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| Dana won Eurovision in 1970 |
Today, The Grandma has been talking with The Watsons about Dana, the Irish singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest representing her country in 1970 singing All Kinds of Everything.
Ireland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 53 times since making its debut at the 1965 Contest in Naples, missing only two contests since then (1983 and 2002). The contest final is broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One.
Ireland is the most successful country in the contest, with a record total of seven wins, and is the only country to have won three times consecutively.
Before talking about Dana, The Grandma has offered a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example to The Watsons.
Dana Rosemary Scallon (born Rosemary Brown on 30 August 1951), known professionally as Dana, is an Irish singer and former politician who served as Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004.
While still a schoolgirl she won the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest with All Kinds of Everything. It became a worldwide million-seller and launched her music career.
She entered politics in 1997, as Dana Rosemary Scallon, running unsuccessfully in the Irish presidential election, but later being elected as an MEP for Connacht–Ulster in 1999.
Scallon was again an independent candidate in the Irish 2011 presidential election, but was eliminated on the first count. In 2019, Dana announced she was back in the studio and was recording a brand new album, her first in many years. My Time was released 1 November 2019.
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| Dana won Eurovision in 1970 |
Scallon was born in Frederica Street, Islington, North London, to Robert and Sheila Brown. Her father worked as a porter at nearby King's Cross station.
Her parents were musical -her father played the trumpet in his own dance band, The Imperial All Stars, and her mother was their guest pianist. They had seven children in all: three sons and four daughters, including their third-born child Grace who died at eight months from a penicillin allergy.
In 1965, the now solo Rosemary Brown took part in a local talent contest at the Embassy Ballroom, where she won first prize -a chance to record a demo tape. Tony Johnston, a headmaster and part-time promoter who sponsored the competition, took her under his wing while she continued with her studies at Thornhill College, the Roman Catholic grammar school for girls she joined in 1963.
After gaining seven good grades in her GCE O-level exams, Rex Records (Decca) in Dublin received her demo and manager Michael Geoghegan signed her up. Her debut single was Sixteen, written by Tony Johnston, while the B-side, Little Girl Blue, was her own composition.
It came out on 17
November 1967, but failed to take off, though local TV and radio began
to show an interest in her. It was at this time that she adopted the
professional name of Dana, which had been her school nickname.
More information: RTE
Now studying A-level music and English, she became popular in Dublin's cabaret and folk clubs at weekends, and was crowned Queen of Cabaret at Clontarf Castle in 1968.
Rex Records' secretary Phil Mitton suggested she audition for the Irish National Song Contest, due to take place in February 1969 -a victory would see her represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. With mixed feelings due to nerves she made it through to the final in Dublin where she sang Look Around by Michael Reade, later released as her fourth single. Shown live on Irish television, Scallon came second to Muriel Day and Wages of Love, also written by Reade.
In December 1969 Tom McGrath, producer of the Irish National Song Contest, invited Scallon to try again next year, feeling that one of the entered songs, the ballad All Kinds of Everything, would suit her. Her second attempt to win the Irish contest was a success.
Then on Saturday 21 March 1970, the eighteen-year-old schoolgirl performed the song at the Eurovision finals held in the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre, before an estimated viewing audience of two hundred million.
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| Dana won Eurovision in 1970 |
Perched on a stool while wearing an embroidered white mini-dress, she was the last of twelve contestants to perform that night.
After the voting had finished she was declared the winner with 32 points, beating the favourite, UK's Mary Hopkin, with 26 and Germany's Katja Ebstein with 12. Spain's Julio Iglesias came equal fourth with Guy Bonnet of France and Henri Dès of Switzerland. This was Ireland's first of a record seven successes in the contest.
After the voting had finished she was declared the winner with 32 points, beating the favourite, UK's Mary Hopkin, with 26 and Germany's Katja Ebstein with 12. Spain's Julio Iglesias came equal fourth with Guy Bonnet of France and Henri Dès of Switzerland. This was Ireland's first of a record seven successes in the contest.
The winning song was composed by two Dublin printworkers, Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith. The single was produced by Ray Horricks and arranged by Phil Coulter. Released on 14 March, it shot to #1 in the Irish singles chart before the contest began and stayed there for nine weeks.
It also spent two weeks at the top of the UK singles chart on 18 and 25 April. It was also successful in Australia, Austria, Germany, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. The song went on to sell more than two million units.
Scallon's debut album All Kinds of Everything, recorded at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London, on the weekend of 25 April 1970, was released in June and included four tracks co-written by the singer, as well as a new recording of the album's title track.
More information: The Irish News
In June 1997, she received a letter from the Christian Community Centre in Ireland suggesting she run for the Irish presidency. Having no interest in politics at the time, and never having heard of that organisation, she threw the incredible proposal in the bin. But they persisted and similar mail arrived from other people.
She was granted US citizenship in 1999, requiring her to swear an oath renouncing allegiance to any other state. That same year she again stood as an independent, this time winning a seat in the European Parliament, representing Connacht–Ulster.
On 19 September 2011, at the Fitzwilliam Hotel on St Stephen's Green, Scallon announced she would be seeking a nomination to enter the following month's Irish presidential election. Carlow County Council was the first to nominate her. She was then nominated by other county councils thus becoming a candidate. There were seven candidates in total, five men and two women.
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| Dana & Mary Hopkin in Eurovision, 1970 |
All Kinds of Everything is a song written by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith; as performed by Dana, it won the Eurovision Song Contest 1970.
All Kinds of Everything represented a return to the ballad form from the more energetic performances which had dominated Eurovision the previous years.
Dana sings about all the things which remind her of her sweetheart, such as wishing-wells, wedding bells and an early morning dew, with the admission at the end of every verse that all kinds of everything remind me of you. The recording by Dana became an international hit.
Dana had competed in the 1969 Irish National Song Contest -she was a resident of Northern Ireland and citizen of the United Kingdom but it was decided that year to have the Irish entry in Eurovision represent the island of Ireland in its entirety rather than just the Republic of Ireland.
Although in 1970 the Irish Eurovision entry reverted to representing the Republic of Ireland only, Dana had made such a favorable impression in the previous year's Irish National Song Contest -her performance of Look Around had come second- that the contest's producer Tom McGrath invited her to participate again singing All Kinds of Everything, a composition by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith, two twenty-eight-year-old amateur songwriters who worked as compositors for a Dublin newspaper.
More information: Irish Examiner
Scottish songwriter Bill Martin, who was responsible for the winning song's publishing, has on numerous subsequent occasions claimed that he and his song writing partner Phil Coulter, the team behind both Puppet on a String and Congratulations, actually wrote the song themselves, but were prevented from using their names on the credit. Coulter has never repeated the claim.
Derry Lindsay set the record straight in an interview with Irish Times Arts Correspondent Tony Clayton-Lea in May 2016, in an article entitled, The Greatest injustice in Irish Eurovision history?. The greatest injustice in Irish Eurovision history?. Derry Lindsay is now retired and living in Skerries, Co. Dublin with his wife.
All Kinds of Everything was the first Eurovision win for the Republic of Ireland; six subsequent victories have made that nation Eurovision's most successful entrant.
The entry was politically sensitive as Dana came from Derry in Northern Ireland, yet was representing Ireland, not the United Kingdom. At this time The Troubles in Northern Ireland were erupting, and some people found political symbolism of a Northern Irishwoman representing the Republic.
Following her victory Dana returned to Derry and sang her victorious song to a crowd of cheering wellwishers from a balcony in the city.
More information: NewsTalk
Seagulls and aeroplanes
Things of the sky
Winds that go howlin'
Breezes that sigh
City sights
Neon lights
Grey skies or blue
All kinds of everything remind me of you.
Things of the sky
Winds that go howlin'
Breezes that sigh
City sights
Neon lights
Grey skies or blue
All kinds of everything remind me of you.
Dana
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