50 years: Revisit The Year Of The Puppet

C'mon sandie, give us a smile

Congratulations Sandie Shaw!
It's 50 years ago that Sandie Shaws Puppet On A String started popping up in various charts, ahead of the Eurovision victory in Vienna on April 8.
Puppet On A String was written by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter who also gave us Cliff Richard's Congratulations a year later. (and Luxembourg 1975).
It also means that it's 10 years ago Eurocovers featured coverversions from all corners of the world in The Year Of The Puppet series.

Sandie Shaw didn't always have much love for the Puppet, understandable, as I can imagine she didn't want to be associated with just that one blody song all the time.
Plus it was Sandie's least favorite of her five "A Song For Europe" songs.
Before Eurovision Sandie had a good run of hits, including several Number 1's like (There's) Always Something There To Remind Me (1964) and Long Live Love (1965). And then there's her work from the 80's with The Smiths* and the acclaimed Hello Angel album.

Street Organs LOVE Puppet on a string

But Sandie got over it and she even recorded a new version of Puppet On A String to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the song.

*Actually, "with The Smiths" is a bit of a stretch, Sandie's Hand In Glove features the original Smiths backing track re-invented in the studio without the band's knowledge. Morrissey loved Sandie but hated what became of Hand In Glove. (I disagree, it's brilliant).
Later on Morrissey wrote Please Help The Cause Against Loneliness for her (with Stephen Street).

The Year Of The Puppet articles are still here, go here you'll get them all.

The Year Of The Puppet celebrated the 40 year anniversary of Sandie Shaw's Eurovision victory with Puppet On A String. Introduction to the series in this Eurocovers post.
Other versions featured are from France, Singapore (Mandarin-Chinese), Jamaica.Yugoslavia, Estonia, U.K. (Comedy), Iceland, Lithuania,USA (Musical), Spain, Brasil, UK punk, Norway (gloom),  Norway, Turkey, Portugal, Basque country Organland,Tirol, Denmark, CzechoSlovakia (Czech), Hungary,Russia, Yugoslavia (Slovenia), Chile/Argentina/Mexico,Sweden, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Finland, Scotland,Poland, Czechoslowakia (Slovak), Trinidad*, More Jamaica and more Singapore