'Long Live Love': The making of Olivia Newton-John's classic Eurovision hit

5 March 2025, 12:04

Before Xanadu, 'Physical' and even Grease, Olivia Newton-John repped the UK at Eurovision.

Longtime friends of the Eurovision Song Contest, Australia made its surprising debut in the competition in 2015.

It was set to be a one-off, but it went so well that they've come back every year since then.

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But even before then, it's the Eurovision Song Contest, not the Eurovision Singer Contest. It's not even the Eurovision Songwriter Contest.

Neither the performer or even the writer of a nation's song has to actually be from that country. It just has to be chosen as the song for that country by its public broadcaster via whatever method it uses.

Eurovision 1980 Johnny Logan What's another year

And prior to their nation's bow, a number of Australians represented other countries.

Johnny Logan won the thing twice for Ireland in 1980 and 1987. Gina G did the honours on 'Ooh Ahh... Just A Little Bit' for the UK in 1996. Jane Comerford fronted Texas Lightnong for Germany in 2006.

But before all of them was Olivia Newton-John, who represented the UK in 1974 with 'Long Live Love'. Here's everything you need to know.

Who wrote 'Long Live Love'?

Olivia Newton-John - Long Live Love

While they didn't have to be from the UK, both writers of 'Long Live Love' were English.

The song was by Valerie Avon (formerly of The Avons) and her songwriting partner Harold Spiro, who had won an Ivor Novello for co-writing novelty hit 'Nice One Cyril' a year earlier.

The duo had previously written 'Don't Move Away', which Newton-John had recorded with Cliff Richard as a B-side to his 1971 single 'Sunny Honey Girl'.

Avon and Spiro had tried to get a song into Eurovision before, but came fourth out of six in 1970 with 'Can I Believe' and rock bottom of six a year later with 'In My World of Beautiful Things'.

What is 'Long Live Love' about?

I mean, you can probably guess what the lyrics to 'Long Live Love' mean.

It's a celebration of love, of course!

It's naturally a bit soppy in places ("caring and sharing"), but has a quirky bent, too.

Firstly, the verses have kids in line like toy soldiers, matching the marching tempo of the song.

The children are "singing songs of praise and glory" followed by "glory, glory hallelujah!" to give it a bit of religious flavour, while there's a bit of hippy dippy sensibility too ("Just a band of happy people / Teaching, preaching love is equal").

Is it about romantic love? Familial love? Religious love? Well, you can take from it whatever you want, really.

How did 'Long Live Love' get chosen as the UK's Eurovision Song Contest number for 1974?

Olivia Newton-John had already been chosen by the BBC as the UK's representative to perform at Brighton Dome in 1974, but the public was allowed a say in what song she would sing.

Newton-John performed the six nominated songs during Clunk Clink, and the public got mailing in to choose their favourite.

The results were announced on A Song For Europe 1974, which aired on February 23.

'Long Live Love' ran away with it, totting up a massive 27,387 votes, stomping serious competition from some pretty big songwriting names.

Olivia Newton-John - Long Live Love (Clunk Click, February 9th 1974)

In second place with 18,108 notes was Olivia's favourite of the half-dozen: 'Angel Eyes' by Tony Macaulay and Keith Potger. Then came 'Hands Across the Sea' by Ben Findon, Geoff Wilkins and Roger Greenaway and Geoff Stephens' 'Have Love, Will Travel'.

The bottom two was made up of 'Lovin' You Ain't Easy' by Stuart Leathwood, Bob Saker and Gary Sulsh and 'Someday' by Gary Benson and David Mindel.

Waste not, want not.

Oliva Newton-John went into the studio and recorded all six of the songs for the album Long Live Love, making up half of the running order.

How did 'Long Live Love' do at the Eurovision Song Contest?

Olivia Newton-John - Long Live Love - United Kingdom 🇬🇧 - Grand Final - Eurovision 1974

The UK finished with 14 points at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place on home soil at the Brighton Dome on April 6, 1974.

Worry not, though. The voting system back then was very different to today, where 14 points could very easily see you finish in the bottom three

Picking up four points from Yugoslavia, three from Italy, two from Germany, and one each from Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland and Switzerland was actually pretty good going.

Olivia Newton-John and the UK's 14 points was good enough for joint fourth place out of 17 countries.

The winners in 1974 were a little-known group called ABBA with a song called 'Waterloo'. I wonder what happened to them?

When was 'Long Live Love' released?

'Long Live Love' was released as a single in March 1974, with her Song For Europe runner-up 'Angel Eyes' on the B-side.

It went to number 11 in the UK singles chart, which would be a pretty solid showing for a modern-day Eurovision song, but was actually the first Eurovision entry not to make the top four since way back in 1966.

The Long Live Love album was released on June 24, 1974 and just scraped into the UK album chart at number 40.

Who has covered 'Long Live Love'?

Olivia Newton-John - Long Live Love (German Version)

As well as Olivia Newton-John's own German language version of 'Long Live Love', Gluntan and Päivi Paunu recorded versions in Norwegian and Finnish respectively.

A more high-profile cover came from Anthony Newley, whose version was released as a US single the same year as Olivia did Eurovision.

Long Live Love

Another version came in 1976 from The Nigel Brook Singers.

Eurovision royalty Sandie Shaw didn't cover 'Long Live Love'.

The singer, who won the 1967 competition with 'Puppet On A String', went to number one with a completley different song called 'Long Live Love' nearly a decade before Olivia's version.