Eurovision 1971 - Switzerland

Peter, Sue & Mark performing "Les Illusions de nos Vingt Ans" (freely translated as "The Aspirations of Our Youth" - special thanks to ESCsince1968 for helping with the translation), the Swiss entry at the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest.

In the first of their four appearances at the contest (each one in a different language!), PSM entered with a song talking about the generation gap (which, this being the late 60s-early 70s, was a very timely issue) and taking a stance for the younger generations. All in all, a perfectly decent, but a bit forgettable tune, IMO - and its 12th place reflected that - although the famous Swiss trio would fare much better in their subsequent entries.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Eurovision
• Song
• Contest
• ESC
• 1971
• switzerland
• peter
• sue
• mark
• les
• illusions
• de
• nos
• vingt
• ans
• suisse
• reber
• french
• francais

[icanhearyoubreathing]

I like it!

[yiannis77yiannis]

awful clothes & that la la la at the beginning. the rest is fantastic.

[sainglain]

very good very good, go raibh maith agat (thank you) for uploading

[jchdhc]

so boring

[1zwitser]

mooi!

[Japanese1970]

Point taken illusion has a pessimistic

meaning in French, yet in this song,

in fact you have admitted it, the word

illusion has a different context. Hence,

the song is about dreams and not

drugs.

[Jeremiemf]

well, in French, "une illusion" leads you on a bad way. But in the song, they tell the older people not to take their illusion away, because these illusions, as they're typical from young people, make them discover life.

[Japanese1970]

Jeremiemf,

You Are French. Is the word "Illusion" has

a negative connotation in French?

[Jeremiemf]

well, I'm french, so I think that I know what i'm talking about ;-)

[Japanese1970]

Jeremiemf,

Illusion has to be taken in French

Context and not in English. If the

song was performed in French &

English, then it may have a different

meaning, but in this french song

illusion means dreams or experiences

of youth.

[ESCsince1968]

It can be used negatively in all languages. But from what I've seen it's use in English is more restricted than in romance languages. In the context of this song to translate literally as 'illusion' is a mistake.