Mata Hari: Norway's Losing Mythology Before Bobbysocks

MAY 15 1976 · 12:05

Anne-Karine Strøm · "Mata Hari" · Norway · 1976 Placement: 18th · Score: 7 · Language: English · Composers: Frode Thingnæs, Kari Borg Mannsåker, Philip Kruse · Venue: Nederlands Congresgebouw · Host: The Hague, Netherlands · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: color crt On April 3, 1976, inside the Nederlands Congresgebouw in The Hague, the Norwegian singer Anne-Karine Strøm, already a Eurovision veteran, having represented Norway twice as a member of the Bendik Singers and once as a solo artist in 1974, took the stage for her second solo Eurovision attempt with 'Mata Hari', a brassy Frode Thingnæs composition loosely inspired by the executed First World War dancer-turned-alleged-spy. The staging leaned hard into the cabaret conceit: Strøm in a feather-trimmed costume, the arrangement punctuated by sharp horn stabs, the lyric a sort of sung monologue in the voice of the historical Mata Hari. The televised performance was assured and professionally staged. The juries, however, were unmoved. Norway finished last, eighteenth of eighteen, with seven points, an outcome that cemented the country's mid-1970s reputation as Eurovision's most reliable bottom-finisher. Strøm's three Eurovision appearances by this point had produced placements of 7th (1973, as a Bendik Singer), 14th (1974), and now 18th; the trajectory was unmistakable. Context Eurovision 1976 was the twenty-first edition of the contest, hosted by the Netherlands. Norway's Eurovision record across the 1960s and 1970s was reportedly one of the weakest in the contest, the country had not placed higher than sixth through seventy broadcasts by this point, and its tendency to finish last had become a recurring joke in Norwegian press coverage. Legacy 'Mata Hari' became one of the canonical reference points in Norway's famous Eurovision losing mythology, a narrative that NRK and Norwegian press actively cultivated through the 1970s and early 1980s as a kind of national running joke. The country would finish last-place or near-last five more times before Bobbysocks' 1985 surprise victory reset the pattern. Mythology 'Mata Hari' is widely remembered as a Norwegian nul-points finish; it actually received seven points and finished last of eighteen without scoring zero.