Building on the success of our Best of the Big 5 series, Eurovision Ireland is now broadening its search for your favourite entries from countries across the continent, spanning the contest’s entire back catalogue – that’s well over 1500 songs!

We’ve scoured the Big 5 countries and across Scandinavia for your Eurovision favourites and you voted in your thousands to crown your winners. We now begin on our next exciting set of countries: those of Western Europe that are not part of the Big 5 – namely Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland. Last month your votes named the Common Linnets winner for the Netherlands – so next stop, the alpine beauty of Switzerland!

Switzerland were centre stage at the humble beginnings of the Eurovision Song Contest, playing host to the inaugural edition of the contest back in 1956. Not only did the show go out live from Lugano, but it was won by Lys Assia, making Switzerland the first country to enter the ranks of Eurovision winners! Their next win came 32 years later in 1988 and launched the international career of Celine Dion – and some fans speculate that as 32 years after this would have been 2020, another Swiss victory is on the horizon. Their recent placings on the scoreboard would certainly seem to suggest so!

There have been a total of 61 Swiss entries to the Eurovision Song Contest since 1956 and so as always, we’ve split the songs between Odd and Even Years. This week you’ll get to vote for your favourite entries from Switzerland from their Odd Year back catalogue– songs that entered in years ending in 1,3,5,7 or 9.

Don’t spot your favourites below? Don’t panic! You’ll get to vote for which Even Year entries you love next week! As always, the Top 10 entries from both semi finals will then go on to the grand final, where you will vote for your overall winner. Don’t forget, your winner will be entered in the Eurovision Ireland Hall of Fame, so what are you waiting for? Get voting!

REMEMBER! AS ALWAYS, YOU CAN VOTE FOR YOUR TOP 10!

Author: James Scanlan
Source: Eurovision Ireland