Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mig

"Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mig"
Eurovision Song Contest 1968 entry
Country	Sweden
Artist(s)	Claes-Göran Hederström
Language	Swedish
Composer(s)	Peter Himmelstrand
Lyricist(s)	Peter Himmelstrand
Conductor	Mats Olsson
Finals performance
Final result	5th
Final points	15
Entry chronology
◄ "Som en dröm" (1967)
"Judy, min vän" (1969) ►

"Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mig" ("It's beginning to look like love, damn it") was the Swedish entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1968, performed in Swedish by Claes-Göran Hederström, the winner of Melodifestivalen 1968.^[1] Composer  [sv], who incidentally also wrote the two songs that finished in shared third place in the 1968 pre-selections, "Gå och göm dig, Åke Tråk" and "Du vet var jag finns", would go on to write fifteen Melodifestivalen entries as well as many other popular Svensktoppen hits all through the 1960s and 1970s.

"Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mig" was performed eight on the night, following the Monaco's with "À chacun sa chanson" and preceding Finland's Kristina Hautala with "Kun kello käy". At the close of voting, it had received 15 points, placing fifth in a field of 17.

The song is widely considered a schlager classic in Sweden, mainly because of its – for the genre – highly unconventional title, its use of onomatopoeic expressions and slang and Peter Himmelstrand's humorous lyrics, including phrases like:

• "The day before yesterday I suddenly turned down the guys, when they invited me to a party and instead I spent a whole evening conversing with your mother, being polite."

• "Last night I went with you and watched a tearjerker, although I wanted to watch 'bang bang'. And then I sat listening to a string quartet – me, I only used to like 'twang twang'."

• "It's beginning to look like love, damn it. The kind of thing you read about in books, imagine that. I just don't get it, I guess I'm a little stupid. But by all means, I could be wrong..."

The song was succeeded as Swedish representative in the 1969 contest by Tommy Körberg, singing "Judy, min vän".

An English-language version, "My Time Has Come", was released in 1980.

References[]