Best Last Place – 90 songs have come last or shared last at the Eurovision Song Contest. Over the last weeks hundreds of our readers have voted for their favorites. Each voter submitted his personal Top 5. In the next days we will reveal your Top 15. We continue today with a country that is a Eurovision powerhouse today, but had a bad debut in 1975: Turkey!
The only debuting country in 1975 was Turkey. They sent Semiha Yankı a pop music singer, film actress and television presenter from Istanbul to Stockholm. Her entry “Seninle Bir Dakika“ („Only One Minute With You“) is about a brief encounter between two lovers. Yanki sings: “Desire is endless, seeing each other only lasts one minute. Love lasts a whole life, making love only a minute”. Yanki performed the ballad in a flower dress but failed to impress the judges. Maybe it was the Turkish language that sounded too strange to Western European ears at the time? With only 3 points from Monaco, Turkey came last and withdrew from the contest, sulking until 1978.
Great. This is my no.1 last place. Nice to see it on this list.
The runner up of the Turkish 1975 national final
I am not sure what to make of it.
I think the Turkish made the right choice. Thanks for the link, w s.
I was not expecting to see this song on this list. It’s my 1975 nº 4; it’s a beautiful melody, very well sung. It’s good to see fans acknowledging older songs. I love my top 4 songs from 1975: Germany, Italy, France and Turkey. I shall keep an open mind, but I am bracing myself for the top 9 choices (the ‘oh my god , he, she or they is/are so hot!’ stuff).
I’m surprised to see it on this list but, so so so happy at the same time. My: #3 on this list, #3 for that year and in my top10 of all time of the Turkish entries in the ESC.
A very beautiful song, one of the best last placed songs in ESC. My number four in 1975 after France, Finland and Germany. Intense and moving. I hope, but doubt, that we will see more pre-millennium songs in the Top 9.
“Quien maneja mi barca” has sort of cult status among eurovision fans. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up in this list.
Oh yeah. I think it won a rather clear victory in ESCTodays voting two summers ago. It will probably be the only pre-millennium song in the top 3 (together with Norway 2012 and Poland 2011).
I thought this was a lovely song and surprisingly one of my top favorites that year.
I did not intend to comment tonight because I am terribly tired and already on my way to bed. However, this is one of the best songs that came last in the history of ESC and thus I am very happy that Turkey 1975 made it onto this list. Personally I think that it should rank higher though.
A Masterpiece! In my All Time Top 10 for sure and by far my favorite last place ever! Great to see it sneak in the top 10 of BLP I hoped a bit better but at least this “oldie” got in! Yay!
This is a legend song for us Turks…Everyone knows it by heart and considers it as one of the best Turkish Eurovision songs to date!It has great touchy lyrics and nice melody and gives me chills whenever I hear it
Great to see it in the top 10! A very sweet song with such a cruel fate handed to it back in the day
” Maybe it was the Turkish language that sounded too strange to Western European ears at the time? ” ……. Sure NOT ! Its beacuse 8 months before the contest Turkey invate to Island of Cyprus and kill more than 3.500 people, make refugees 200.000 people and took half Cyprus
.
well if that’s why European juries ignored Turkey (didn’t know Monaco who gave it three points was in favor of the Turkish invasion), but then why didnt they give the title to Greece the next year, on a second that smartly mentioned that?
if we take notice that Morocco barely did better on its oly one time, I’d suggest Turkey’s incredibly unfair result in 1975 was due to the European juries had no ideas what music this was and just did not like it, look they went for Abba’s dutch copycat instead
Very well said, Morgan.
As for our anonymous friend above: no further comments, really
sure…..
slurp-slurp…..
and next time you describe where is your home-town, don’t be embarassed to mention Makedonia ok??????
A user named…Anonymous, is the last person entitled to lecture me. I have my views too regarding political stuff (by the way, who on earth told you that I have the slightest problem saying that my hometown is in Macedonia) but this is not the proper place to express them. Someone should tell you that you are only giving Greece a bad name with such behaviour.
If you have any views on the ESC, your comments are more than welcome
”….this is not the proper place to express them”
then say nothing!!!! when you say ”very well said Morgan” you underestimate a HUGE tragedy! (and you sound a bit silly being Greek and all….)
ps.
”Someone should tell you that you are only giving Greece a bad name with such behaviour.”
are you nuts????? you prefer not to take place in that huge matter, than truble the water of ET???
Don’t you understand? Or you just pretend that you don’t understand? This is not a site that we express our political views. No one else did, at least on this article, until you brought it up.
My “very well said Morgan” was for Morgan saying to you that Turkey’s last place in 1975 had nothing to do with politics whatsoever.
What does a huge tragedy, as you correctly describe it, has to do with a simple song in the ESC?
As for “you sound a bit silly being a Greek and all…”, well, thank you, I consider this a medal of honour from someone like you.
Not that it matters, but i have to mention that i am not the one who posted the 03:32 comment, but i find it very possible. The reason is because i want to believe that even a song contest whouldn’t stay ”frozen” when it comes to such serious historical events.
When you say ”someone like you” what do you mean?
”What does a huge tragedy, as you correctly describe it, has to do with a simple song in the ESC?” I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE SO NAIVE!!!!!!!!!!
Honestly, I realize that there is no point in continuing this. Obviously our views are lightyears away from each other. I have nothing more to add on what I’ve already posted in my previous comments. As I said, you either don’t understand, or, highly likely, you pretend that you don’t understand what I mean. End of discussion.
Have a good night.
let me ask you something skjkoucnyaqmuhjioaw;cjia;o……
what if one of this days you come face to face with the flag of ”northern Cyprus” (it happened to me while visiting another -stay- on-topic- site.
will you say something or you will shut up again?
you know…. all this ”superiority” of people like you let flags like that (and more… you know….) into stay-on-topic sites.
have a good night too
It is a bit unfair to judge the juries of a nearly 40 years old contest. They were used to a different kind of music back then. Another example is Turkey ’80, a song that is loved by eurovision fans. But when I watched the ’80 contest I merely thought it was a very weird song. The world wasn’t as big as it is now, back then. There was no internet. There were no holidays to Turkey. Even Greece wasn’t nearly as popular a holiday destination. There was hardly any immigration and contact between west and south east Europe. Even Yugoslavia didn’t give Turkey any points in ’75. Maybe the jury that year was from the Slovenian part of the country, since the song was sung in Slovene. So I think you mentioned the right explanation, the people/juries in the then competing countries weren’t used to it.
I’m afraid that I have to be much more strict on juries than w s. It is more than obvious that certain countries, namely: Turkey, Portugal, Greece and Yugoslavia, were systematically ignored by the juries back then. And imho, there is no excuse for them for that. After all, they are supposed to consist of experts that should have had a very dinstictive criterion and therefore award alternative or progressive musical stuff, instead of constantly awarding mostly mainstream songs.
PS: keep in mind that I support the 50/50 (jury/televote) split vote in eurovision.
No, the juries in those years were no experts. They were chosen at random from the general public.
Tbh, I don’t know about the rest of Europe, but in Greece they were experts: composers, lyricists, singers, producers
Also I don’t know if some countries were systematically ignored. I think it were languages that were ignored. It is no coincidence that the first Swedish victory and the last Dutch victory were in the years that there was no language rule. In the years ’77-’96/’98 (12 point voting system, juries, language rule) you see that songs sung in English, French and to a lesser extent German, had it much easier. The countries you mention had it no more difficult in those years then the songs from Norway, Finland, Denmark, Flanders and the Netherlands.
(I wished Daniel Bagpuss and his statistics were here, because I would love to see statistics about this.)
and beyond the language frontier (which is way more significant in the 90s look at the french speaking results in the 80s they’re more or less fairer than in the 60s) I think it’s just a musical tendency. Yugoslavia, Greece and of course Turkey sent some of their best esc songs ever in the early 70s but did not do well while they started doing well with the more poppish mainstream things Europe liked. Look at Turkey’s sole top 10 result until “Dinle”: “Halley” in 86 their most modern and mainstreamy song and Yugoslavia only did well with schlagery tunes that Germany could have sent. Regardless of qualities (I do like Turkey 86 but it’s no where near as good as MFO’s two entries), that’s just what juries liked more…
Everything you say is right, I am not judging the juries but I’m given a fairer explanation than anonymous who thinks the reason was political, when in fact it was more cultural and musical… it’s like the UK saying it got last with nil in 2003 because of the Iraqi war!
Actually when we speak about war, it’s not exactly just politics, it’s much more serious and above all isn’t it?
Thinking about that tragic, black page of history (i don’t know if you even googled it, or you wanted to stay in your Eurovision nirvana), i guess that it’s highly possible that Turkey was ignored for this reason, because as i mentioned before it was WAR ok?????
What better reason for a country to get ignored?????
And next time someone brings a serious issue into our pink Eurovision cloud (we can handle that can’t we?), maybe we should be more carefull with our comments because there is a chance that this is a real opinion and not somebody’s effort to break our precious tranquillity.
oh my god you dont know me or what i do or where i’m from and I do know what war is (my dad grew up in a concentration camp in Asia) so I really don’t think I’m the kind of guy you want to talk about “pink eurovision”… but seeing conspiracy theories everywhere is a tad too much… as I said, the Uk said the same thing about its 2003 result, and do you really think that’s the reason? Is every esc result down to just unfair voting based solely on juries going for politics or “war” (since you seem to wanna stress that more than “politics, though when deciding which side to prefer in a war, that’s just politics, the juries in Stockholm had themselves little to no idea what went on in Cyprus apart from media coverage and considering they were “music expert” I doubt they really put that in question for a long while)… But I’d love to hear why Monaco gave it three points, and not five, seven, and why no one else did, considering it’s all a conspiracy. UK not winning between 81 and 97 was it the Falklands? Finland ignored MUST have been Soviet Union’s doings! Portugal must be the sympathy towards Angola… and so on…
before i give you any answer, go google what we ‘re talking about and show some respect when you speak with adults.
now, go to sleep, it’s past your bed time!
“look on google” is indeed a very adult response: i read books, in fact i even study them and happen to teach them, i’ll go to sleep but please get a life
i don’t have a life ’cause you don’t know history?
what are you? 12?
what are you? a teacher???? poor students!!!!
Oh my, a politicized troll …
And yes, I am Macedonian too. Feel free to call me Fyromian …
Oh my, another uneducated someone, who MUST say something!
Oh my, another one who is generous with other people’s ”wallets”!
Oh my, another one who thinks is politically correct but instead is just ignorant!
Oh my, your second sentence is so ”puke-able”!
Oh my, i whould loooove to see you in the miedle of Aristotelous square, Salonica, shouting :
”I am Macedonian!!! call me Fyromian!!!!
It was my No1 in this chart. Saying so I am really happy it made even featured as No10. Hope I can see Finland 1996.
Fin 96 was my runner up to Tur 75 too! OMG!
Amazing song, I voted for it, but I would like to see it higher.
This is one of the best songs of 75 and did not deserve last place. In 1975 the British press favoured the song quite well, even better than NL and UK.
Turkey’s best ever entry.
beautiful song and lyrics!