La La La
Encyclopedia
"La, la, la" is a song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
which was performed by the Spanish singer Massiel
Massiel
María de los Ángeles Felisa Santamaría Espinoza , professionally known as Massiel, is a Spanish pop singer...
at the Eurovision Song Contest 1968
Eurovision Song Contest 1968
The Eurovision Song Contest 1968 was the 13th Eurovision Song Contest. The contest was won by the Spanish song "La, la, la", performed by Massiel....
, winning the contest for Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in that year. It was the first of Spain's two Eurovision wins to date. The song was composed by Ramón Arcusa and Manuel de la Calva, otherwise known as the singing duo Dúo Dinámico
Dúo Dinámico
Dúo Dinámico is a Spanish musical duo, which was very popular in Spain and Latin America in the 1960s. It is formed by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa, singers, songwriters, record producers and actors. They were the main precursors of pop music in Spain....
. Massiel's backing singers, who wore short teal
Teal (color)
Teal is a medium blue-green color. It is named after the Common Teal, a member of the duck family, whose eyes are surrounded by the color.Teal is one of the initial group of 16 HTML/CSS web colors formulated in 1987, shown below....
coloured dresses, were (from back to front, tallest to shortest) María Jesús Aguirre, María Dolores Arenas, and Mercedes Valimaña Macaria.
Massiel recorded the song in four languages; Spanish, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, all as "La, la, la", and in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, as "La, la, la (He Gives Me Love)". It was later covered by the Italian singer Mina
Mina (singer)
Anna Maria Quaini, Grand Officer , known as Mina, is an Italian pop singer. She was a staple of Italian television variety shows and a dominant figure in Italian pop music from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s known for her three-octave vocal range, the agility of her soprano voice, and her image as an...
in Radiotelevisione Italiana
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
's 1968 variety series Canzonissima and by Finnish singer Carola. The band Saint Etienne
Saint Etienne (band)
Saint Etienne are an English Pop group comprising Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. They are named after the French football team AS Saint-Étienne.-History:Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs were childhood friends and former music journalists...
recorded another cover version, featured on the album A Song for Eurotrash
Eurotrash (term)
Eurotrash is a derogatory term used in North America for Europeans, particularly those perceived to be arrogant, affluent, and expatriates in the United States....
(1998) with English lyrics that differ from the original, referring to the man she is dating instead of the things she is thankful for. The biggest-selling recording of the song, however, was the cover-version, performed in Spanish, by Portugues fado
Fado
Fado is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar, Rui Vieira Nery, states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best...
star Amália Rodrigues
Amália Rodrigues
Amália da Piedade Rodrigues, GCSE, GCIH, , also known as Amália Rodrigues was a Portuguese singer and actress.She was known as the "Rainha do Fado" and was most influential in popularizing the fado worldwide. She was one of the most important figures in the genre's development, and enjoyed a...
. It was also sung by Alpay, a famous Turkish singer, in Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
at same year in "Sen Gidince & La La La" 45 rpm.
Controversy
The song has been the subject of more than one controversy. Joan Manuel SerratJoan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat i Teresa is a Catalan Spanish singer-songwriter.Serrat is considered one of the most important figures of modern, popular music in both the Spanish and Catalan languages...
, the artist originally chosen to perform Spain's entry, intended to sing it in Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
. The Franco government would not allow this – and insisted that the entry should be performed in spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, official language for all the territories of Spain, although Serrat wanted to claim for the other regional languages of this country, repressed under the Franco dictatorship
Language politics in Spain under Franco
Language politics in Francoist Spain centered on attempts in Spain under Franco to increase the dominance of the Spanish language over the other languages of Spain.The regime of Francisco Franco had Spanish nationalism as one of its bases....
. Hence the last-minute substitution of Massiel as singer. It was not until 2004
Eurovision Song Contest 2004
The Eurovision Song Contest 2004, was the 49th Contest and it was held in the Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul, Turkey. This was the first occasion in which the contest was held in Turkey after they had won the competition in 2003 with Sertab Erener singing "Everyway That I Can"...
, when Andorra
Andorra
Andorra , officially the Principality of Andorra , also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, , is a small landlocked country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe having an area of...
made its first entry, that Catalan would be heard on the contest stage.
"La, la, la" beat the favourite, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's "Congratulations
Congratulations (song)
"Congratulations" is a song written by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter as the UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 on 6 April with Cliff Richard performing....
" by just one point, and Bill Martin
Bill Martin
Bill Martin is a Scottish songwriter, music publisher and impresario.-Biography:...
(writer of the UK entry) called the Spanish song "a piece of rubbish". Since 1968, "La, la, la" has been held by some critics to be an example of Eurovision at its worst.
A documentary film shown on Spanish television in 2008 claimed that General Franco had had the competition fixed to ensure a victory for Spain which would boost the country's image abroad. In return for the juries' votes, the film alleged, the Spanish national television service (TVE
Televisión Española
Televisión Española is the national state-owned public-service television broadcaster in Spain. TVE's activities were previously financed by a combination of advertising revenue and subsidies from the national government, but since it's been supported by subsidies only.TVE belongs to the RTVE...
) had purchased marginally popular television programmes from other countries for broadcast in Spain, as well as booking lesser-known foreign acts to perform in the country. The maker of the documentary quoted journalist José María Íñigo who had said, "Massiel won Eurovision with bought votes." Eurovision TV Director Bjorn Erichsen said, "Was Franco really so keen for Spain to win it? We're not talking about NATO here or the EU, or political influence, we're talking about a pop song contest." Massiel was outraged by the allegations, insisting that she won because her song was better, and that Franco would have not been able to buy any votes for her in the first place. She also blamed the allegations on competition among Spanish TV channels. José María Iñigo, author of the allegation in the documentary, personally apologized to Massiel and said that he had just echoed a rumour.