1967 Sandie Shaw: Puppet On A String

There are certain things about the Eurovision Song Contest that I 'get'. I 'get' the fact that it's origins lie in a post war desire to unite Europe in a spirit of music fuelled co-operation, and I 'get' the fact that in this early era of satellite communications the pan European television broadcasts of the show would have been not just appealing but downright irresistible. What I don't really get is the sometime bleedover between the Contest and the national charts proper; I mean, a good song is a good song true, but the whole point of entering the Contest is to try and win it, and the best way to do that is to ensure as broad a cross border appeal as possible with your entry.

So what's needed is something that's going to appeal on a level that doesn't makes an understanding of the language a prerequisite, and to that end the most successful songs have either offered a pumped up Euro beat of velcro level catchiness or else a big ballad of obvious/overwrought emotion that transcends mere words in favour of high notes and gurning. I get that too, but these traits do not necessarily make for something I care to see at number one in the national charts. Yet as far as all that that goes, I have no problem with the 'tick all the Euro boxes' steam driven circus calliope gallop of 'Puppet On A String' (in fact, if I was to be uber charitable I could draw remarkable parallels with 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite' which The Beatles had recorded in March of that year - had Lennon watched Sandie preview the song on the Rolf Harris show I wonder?) - but come on guys, did you have to make it so bloody sexist?

"If you say you love me madly I'll gladly be there, like a puppet on a string" - Sandie hops around to the jerky carnival rhythm with a grin fixed as permanently as a clown's make-up slapped on in gloss and emulsion, but her vocal is a thousand yard stare, the joyless strained garble of one singing for her supper (her career was on the wane at this point). And maybe that's because Shaw herself disliked the song, memorably commenting "I hated it from the very first oompah to the final bang on the big bass drum. I was instinctively repelled by its sexist drivel and cuckoo-clock tune." Which sounds a fair summary to me. 'Puppet On A String' won the Eurovision Song Contest for Britain for the first time (and by a very wide margin) and it gave her a third number one (the first time a female singer had scored a hat trick), but what got the Germans, the French, the Italians etc humming along in 1967 now sounds a very rum do indeed and one that, statistics aside, does nobody any favours really.