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La, la, la
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox song
| name = La, la, la
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| type = single
| artist = Massiel
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| released = 1968
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| label = Noxia
| writer = Manuel de la Calva, Ramn Arcusa
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"'La, la, la'" is a song recorded by Spanish singer Massiel, written by Manuel de la Calva and Ramn Arcusa. It is best known as the Spanish winning entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 in London. It was the first time that Spain won the Contest. Massiel also released the song in English as "He Gives Me Love (La, La, La)".Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World 2003 0826463215 "Its apogee was 'La La La' (Massiel, Spain), the 1968 winner. By the mid-1990s, when many former Communist countries were joining Eurovision, the contest had lost touch with current trends in European music."Geoff Tibballs The Good, the Bad and the Wurst 1472137078 2016 "Performing fifteenth out of the seventeen contestants was Spain's Mara Flix de los ngeles Santamara Espinosa, more conveniently known as Massiel. Her song, 'La La La', defined the term 'singalong' as it contained no fewer than 138 la's."
Eurovision
The performance of the song was the first of Spain's two Eurovision wins to date. The song was composed by Ramn Arcusa and Manuel de la Calva, otherwise known as the singing duo Do Dinmico. This was the first Eurovision Song Contest broadcast in colour, with viewers noting Massiel's backing singers in their short teal coloured dresses (from left/tallest to right/shortest, they were Mara Jess Aguirre, Mara Dolores Arenas, and Mercedes Valimaa Macaria).
"La, la, la" beat the favourite, the 's "Congratulations", by just one point. Bill Martin (writer of the UK entry) called the Spanish song "a piece of rubbish".
Joan Manuel Serrat, the artist originally chosen to perform Spain's entry, intended to sing it in Catalan. The Francoist State dictatorship would not allow this – and insisted that the entry should be performed in Spanish (which is in fact the language of Castile), official language for all the territories of Spain, although Serrat wanted to make a claim for the other regional languages of this country, repressed under the Francoist State. Hence the last-minute substitution of Massiel as singer. It was not until , when Andorra made its first entry, that Catalan would be heard on the contest stage.
A documentary film shown on Spanish television in 2008 claimed that Caudillo Franco had had the competition fixed to ensure a victory for Spain, which would boost the country's image abroad. 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. Jos Mara igo, the person who had made the original claims in the documentary, later retracted them, saying "If there had been such a manipulation, it would have been for a different artist who had been closer to the regime."
Recordings
Massiel recorded the song in four languages; Spanish, Italian, German, all as "La, la, la", and in English, as "He Gives Me Love (La, la, la)". It was later covered by the Italian singer Mina in Radiotelevisione Italiana's 1968 variety series 'Canzonissima' and by Finnish singer Carola. The band Saint Etienne recorded another cover version, featured on the album 'A Song for Eurotrash' (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 Portuguese fado star Amlia Rodrigues. It was also sung by Alpay, a famous Turkish singer, in Turkish that same year as "La La La ark Sz" and released as the B side of his single "Sen Gidince" in 1969. Heidi Brhl covered it in German and Marcela Laiferov in Slovak.
References
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