La, La, La - Controversy

Controversy

The song has been the subject of more than one controversy. Joan Manuel Serrat, the artist originally chosen to perform Spain's entry, intended to sing it in Catalan. The Franco government would not allow this – and insisted that the entry should be performed in Spanish, official language for all the territories of Spain, although Serrat wanted to claim for the other regional languages of this country, repressed under the Franco dictatorship. Hence the last-minute substitution of Massiel as singer. It was not until 2004, when Andorra made its first entry, that Catalan would be heard on the contest stage.

"La, la, la" beat the favourite, the United Kingdom's "Congratulations" by just one point, and Bill Martin (writer of the UK entry) called the Spanish song "a piece of rubbish".

A documentary film shown on Spanish television in 2008 claimed that General Franco had had the competition fixed to ensure a victory for Spain which would boost the country's image abroad. In return for the juries' votes, the film alleged, the Spanish national television service (TVE) had purchased marginally popular television programmes from other countries for broadcast in Spain, as well as booking lesser-known foreign acts to perform in the country. The maker of the documentary quoted journalist José María Íñigo who had said, "Massiel won Eurovision with bought votes." Eurovision TV Director Bjorn Erichsen said, "Was Franco really so keen for Spain to win it? We're not talking about NATO here or the EU, or political influence, we're talking about a pop song contest." Massiel was outraged by the allegations, insisting that she won because her song was better, and that Franco would have not been able to buy any votes for her in the first place. She also blamed the allegations on competition among Spanish TV channels. However José María Íñigo, the person that made such claims in the documentary quickly said that his words were taken out of context and he never said such thing, and said that the channel that produced the documentary, laSexta, who was the promoter of the Spanish representative that year, Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, had manipulated his words to help promote their candidate. He said: "if there had been such a manipulation, it would have been for a different artist who had been closer to the regime".