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Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 1981
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Belgium was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 1981 with the song "Samson", written by Kick Dandy, Giuseppe Marchese, and Penny Els, and performed by Emly Starr. The Belgian participating broadcaster, Flemish Belgische Radio- en Televisieomroep (BRT), selected its entry through a national final.
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Before Eurovision
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Internal selection
In 1980, Flemish broadcaster Belgische Radio- en Televisieomroep (BRT) asked Toots Thielemans to write and accompany a song for the Eurovision Song Contest 1981. The BRT had requested a song in the style of his 1963 hit "Bluesette" and had planned for Sofie Verbruggen to sing the song. However, Thielamans was too busy with studio work and other performances to be able to compose a song. The BRT instead decided to host another edition of Eurosong.[1]
Eurosong 1981
Format
Eurosong 1981 consisted of three semi-finals, followed by a final on 7 March 1981. Public voting for the semi-finals opened one day after the third heat, after a show was broadcast featuring one minute of all 36 competing songs. The top ten songs qualified to the final.[1]
All the shows took place at the Amerikaans Theater in Brussels and were hosted by Luc Appermont. There was no live orchestra and all the music and some of the backing vocals had been pre-recorded. This led to the BRT receiving several complaints after the final, as many people believed that since the singing in the Eurovision Song Contest has to be live this should be reflected in the national final.[1]
Competing entries
A jury of people from BRT and SABAM chose 40 songs out of 134 submissions. Four songs were then removed from the competition as they were invalid and did not meet all the rules of Eurosong 1981. Among the chosen songs were future and past Dutch and Belgian representative Stella Maessen (Netherlands 1970 as part of Hearts of Soul; Belgium 1977 as part of Dream Express; and Belgium 1982) and future Belgian representative Liliane Saint-Pierre (1987).[1]
Semi-finals
Three semi-finals were held with twelve songs in each, from which the top ten songs across the three semi-finals qualified to the final. The songs were not voted on at the time, but on the day after the third semi-final (1 March 1981) a recap of all 36 songs was broadcast and viewers were then invited to vote for ten of the songs. Voting took place by filling out and submitting a lottery-style form which cost 50 francs each. People were allowed to buy as many as they wanted and did not have to prove they had seen the semi-finals. Voters were not asked to vote for their ten favourite songs but the ten songs they believed would qualify. Prizes such as cars, holidays and home entertainment equipment were on offer to those who managed to forecast all ten qualifying songs correctly and out of the 184,052 lottery forms that were submitted, 36 successfully predicted the ten qualifying songs.[1]
Final
The final was held on 7 March 1981 and before the first song was performed, Jo Van Backlé announced the numbers of the winning lottery forms and announced the prizes. The results were decided by a 7-member jury. The members of the jury were: chairman Nest Van der Eyken, Johnny Steggerda, Jef Van den Berg, Pieter Verlinden, Gaston Nuyts, Claude Blondeel, and Bob Boon. Only the winner was announced, but it was rumoured and later confirmed in an interview in 2020 with one of the jury members, Claude Blondeel, that Liliane Saint-Pierre came second.[1]
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At Eurovision
Prior to the contest, the song title was shortened to "Samson". On the night of the final Starr performed 16th in the running order, following Portugal and preceding Greece. At the close of the voting "Samson" had received 40 points (the highest being 8 from Yugoslavia), placing Belgium 13th of the 20 entries.[2] The Belgian jury awarded its 12 points to Denmark.[3]
Voting
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References
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