Introduction

We decided to start our new series of articles “Country Of The Month” with the 2019 winning country the Netherlands. In a period of five weeks, we are going to remind you of the best Dutch entries. Note: we selected the entries not by their place in their final, but by their impact in the fans.

Teach-In – Ding-a-Dong

In 1975, something changed in the Eurovision song contest. That year, was the first time that the well-known voting system was introduced. The one that is almost the same until today and every country gives 1-8, 10 and 12 points to its top-10 songs. The same year, the Netherlands chose Teach-In to represent it in the 20th Eurovision Song Contest. Teach-In was selected along with the song “Ding-a-Dong” through the national final “Nationaal Songfestival”. The national final consisted of two phases. Firstly, a 5-member international jury chose the song and then the artist was selected by a 100-member public jury.

The song “Ding-a-Dong”, was composed by Dick Bakker and the lyrics were written by Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens. Conductor at the contest was Harry van Hoof. The song was entirely in English since a free-language rule applied that year. It is also the first among three – til today – that opened the show and won it too. The other two are the United Kingdom in 1976 and Sweden in 1984. At the end of the night, the song placed first among nineteen songs and gave to the Netherlands its fourth victory. It’ll take 44 years to win again!

Teach-In was a 6-member band that was formed in 1969 in Enschede, Netherlands. The members were Getty Kaspers, Ard Weeink, Chris de Wolde, John Gaasbeek, Koos Versteeg and Rudi Nijhuis. During 1969 and 1980 (the band was split-up that year), Teach-In released many successful songs, many of them entering the charts, not only of European countries but globally (U.S.A., South Africa). After the split-up, the group made only one reunion show in 2007 at Maastricht.

I selected this entry for simply being the last victory of the country, before this year’s Duncan’s Laurence win.

The Netherlands in the Eurovision 🇳🇱

The Netherlands was among the seven countries, that took part in the first ever contest. Since then, the country has participated 60 times, missing the event only four times – 1985, 1991, 1995, 2002. In 1985 and 1991, the country withdrew from the contest, because the date of the final was the same with the Dutch Remembrance of the Dead. The other two times, the country wasn’t able to compete due to the rules of the contest.

The country has come first 5 times, in 1957, 1959, 1969, 1975 and more recently in 2019. The Netherlands has also come last 5 times in 1958, 1962, 1963, 1968 and 2011 (in the semifinal). It is noteworthy that in 1962 and 1963, it failed to score any points at all.

Since the introduction of the semifinals, Netherlands didn’t manage to qualify for 8 years in a row, from 2005 until 2012 – that’s a Eurovision Record.

That is the last part of the Netherlands being the country of the month! Next week we are going to present to you a different country!

What do you think about the song? Do you like it? Do you think is it one of the most memorable entries from the Netherlands? Let us know in the comment box below.