1968: "Tausend Fenster" — Karel Gott

The ESC was broadcast on television in colour for the first time in 1968. In the year of the Prague Spring, Czech singer Karel Gott represented Austria with the song Tausend Fenster written by Udo Jürgens. The lyrics tell of people’s lonely lives, “like on small islands—you don’t even know who is living next door”. The song can also be understood as a wish to lift the “Iron Curtain”. Following a change in the Czechoslovakian leadership, reforms had recently started to take effect in the economy, culture, media and even within the Communist Party itself.

On 21 August 1968, tanks rolled in and half a million soldiers from the Warsaw Pact countries used force to prevent any kind of change in Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring was over. This outcome has striking parallels with the ESC: that year, the contest was won by Spanish singer Massiel with the song La, la, la, meaning that the following year, the contest would take place in a dictatorship for the first time.