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| Izhar Cohen & Alphabeta in Eurovision, 1978 |
They have paid attention about how many countries won the contest singing in English, when it is not their native language, and how many others won mixing English with their native languages.
The Grandma has explained them about the Israel's first Eurovision winner, Izhar Cohen who won the contest singing the hit A-Ba-Ni-Bi with the group Alphabeta in 1978.
After talking about Izhar Cohen & Alphabeta, The Grandma has offered them a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example.
Izhar Cohen (March 13, 1951) is an Israeli singer who won the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest.
Izhar Cohen was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and raised in Giv'atayim, to a family of singers of Yemenite-Jewish descent -Shlomo Cohen, the Great Soliman, Sarah Cohen, and Hofni, Pini, and Vardina Cohen.
Cohen started to sing when he was a child and joined his father in his performances. At 18, Cohen joined the IDF's Nachal singers group. During the 1970s Cohen was one of the most played singers in Israel. Representing Israel, he won the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest with the group Alphabeta performing A-Ba-Ni-Bi with music by Nurit Hirsh and words by Ehud Manor. The title of the song is the Hebrew word ani, first person singular pronoun, expressed in the popular children language game Bet language, equivalent to Pig Latin.
Cohen later represented Israel again, this time with an unnamed group of backing singers, at the 1985 contest performing Olé, Olé, music -Kobi Oshrat, words- Hamutal Ben-Ze'ev, where he finished 5th. He attempted to represent Israel again in 1987 and 1996 but did not win the national final.
Cohen was an actor in the Haifa Theater, and today he is an owner of a jewelry shop.
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| A-BA-NI-BI single |
The singers were Reuven Erez, Lisa Gold-Rubin, Nehama Shutan, Esther Tzuberi, and Itzhak Okev. The winning song was A-Ba-Ni-Bi. Israel received five consecutive maximum 12 points during the voting, a Eurovision Song Contest record. The total score for the song was 157 points.
When it became clear that Israel was going to win the contest, Jordan stopped its live broadcast on the pretext of technical difficulties. The viewing public was shown a picture of daffodils. A day later, Jordan presented the song from Belgium, which came in second, as the winning song. This victory entitled Israel to host the contest in Jerusalem in 1979.
The head of the Israeli delegation, Rivka Michaeli, said that Cohen's song was sent to the contest because the other entries in the Israeli national competition were so bad. Nevertheless, Izhar Cohen was said to be confident that he would win.
More information: Eurovision World
A-Ba-Ni-Bi was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978, performed for Israel by Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta.
This was Israel's first Eurovision win, which meant under the rules of the contest that they would host the following year's contest, marking the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest would take place outside geographical Europe.
According to author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor, broadcasters in many of the non-participating Arab countries in North Africa and Asia, who had been transmitting the contest, had to cut the broadcast when it was clear Israel was going to win. Jordanian television cut the broadcast and showed pictures of flowers.
The song, written by Ehud Manor and composed and conducted by Nurit Hirsh, a duo who had collaborated frequently in writing Israeli Eurovision entries, including the country's debut, is an up-tempo disco number, heralding a move towards this style of performance in later years.
While sometimes derided as a weak entry -particularly given its title- the song is regarded by most fans as one of the better entries in Contest history, often being performed as part of a medley of favourites, as at the introduction to the 2006 semi-final in Athens.
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| Izhar Cohen & Alphabeta in Eurovision, 1978 |
Thus, the Hebrew a-ni o-hev o-tach becomes a-ba-ni-bi o-bo-he-be-v o-bo-ta-ba-ch. Mistakenly, the song title was captioned on screen at the contest as being Ah-Bah-Nee-Bee and was further confused in the UK singles market when listed on the official singles chart compiled by Music Week as A-Bi-Ni-Bi.
Musically, the song is somewhat unusual among Contest entries for ending almost immediately after the key change, most entries have either a bridge or a repetition of the chorus after this point.
Musically, the song is somewhat unusual among Contest entries for ending almost immediately after the key change, most entries have either a bridge or a repetition of the chorus after this point.
More information: Eurostory
At the Contest, Cohen and his five backing vocalists, two men -Reuven Erez and Itzhak Okev, and three women- Lisa Gold-Rubin, Nehama Shutan, and Esther Tzuberi, all wore white clothing and remained mostly stationary, swaying in time to the music.
The song was performed eighteenth on the night, following Luxembourg's Baccara with Parlez-vous français? and preceding Austria's Springtime with Mrs. Caroline Robinson. At the close of voting, it had received 157 points, placing first in a field of 20.
The song was succeeded in 1979 as Contest winner and as Israeli representative by Milk and Honey performing Hallelujah for Israel. Israel thus became the third country, after Spain (1968 and 1969) and Luxembourg (1972 and 1973) to win the Contest twice in successive years. Since then, only Ireland has achieved that distinction, winning three times in a row, beginning in 1992.
Izhar Cohen returned to the Contest at Gothenburg, Sweden in 1985, then finishing 5th in a field of 19 with Olé, Olé. It was covered by Grup Vitamin, Turkish parody music group as Acaba Bu Ne Baba Be?, I wonder what is this dad, hey? in Turkish) in Aşkın Gözyaşları, Tears of Love, which was their 1994 album.
More information: Express
Those words were always spinning in my head
I used to whisper them at night in bed
I used to whisper them at night in bed
And when alone, I didn't try to hide
Those magic words I heard inside.
Those magic words I heard inside.
Izhar Cohen & Alphabeta
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