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.