The Swarbriggs Deliver Ireland's First Brotherly Entry

MAY 15 1975 · 12:15

The Swarbriggs · "That's What Friends Are For" · Ireland · 1975 Placement: 9 · Score: 68 · Language: English · Composers: Tommy Swarbrigg, Jimmy Swarbrigg · Venue: Stockholmsmässan · Host: Stockholm, Sweden · Type: deep cut · Broadcast: color analog Tommy and Jimmy Swarbrigg, two brothers from Mullingar in matching cream suits, open the new Eurovision scoring era, the first year of 12-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Their soft-harmony pop ditty is pure 1975 AM-radio cheer. 9th place with 68 points is a perfectly mid-table finish, dwarfed by Teach-In's 'Ding-A-Dong' win and a stadium-sized Stockholm crowd. Context The Swarbriggs had been writing RTÉ entries for years as 'The Times'. 1975 marked their third Eurovision appearance (they'd represented Ireland as a trio in 1968 and came back). The new scoring system was the EBU's attempt to reduce the four-way-tie problem from 1969. Legacy They returned in 1977 with 'It's Nice to Be in Love Again', finishing 3rd, their best result. 'That's What Friends Are For' was reused as an Irish secondary-school retirement staple for 40 years. The Swarbrigg brothers co-wrote several later Irish entries and were inducted into Ireland's National Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.