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It was sung by Lulu, and was co-written by Alan Moorhouse and Peter Warne aka Michael Julien, the latter of who also wrote "Kiss Me, Honey Honey, Kiss Me" for Shirley Bassey. It was the joint winner with three other entries. These entries were Salomé singing "Vivo cantando" for Spain, Lenny Kuhr singing "De troubadour" for the Netherlands and Frida Boccara singing "Un jour, un enfant" for France. The song was the second entry with a nonsense title to win (after Massiel's previous triumph with "La La La"), and became infamous in the comedy world - most notably inspiring Monty Python's Flying Circus to parody it with "Bing Tiddle-Tiddle Bong" (Python precursor I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again had previously had Bill Oddie do something similar with a song for which the title was rendered entirely in sound effects). Lyrically, the song is a plea from the singer to her lover to "cuddle me tight". She then goes on to explain that "my heart goes boom bang-a-bang boom bang-a-bang when you are near", complete with appropriate musical accompaniment. The single made UK # 2 in the singles charts and was a major hit throughout Europe. The song was succeeded as (joint) Contest winner in 1970 by Dana singing "All Kinds of Everything" for Ireland. Over two decades after its first release, the song was included on a blacklist of banned songs issued by the BBC during the 1991 Gulf War. 'Boom Bang-A-Bang' was also the name of a BBC One 1 hour programme made to celebrate 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006. Broadcast in Eurovision week, the special was hosted by Sir Terry Wogan and featured archive footage and highlights of past contests along with a performance of that year's UK entry by Daz Sampson. The song is the theme tune to the 2010 BBC Three sitcom Him & Her. |