DANA – "All Kinds Of Everything"

It was pointed out to me in the pub last week that this record is actually the best of Ireland’s Eurovision winners, a claim with horrible implications that may sadly be correct. It also shows off two of the Song Contest’s typical idiosyncrasies. Firstly, a tendency to reward attempts at universal messages, expressed as simply as possible (and in this case as tweely as possible). This tendency has actually been almost wiped out since the Contest’s marketers started emphasising the kitsch aspects and actually courting their gay audience – the shift from Dana to Dana International. Or it may be that the European public’s taste for nursery-rhyme pop has collapsed: no bad thing if so.

The second oddness about the Song Contest is that the strength or even competence of a singer’s voice is rarely an issue. This sets it against the 00s wave of TV talent shows, which tend to focus on singing but apply a very narrow definition of what a ‘good’ voice is (one totally unrelated to my pragmatic definition: ‘suits the song’). In Eurovision a technically weak voice can win easily given a performance with character and a strong song, and this allows for some endearing and exciting victories. Dana isn’t one of them: her strained warble (“a snowflake or twooooo”) may suit the extreme limpness of her song but it’s painful to hear.

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SIMON AND GARFUNKEL – "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

NORMAN GREENBAUM – "Spirit In The Sky"

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Doctor Mod

30 September 2006 12:48

Seems Dana has had some interesting subsequent careers in Irish politics and US religious television broadcasting.

Fortunately, we were spared this song on west side of the Atlantic.

mark sinker

30 September 2006 13:03

i am fairly sure that the jury voting — certainly in 1970 and up to a surprisingly late stage — was explicitly based on study of the SHEET MUSIC and NOT the performance, live or recorded

(voting was also restricted to a hidden panel of pop iundustiry worthies from each nation rather than the local general public) (ie like x-factor except in hermetic conclave)

markgamon

30 September 2006 14:03

Two points? There you go, coming over all generous again…

markgamon

30 September 2006 14:04

I’m also a little troubled that you actually HAD A CONVERSATION IN THE PUB about this record…

rosie

30 September 2006 14:05

2? Aren’t you being a bit generous to this irritiating streak of saccharine dribble, Tom?

It’s the sort of tune that belongs on a Victorian musical box, and a voice that belongs in the infants’ school Christmas concert.

For my money, the worst so far! (Though there is worse to come)

Tom

30 September 2006 14:43

I don’t mind the arrangement, I suppose! It was nearly a 1, but it doesn’t actually anger me like some records do.

Mark: the pub talk was “what’s coming up on Popular?” “Dana” “Oh dear.”!

Alan Connor

30 September 2006 14:51

I can’t think of this having reappeared in any ads or movies, though I kind of want to remember some allusion to it in the Eurovision episode of Father Ted.

Sinéad O’Connor and Terry Hall duetted it, and Foster & Allen couldn’t leave it alone. But surely there’s been some kind of credible / curio / ironic Eurovision covers album?

mark sinker

30 September 2006 14:52

we surely discuss more troubling topics than poor old dana on a WEEKLY BASIS?!

Tom

30 September 2006 14:57

The Eurovision Ted episode was on the back of Ireland’s three back to back winners in the mid 90s (all ABSOLUTELY AWFUL including “Rock And Roll Kids” which is the worst Eurovision winner ever and quite probably one of the worst songs ever recorded). Dana probably seemed like a fond memory at this point.

(Is Ireland the worst country in Europe (possibly the world) at pop music? I think I have advanced this argument before when drunk.)

Doctor Mod

30 September 2006 15:31

No, I think that Ireland has caught up with the rest of the world in many ways, particularly in the last decade or two. Surely some credible pop has come out of Eire since the 1980s. Before that? Probably not, even though an incredible number of UK pop stars are only a generation or two removed from the Emerald Isle.

markgamon

30 September 2006 16:11

Tom – I forgive you. But you can understand why I was worried!

Chris Brown

30 September 2006 17:29

Sorry, the quote didn’t come through:

“On the Eurotrash programme Terry was shown claiming that if the lyrics to ‘All Kinds of Everything’ were copyrighted Leonard Cohen they would be seen as a work of genius, as opposed to being denigrated and overlooked due to the Eurovision connection.”

Tom

30 September 2006 18:14

One of the half-endearing half-annoying things about Terry Wogan’s grip on Eurovision is the fact that he is seemingly the worst judge in the entire country of a) what’s good and b) what will win. “Now, people have been talking this one up, and I have to say I think it’s in with a shout” he will say before some shocking Maltese ballad that clocks up 14 points total.

Ophir Zemer

30 September 2006 19:12

Surprisingly enough, this song does appear at least in one movie – albeit an Israeli one: it’s short from the creators of “Walk on Water”, where it is IIRC one character’s favourite song of all time! (I don’t think the song was ever a hit here BTW. But Johnny Logan used to be very popular in the 80’s…)

Andrew Farrell

30 September 2006 20:23

You talk as if second-guessing the Eurovision can be in any way accomplished by mortal men, Tom!

wwolfe

1 October 2006 02:11

“Sea gulls and aeroplanes/Things of the sky…”

That’s an awful line – “Things of the sky”?? Why not just say, “I can’t think of anything else that flies to put here”? Chuck Berry could have saved lots of effort by just writing, “Things about cars” for a lots of his lyrics.

iTunes only has Foster and Allen’s version. If Dana’s is even more twee, it’s scary.

This reminds me of Tom T. Hall’s “I Love” from a few years later: a laubdry list of things that make the singer sentimental, and then he gets sentimental about getting sentimental. Still, this doesn’t make me fill with rage at its badness. It’s mostly just a shock to consider this sitting alongside “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” in that big aeroplane – a thing of the sky – maked “1970.”

And earlier this week I said I was going to honor Ask a Stupid Question Day” (today) by asking a stupid question aboiut “Lily the Pink.” So: What does the title mean? What I mean is, are the three words supposed to be Noun/Article/Adjective, or Verb/Article/Noun? In other words, “Ivan the Terrible” or “Do the Strand”? It’s probably the former, but it could also be some English slang expression I don’t know.

So there’s my Stupid Question. My only defense is – it’s not as stupid as “Things of the sky” was as a lyric.

Doctor Mod

1 October 2006 08:08

I caught a snippet of the Dana original on allmusic.com. A snippet was enough. Prepare to be scared, wwolfe. Yes, even more twee. Even Sinead O’Connor (in her version with Terry Hall) can’t save it from its inherent tweeness. And Dana is very, very twee, with that clockwork sort of arrangement that must have been a prerequisite for Eurovision (cf. “Puppet on a String” and “Boom Bang-a-Bang”).

It’s mostly just a shock to consider this sitting alongside “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” in that big aeroplane – a thing of the sky – maked “1970.”

Thank you–the visual image is stunning. One hopes the volume is so loud that “things of the ground” can hear Sly and the Family Stone as the aeroplane flies overhead. “Things of” seems to be part of the metaphorical structure upon which the whole song, um, sits or stands. The snippet I heard had something about the “snowflake or twooo-oooo” and “Dances, romances / Things of the night.” Personally, I can think of a lot of “things of the night” that would come to mind before dances and romances, but then I’ve been cynical from a very young age.

I think we’re coming up on an era of metaphor abuse. We’ve already had that “Silver Girl,” which is absurd but not quite as flat-footed as “things of the sky,” which suggests an inability to think what all that might entail (bats, zeppelins, locusts, bombs, meteorites, UFOs, or, in the next song, a great big spirit). You could substitute any of these things for the original lyric; they might make the imagery more perverse, but the result wouldn’t be all that different. But then the title in itself suggests a grab bag of ill-sorted objects in which all seem to have equal value. Anything will do.

Chuck Berry could have saved lots of effort by just writing, “Things about cars” for a lots of his lyrics.

“As I was motivatin’ over the hill / I saw things about cars . . . .” Indeed!

mark sinker

1 October 2006 08:47

oh we-e-e’ll link we’ll link we’ll link to lily the pink the pink the pink

(i put this link up last time as well wwolfe! do pay attention!)

it’s a nonsense song about a once well-known article which featured someone’s name on the bottle — given that the name was euphonious, people understandably made up stories about the person whose name it was, and a song as well

mark sinker

1 October 2006 09:12

(maybe “lily the pink” comes from people mishearing “lyd-i-a pink(ham)” when sung — though it may also be from some dialect way of generating nicknames; i wz gunna say liverpool dialect but tho the scaffold are from liverpool, i don’t think the song is)

Chris Brown

1 October 2006 17:19

Just to clarify my earlier post there; it’s Terry *Hall* invoking Leonard Cohen, rather than Terry Wogan. I presume he was still in Ireland back then anyway.

There used to be a comedy show over on Radio 4 called “Look Back At The Nineties” which once did a spoof Irish Eurovision entry that consisted entirely of insults to other European nations. Over in the real world, the Irish solved the problem by sending a singer over to Norway on a scholarship so she won for them instead.

Hmm… three posts from me in this thread and nothing about the song? Draw your own conclusions.

Daniel_Rf

1 October 2006 18:30

“All Kinds Of Everything” appears in “High Fidelity”; there’s this crazy bum who asks the main character if the store has it everyday, then starts singing the song until he gets chased out again iirc. This being the only mention I’ve heard of the tune in my life, I thought Tom was going to do the proper poptimist thing and explain why it is actually brilliant and Hornsby is WRONG as per usual – but then Hornsby doesn’t make all that much of a case for it being a bad song either, so I guess this is not all that U&K.

koganbot

1 October 2006 21:37

Gak! Where is Bjork when we need her. (I’d previously had little use for Bjork, but she’s the only person I can think of who could rescue this song.)

koganbot

1 October 2006 21:44

Sail on silver spirit thing in the sky.

Marcello Carlin

2 October 2006 14:30

Of course the Irish entry won in 1970 for reasons not entirely musical (cf. Nicole)…

Erithian

2 October 2006 16:47

The Eurovision episode of Father Ted was sheer genius.

Dana had a run of UK hits in the mid-70s, one of which was accompanied by a rather fetching head-and-shoulders publicity photo which gave no hint of the strapless dress she was presumably wearing. The Record Mirror headline “Was Dana topless? – the truth” is one of the more surreal memories of the time.

Doctor Mod

2 October 2006 19:11

And to think she could have been President of Ireland…..

wwolfe

2 October 2006 20:46

Thank you, p^nk lord. I love that kind of social history.

Doctor Mod

3 October 2006 03:50

I just wish I could make this stupid song–which I’d never heard before Saturday–stop playing over and over in my head!

My name is Kenny

5 October 2006 06:35

How is this any worse than “Those Were the Days”?

Heinz

13 March 2007 11:41

All Kinds Of Everything is super Hit, Grand Compliment on Dana!

Kieran

15 March 2007 15:40

….at least Dana has got you all takin…I enjoyed her singing and her music, give the girl a break, she did Irleand proud and she’s still going, raised a family and still proud to be Irish.

Good on ye girl

gerry brown

2 June 2007 22:53

i find that apart from heinz and kieran,the rest of you would,nt know a nice person if you fell over one,you would have no time for dana because shes not a piss head or a smack head,she has a faith that she believes in ,while the only faith you lot have is none,but while your there talking shit you can rest asure that dana has made more money from that little annoying song that you shit heads will ever seein your lifetime,

Caledonianne

15 July 2007 23:28

Mince and potatoes
Curry and rice
Always it’s awful
Never it’s nice
Soggy cake
Half-baked
Custard too thick
When I am fi-i-nished
I want to be sick.

Am I the only one one who sang this little pastiche re school dinners about a month after the Eurovision conquest?

Tom

16 July 2007 12:08

EXCELLENT.

Waldo

4 September 2009 12:23

As has been commented upon in another place, this song bears an undoubted resemblance to “My Favourite Things”. Fraulein Maria, of course delivers her offering surrounded by the odious Van Trapp brood and sings about “raindrops on roses” and “whiskers on kittens”. It is a cracking little musical song and fits in perfectly with the situation of the film in which it is placed. Schoolgirl Dana, OTOH, perches herself on a high stool (and with legs like that why wouldn’t she?) and warbles off her own list of “tings” that “remooind me arv yoo”. Scrummy young “ting” though she was, this song was wretched. Winning Eurovision is one thing, topping the UK charts is quite another. So who bought this sugary rubbish? The UK-based Irish and old blokes with Peter Glaze glasses and mackintoshes with extra deep pockets would be my best guess.

wichitalineman

21 October 2009 21:17

Never mind “things of the sky”, Dana’s beau also reminds her of “things of the sea”. Limpets? Spineless jellyfish? Maybe it’s a cleverly disguised kiss-off; she looked so cute, gooey-eyed and gap-toothed, no one would have believed her capable.

I’d take this over Puppet and Congratulations, though clearly that’s not saying much.

Future Popularist Julio Iglesias came 4th in the 1970 Eurovision with the turgid Gewndolyne. Holland’s Hearts Of Soul only finished 7th in spite of their outrageous bouffants – Bobbie Gentry alert!

wichita lineman

15 March 2012 00:49

The arrangement, which Tom says was good enough to mark it up from a 1, was by Phil ‘I love Eurovision’ Coulter.

Dana has a kind face.

Mark G

15 March 2012 01:44

Rock and Roll Kids? Missed that… (or just plain erased it…)

Erithian

15 March 2012 02:02

More likely you fell asleep halfway through it Mark – despite the title, it was aural Mogadon.

Jimmy the Swede

15 March 2012 09:30

37 – Wichita. Whenever you mention cheesy gals with “kind faces”, the Swede starts to panic. And dribble.

38/39 – “Rock and Roll Kids” was indeed an abomination. But please don’t blame the Irish. It was clear that they were so bloody tired of winning every year that they went out of their way to select an entry so bad that it was bound to go down like a lead balloon. Unfortunately, the “Springtime For Hitler Effect” kicked in and it romped home, much to the blanket astonishment of the two old lags who sang the dreadful song. That learned ’em!

Erithian

15 March 2012 11:56

Funny you should mention “Springtime For Hitler” in the context of Eurovision, Jimbo – I was reminded of that very sequence when I saw the clip of the Russian baboushkas doing their Eurovision song with some of the audience just watching open-mouthed…

Jimmy the Swede

15 March 2012 15:29

It’s going to be such a great night, Popular Pals! I’m going to do my signature shepherds pie, which I always complete by topping it with grated cheddar and sticking it under the grill. Fitting fare for the occasion to be sure.

Lazarus

15 March 2012 21:59

The song is saccharine to be sure, but I can’t bring myself to hate it like most of you do, and Terry H and Sinead did a good job with it. For a somewhat belated follow-up, Dana recorded Barry Ryan’s stunning “Who Put the Lights Out” which I can remember singing (annoying the rest of the family, no doubt) during the numerous power cuts of ’73. Later on “Please Tell Him That I Said Hello” was pleasant country-pop, and “Fairytale” (the title of a later Eurovision winner) a passable stab at the disco market. Is she still in politics?

wichita lineman

16 March 2012 14:32

She is still in politics, unfortunately. Dana is to me what Joey Barton is to several girls I know – I’m convinced I could change her.

There was a flop between AKOE and Who Put the Lights Out; she also cut an ok version of George H’s Isn’t It a Pity as a single in ’71, and The Honeybus’s gorgeous Do I Figure In Your Life in ’72.

Kind face, bad politics. Bah.

Lazarus

17 March 2012 08:33

That sleeve pic makes her look a little like the Test Card Girl grown up I think.

Someone mentioned “Those Were The Days” a little while back; “Lights Out” occupies very similar territory. A rum song for a 20 year old to be singing, certainly.

And as for AKOE being Ireland’s best Eurovision winner, “What’s Another Year” (the only Euro song I own on 45) is a much superior song I think, likewise Niamh Kavanagh’s “In Your Eyes” although by then the winners weren’t making much impact on the charts here.

Jimmy the Swede

17 March 2012 16:39

45 – Yes, “In Your Eyes” was surprisingly good, even though it set up “Rock and Roll Kids” the next year.

mintness

10 April 2013 08:33

I am beyond sure that you’re wrong

Mark G

10 April 2013 14:59

Regarding the sheet music? dunno.

Regarding the panel? I do remember such panels..

mark sinker

10 April 2013 15:53

I think I looked up the thing I’m “fairly sure” about, but only on the internet! If anyone actually knows facts — and where to check them – by all means post details. I am beneath ultra-sure this would be interesting.

mintness

11 April 2013 05:15

My apologies, first of all; drunken belligerence is not a pretty look, all the more so when viewed in the mirror.

Panels of supposed “experts”, absolutely: they persisted right up to 1997/98 (five countries took the plunge with telephone voting in 1997, with most of the rest following a year later) and have since been restored to a 50/50 weighting alongside the public vote, ostensibly to dilute the impact of what might be gently described as “diaspora voting”. The jurors nowadays are not-instructed-but-kind-of-instructed-all-the-same to reward strong vocals and, by extension (Eurovision being Eurovision), worthy balladry ahead of bubblegum (ethno-)pop.

Voting based purely on sheet music, though: not something I’ve ever encountered before in decades of Eurovision geekdom – although jurors did (and still do) have the option of consulting accompanying documentation, such as the lyrics and translations of those pesky foreign numbers. Lucky them!

If anything, in fact, the juries were more firmly tied to the live broadcast in the Olden Days. Today they vote in advance after the dress rehearsal, held the night before the actual televised show – an event that has duly been rebranded the “jury final” in order to boost ticket sales. (This is something recent UK entrants have routinely failed to grasp, given their lacklustre performances during said run-throughs – the disparity between Blue’s jury and televote scores in 2011 was by no means solely due to the more televoter-friendly nature of the song and its performers.)

By contrast, recordings of old contest broadcasts – all very YouTube-able, and terribly fun to dive into – demonstrate the extent to which there was a real live jury at the other end of each of those crackly telephone lines. Examples include Domenico Modugno having to repeat “Volare” at the end of the song presentation in 1958 – he was drawn to perform first, but the television broadcast in certain countries was disrupted, hence the need for a repeat performance – and the confusion when the Norwegian jury in 1963 was summoned but hadn’t yet completed their internal calculations. The confused spokesperson announced the jury’s preliminary results rather than begging for a few minutes’ grace, and was subsequently called back to give the actual result: a different set of points that resulted in Nordic bedfellow Denmark taking the crown instead of Switzerland, who had borrowed Esther Ofarim (of “Cinderella Rockafella” infamy) for the occasion. Needless to say, the conspiracy theories persist even now…

Anyway, enough Euro-rambling, and sorry once again for playing the smartarse previously.

wpDiscuz

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DANA – "All Kinds Of Everything"

SIMON AND GARFUNKEL – "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

NORMAN GREENBAUM – "Spirit In The Sky"

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