Co-Co — The Bad Old Days

MAY 15 1978 · 12:00

Co-Co · "The Bad Old Days" · United Kingdom · 1978 Placement: 11th · Language: English · Composers: Stephanie de Sykes, Stuart Slater · Venue: Palais des Congrès · Host: Paris, France · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: color crt Co-Co are a four-piece mixed-vocal group assembled for the BBC's 'A Song for Europe,' and in Paris in 1978 they perform 'The Bad Old Days' in the kind of matching stagewear — bright, slightly glam, pastel-leaning — that British Eurovision groups wore like a uniform in the late seventies. Among the four is Cheryl Baker, whose smile already has the television-ready wattage that will, three years later, rip the skirt off Jay Aston during Bucks Fizz's 'Making Your Mind Up' and make her half of the most famous Eurovision image in British history. Here she is just one quarter of a harmony group singing a tightly constructed pop number about putting hard times behind you. Eleventh of twenty with sixty-one points. Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta win for Israel with 'A-Ba-Ni-Bi.' Context 1978 was the year Israel won Eurovision for the first time. The UK's selection system was still running through 'A Song for Europe' formats that tended to produce polite, well-drilled groups rather than star vehicles. Legacy 'The Bad Old Days' is now remembered almost entirely for its role as the origin story of Bucks Fizz. Cheryl Baker would be invited into the 1981 British entry specifically because she was a veteran of the 1978 Eurovision group. Mythology The origin story. Co-Co as the group whose main purpose, in hindsight, was to audition Cheryl Baker.