Kathy Kirby — I Belong

MAY 15 1965 · 12:05

Kathy Kirby · "I Belong" · United Kingdom · 1965 Placement: 2nd · Language: English · Composers: Steve Glyn, Pat Blake · Venue: Sala di Concerto della RAI · Host: Naples, Italy · Type: upset · Broadcast: pre color Kathy Kirby in Naples, 1965, and it is almost painful to watch because she is so clearly a star. The platinum-blonde hair, the Max Factor gloss on the lips, the smile held at exactly the angle that worked on the BBC every Saturday night — she is Britain's answer to Shirley Bassey and Dusty Springfield at once, and when she lifts her arms on the final chorus of 'I Belong' the orchestra blooms around her like she has conducted it herself. The song is pure Tin Pan Alley ballad, a waltz-time declaration of romantic fealty, and Kirby sells it the way a professional of her generation sold everything: no irony, no distance, full-throated commitment. When the voting begins she leads. She keeps leading. Luxembourg's France Gall, singing a Gainsbourg lollipop called 'Poupée de cire, poupée de son,' closes the gap and then passes her. Kirby finishes second, one point behind — a number that would become a small British refrain for decades afterward: so close, so close again. Context The 1965 contest was Italy's first as hosts and the year Eurovision tipped toward its modern self, with France Gall's win signalling that a writer like Serge Gainsbourg could treat the contest as a pop laboratory rather than a light-entertainment showcase. Kirby was at the height of her BBC fame — 'Kathy Kirby Show' ratings were immense — and the UK had sent her as its surest bet since Matt Monro's second place the year before. Legacy 'I Belong' became one of the better-remembered UK Eurovision near-misses of the 1960s — the glossy, grown-up ballad beaten by something younger and stranger. Kirby's own story turned tragic over the following decade, and the Naples performance is now often cited as her peak as a television performer. Mythology The nearly-queen. Kirby as the ghost of what a mid-sixties UK Eurovision victory would have looked like — not rock, not beat, but the pure orchestral star turn.