Dors, mon amour

Background

Composition

"Dors, mon amour" was composed by Pierre Delanoë with French lyrics by Hubert Giraud. It is a love song, expressed by the singer telling his lover to sleep, while he muses on their love and the power of the night. It is reviewed as "a classical sort of lullaby", and is compared to newer editions entries songs as "hardly indicative of the camp and bombast which would later come to define Eurovision."

Eurovision

Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF) internally selected André Claveau as its performer for the of the Eurovision Song Contest. On 7 February 1958, "Dors, mon amour" competed in the televised show **, the national final organised by RTF to select the song he would sing in Eurovision. "Dors, mon amour" beat four other songs and became the for the contest.

On 12 March 1958, the Eurovision Song Contest was held at AVRO Studios in Hilversum hosted by Nederlandse Televisie Stichting (NTS), and broadcast live throughout the continent. Claveau performed third "Dors, mon amour" in a field of ten, following the ' entry "Heel de wereld" by Corry Brokken and preceding 's "Un grand amour" by Solange Berry. Franck Pourcel conducted the live orchestra in the performance of the French entry.

By the close of voting, it had received 27 points, placing it first, with three points above . This is the first winning entry sung by a male leading vocalist and France's first win. The song was succeeded as French entrant at the by "Oui, oui, oui, oui", sung by Jean Philippe, and as contest winner by "Een beetje", sung by Teddy Scholten representing the .

Charts

"Dors, mon amour" is marked as a numberless "peak"-note position on Belgium's Walloon region single music chart for the week of 1 June 1958, and is included in the 2005 compilation "50 Years Of The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 - 1980" which charted in Switzerland.

Legacy

The song was also covered in French in 1958, by the 1957 Eurovision winner Corry Brokken, Achille Togliani and Germana Caroli. It is covered in German by Camillo und die Bernd Hansen-Sänger as "Unser Glück, mon amour" and in Swedish by 1958 Eurovision entrant Alice Babs as "Sov min älskling".

References

References

1. "Dors, mon amour - lyrics".
2. MELLO, DAVID. (11 July 2021). "Eurovision: The First 10 Winners (& Their Songs)".
3. "France: Et voici quelques airs".
4. (12 March 1958). "Eurovision Song Contest 1958".
5. "Official Eurovision Song Contest 1958 scoreboard".
6. "50 Years Of The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 - 1980". hitparade.ch.
7. "André Claveau – Dors, mon amour". ultratop.be.