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.