Turkey's Art-Rock Trio Tests the 1985 Patience

MAY 15 1985 · 12:10

MFÖ · "Didai Didai Dai (Bak Yeşil Yeşil)" · Turkey · 1985 Placement: 14 · Score: 36 · Language: Turkish · Composers: Fuat Güner, Mazhar Alanson · Venue: Scandinavium · Host: Gothenburg, Sweden · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: color analog MFÖ — Mazhar, Fuat, and Özkan — three Turkish art-rock musicians in coordinated matching suits — take the Scandinavium stage for a tightly arranged song with percussive call-and-response vocals. Everything about it reads as too smart for Eurovision: the arrangement is unshowy, the harmonies are mathematically constructed, there are no gestures to the audience. 14th place with 36 points is a quiet Turkish high-water mark of the 1980s. Context MFÖ had been one of Turkey's most critically respected progressive-pop acts since the late 1970s. TRT's selection was a consensus choice among Turkish musicians but a gamble abroad — Turkish entries had placed last three times in the prior decade. Legacy MFÖ continued as Turkey's art-rock institution through the 2020s and represented Turkey again in 1988. Their 1985 card is now a period document of a Turkey willing to send its actual cultural leaders rather than airport-pop ambassadors. Turkey's breakthrough win would come 18 years later with Sertab Erener.