] This language rule would remain until1973, when freedom of language was once again permitted, only to be reintroduced ahead of the1977 contest; the rule was finally abolished indefinitely for the1999 edition and all future contests.[7]
^abPergoli Campanelli, Alessandro (2006)."Il recupero dell'auditorium RAI di Napoli" [The recovery of the RAI Auditorium in Naples].L'Architetto italiano (in Italian). Vol. II, no. 16. pp. 108–111. Retrieved20 January 2025 – viaAcademia.edu.
^abcdGran Premio Eurovisione della Canzone 1965 [Eurovision Song Contest Grand Prix 1965] (Television production) (in Italian, English, and French).Naples, Italy:Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI). 20 March 1965.
^"Boletim do dia" [Bulletin of the day].Diário de Lisboa (in Portuguese).Lisbon, Portugal. 20 March 1965. p. 18. Retrieved28 December 2022 – via Casa Comum.
^"télévision" [television].Journal de Montreux (in French). No. 2.Montreux, Switzerland. 20 March 1965. p. 2. Retrieved15 January 2025 – viaScriptorium.
^"Sobota 20. března" [Saturday 20 March].Československý rozhlas a televise (in Czech). Vol. 32, no. 12.Prague, Czechoslovakia. 15 March 1965. p. 7. Retrieved19 May 2024.(subscription may be required or content may be available in libraries)
^ab"A TV műsora | szeptember 6-12" [The TV program | 6–12 September].Rádió és Televízióújság (in Hungarian). Vol. 10, no. 36.Budapest, Hungary. 6 September 1965. pp. 22–24. Retrieved15 January 2025 – via Nemzeti Archívum.
^"Eurovision Song Contest: Young Singer Wins Title for Luxembourg".Times of Malta.Birkirkara, Malta. 22 March 1965. p. 2.
^abZhito, Lee, ed. (28 August 1965)."Hits of the World".Billboard. Vol. 77, no. 35. New York, NY, United States. pp. 30, 41. Retrieved21 January 2025 – viaGoogle Books.
^Lichtman, Irv, ed. (27 November 1965)."Argentina's Best Sellers"(PDF).Cash Box. Vol. 27, no. 9. New York, NY, United States. p. 59. Retrieved21 January 2025 – via World Radio History.
^Zhito, Lee, ed. (11 September 1965)."Hits of the World".Billboard. Vol. 77, no. 37. New York, NY, United States. p. 37. Retrieved25 October 2025 – viaGoogle Books.
Roxburgh, Gordon (2012).Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Vol. One: The 1950s and 1960s.Prestatyn, United Kingdom:Telos Publishing.ISBN978-1-84583-065-6.
Roxburgh, Gordon (2014). "Errata".Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Vol. Two: The 1970s.Prestatyn, United Kingdom:Telos Publishing. pp. 368–372.ISBN978-1-84583-093-9.
Thorsson, Leif; Verhage, Martin (2006).Melodifestivalen genom tiderna : de svenska uttagningarna och internationella finalerna [Melodifestivalen through the ages: the Swedish selections and international finals] (in Swedish).Stockholm, Sweden: Premium Publishing.ISBN91-89136-29-2.
