Schlager in the Rule-Free Era

MAY 15 1999 · 12:00

Charlotte Nilsson (Perrelli) · "Take Me to Your Heaven" · Sweden · 1999 Placement: 1st · Language: English · Composers: Lars Diedricson, Gert Lengstrand · Host: Jerusalem, Israel · Type: language rule break · Broadcast: satellite On May 29, 1999, in Jerusalem — Israel hosting for the second time, on the back of Dana International's 1998 win — a Swedish singer then known as Charlotte Nilsson stepped onto the stage in a pale dress, smiled the practiced smile of a Melodifestivalen veteran, and sang a song that could have been written by Benny and Björn at any point in the previous quarter-century. 'Take Me to Your Heaven' was a deliberate, unapologetic Abba pastiche: major-key, piano-led, verse-verse-chorus-key-change, and brightly sung in English. It was also the first Eurovision in years where singing in English was even an option for a non-native-English-speaking country. The EBU had quietly abolished the national-language rule the previous autumn, and Sweden — along with most of the contest — promptly switched. Nilsson's performance was classic schlager: big wave of the arm on the chorus, eye contact with the camera on the key change, a delivery that seemed to shrug at any suggestion Eurovision should be about innovation. When Sweden's points began to mount, particularly from juries rewarding clean vocals and crowd-friendly writing, the win felt almost procedural. Nilsson reacted with the composed delight of someone who had spent her career preparing for exactly this result. Context Eurovision 1999 took place against the backdrop of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which led to the withdrawal of several Balkan states and shadowed the entire broadcast. It was also the last year of the twentieth century in Eurovision terms — a contest that would enter the 2000s with televoting fully established, the language rule gone, and Eastern European participation at an all-time high. The abolition of the national-language rule was the single biggest structural change of the decade: from 1999 onwards, any country could sing in any language, and within a few years the vast majority of entries were in English. Sweden's Melodifestivalen was already one of the most sophisticated national selection processes in Europe, producing polished, radio-ready songs on an industrial scale. Nilsson's win confirmed that in a language-free Eurovision, that industrial polish would be hard to beat. Legacy 'Take Me to Your Heaven' cemented the template for what became known as 'schlager' on the Eurovision circuit — English-language, key-change-driven, Abba-lineage pop that Sweden would return to repeatedly in the following decades. Nilsson, later Charlotte Perrelli after her marriage, became a fixture of Melodifestivalen and returned to Eurovision in 2008 with 'Hero'. More broadly, 1999 is now cited as the moment Eurovision's linguistic character shifted permanently: the contest's songs became easier to export, harder to distinguish by country, and more clearly in dialogue with the global English-language pop market. The decision remains controversial among purists who feel it flattened the contest's cultural variety. Mythology It is often said that Sweden 'exploited a loophole' to win in English in 1999. In fact the rule was openly abolished by the EBU and applied to every participating country. The song is also sometimes described as co-written by members of Abba; it was not — it was written by Swedish schlager specialists Lars Diedricson and Gert Lengstrand, with Abba merely its spiritual reference point.