We watched all 18 performance of the Eurovision Song Contest 1965, and many thoughts and/or opinions were formed.
18 countries was, in fact, the largest contest held up until this point, so that meant more opportunities to score songs, evaluate them on their merits, and add them to the pile of all-time performances.
Italy hosted the contest for the first time in 1965, giving the honor to beautiful Napoli.
Eurovision Song Contest 1965: The Rankings Video
Who Participated In ESC 1965?
The 18 participating countries in this contest were:
- Austria
- Belgium
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy (host)
- Luxembourg (winner)
- Monaco
- The Netherlands
- Norway
- Portugal
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- Yugoslavia
France Gall (a French singer, ironically, who represented Luxembourg) delivered the country’s second victory in the contest, adding her name to the list of all-time winners. Her winning song was “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son,” or “Rag doll, wax doll.”
Wait, The Scores Look Different?
If you watched the videos we prepared through the 1964 contest, you would see that the scores for each country are slightly different than what you see now. This is because we issued a new scoring rubric just before the 2025 contest. The Eurovision Song Contest 1965 and future editions we evaluate will be based upon this new ranking. For details on how the scores changed for each entry from 1956 through 1964, we released an article.
