Jahn Teigen: Eurovision’s misunderstood rebel?

16 May 2013

Jahn Teigen: Eurovision’s misunderstood rebel?

For those of us in the Anglosphere, Eurovision time is the time of year where we often trot out clips of previous Eurovision song contest blunders and wonder “what were those foreigners thinking?”

One infamous clip is that of Jahn Teigen’s performance at the 1978 Eurovision of “Mil Etter Mil,” the song which garnered Norway’s first “nul points.”

It’s a clip that has been shown thousands of times, but I wondered about the journey it took from recording to national final to that year’s Eurovision in Paris.

Firstly, it must be understood that Teigen fully embraced progressive rock in the 1970s. He embraced it so much that he performed everything like he was auditioning for Deep Purple, even if the song didn’t call for it.

Here he is performing at the 1974 Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix. The orchestration would suit Tom Jones, the lyrics would suit a 1970s Union meeting, Teigen’s performance bridges the gap.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj6vR7CSemw?rel=0&w=420&h=315]

To see Jahn in full progressive rock mode, look at his 1976 performance of the song “Voodoo” with Inger Lise Rypdal

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u9hMOu78R4?rel=0&w=420&h=315]

As anyone who has seen 1970s progressive rock can attest to, it involves a lot of theatricality anc comedy (just ask Alice Cooper), and Teigen certainly is having a ball onstage. He even uses his eyebrows for comedic effect. (In the mid 1970s he was part of a comedy trio called Prima Vera.)

So in 1978, Teigen rocks up to the Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix with a midtempo ballad about love called Mil Etter Mil (“Mile after Mile”) and wins. This is the most sedate performance Teigen has given at the MGP to date, though he was not pleased at the arrangement, which might explain why he pokes fun at it midway through.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsleVeHFTmw?rel=0]

“Mil Etter Mil” was recorded after winning the contest in a more guitar/soft-rock arrangement that Teigen liked and the difference is striking.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMxzOscaky8?rel=0]

This new arrangement didn’t make it to Paris, and in fact, it became more brassier than at the Melodi Grand Prix. Teigen’s performance suggests that he thought “game on” and hammed it up accordingly.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04TtPfBFWO8?rel=0]

While many performers would cower after scoring no points, Teigen went along with it, and Norway embraced him. Though it must be said that a lot of the wacky Teigen was gone after Mil Etter Mil.

The closest to the Jahn of old came in the 1980 MGP where he cheekily used the intro to “She loves you” for his song “Ja.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaDQAZVHd28?rel=0]

Teigen did actually acheive one of Norway’s highest scores in the 1980s with “Do Re Mi,” which if one takes a cynical view of the simple arrangement and lyrics, could be Jahn the Joker slyly rearing his head again.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObadkfbpXtw?rel=0]

Teigen is still kicking about, in fact, he most recently entered in the MGP in 2005 with “My Heart Is My Home,” a song co-written with his ex-spouse Anita Skorgan.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnYn6or1TRI?rel=0]

By the way, Teigen himself added the silent “h” to his birth name of Jan, a bit radical in a land full of Odds and Bents.