While the United Kingdom entry has become a Eurovision whipping boy, English can at least claim to be the lingua franca of success. Eight out of the past ten winners have sung in English.

First won by Switzerland with the French-language Refrain in 1956, Eurovision had been a vehicle for nations to assert their national identity over the hegemony of English pop. France, Luxembourg, Denmark and Italy could celebrate a night of musical glory without subtitles. But with a Babel of national juries to win over in an expanded competition, Eurovision soon became a language in itself. Spain’s triumphant La La La (1968) established a trend for nonsensical lyrics, aped by Boom Bang-A-Bang (Lulu, 1969) and Ding-A-Dong (The Netherlands, 1975).

Abba’s Waterloo (Sweden, 1974), a coherent English-language narrative allied to a stomping tune, showed that a Eurovision winner could aspire higher than infantilism. Denmark established a rule that its winning entry must be rewritten in English.

The introduction of a public phone vote, to dilute the influence of horsetrading national juries, has increased the number of English-language winners, as nations settle for a song in the most widely recognised tongue.

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