Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957

ESC National Year
Year = 1957
Country = AUT
Preselection = Internal Selection
Preselection date =
Entrant = Bob Martin
Song = "Wohin, kleines Pony?"
SF result =
Final result = 10th, 3 points

Austria took part for the first time in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957. The country was represented by Bob Martin with the song "Wohin, kleines Pony?" written by Kurt Svab and Hans Werner.

Before the contest

Austria actually wanted to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1956 but was, like Denmark and the United Kingdom disqualified because no entry was subimitted before the submission deadline. For the 1957 contest, Bob Martin was selected internally to represent his country with the song “Wohin, kleines Pony?” ("Where, little pony?"), a typical schlager for that time with a cowboy theme.

At Eurovision

Carl de Groof conducted the song at the Eurovision Song Contest. It was the fifth song presented that tonight following Italy with “Corde della mia chitarra” and proceeding the Netherlands with “Net als toen”. At the close of voting, Austria had received three points in total (two from the United Kingdom and one from the Netherlands) and would be the first debuting country in the Eurovision Song Contest to finish last. As only the winner wsa announced in 1956, Austria is also the first country at all to finish last in the competition. Austria gave six of its ten points to the Netherlands, which marked the second highest vote for the winning country that evening.

Voting

Every country had a jury of ten people. Every jury member could give one point to his or her favourite song.

Points given

*6 points to the Netherlands
*3 points to Luxembourg
*1 point to the United Kingdom

Points received

*2 points from France
*1 point from the Netherlands

Commercial success and critical reception

Bob Martin has never recorded the song [ [http://www.diggiloo.net/?1957 Diggiloo Thrush - 1957 ] ] and it was therefore also never released as a single. After the contest, a German newspaper stated that Austria's three points "“for this musical confectionery, a mixture of a schmaltzy song and a cowboy song à la Bruce Low”" were a decent proof that the judges "“could not be improved by the random taste of the masses”" [Jan Feddersen: "Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein", Hoffmann und Campe 2002, p. 24] .

Sources

*Jan Feddersen: "Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein", Hoffmann und Campe 2002

References