Described as a romantic "lullaby", the song gained several cover versions, with the original version gaining music chart achievement in Belgium and featured in another commercially successful album.
Background
Composition
"Dors, mon amour" was composed by Pierre Delanoë with French lyrics by Hubert Giraud. It is a love song, expressed by the singer telling his lover to sleep, while he muses on their love and the power of the night.[1] It is reviewed as "a classical sort of lullaby", and is compared to newer editions entries songs as "hardly indicative of the camp and bombast which would later come to define Eurovision."[2]
By the close of voting, it had received 27 points, placing it first, with three points above Switzerland.[5] This is the first winning entry sung by a male leading vocalist and France's first win. The song was succeeded as French entrant at the 1959 contest by "Oui, oui, oui, oui", sung by Jean Philippe, and as contest winner by "Een beetje", sung by Teddy Scholten representing the Netherlands.
Charts
"Dors, mon amour" is marked as a numberless "peak"-note position on Belgium's Walloon region singlemusic chart for the week of 1 June 1958,[6] and is included in the 2005 compilation "50 Years Of The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 - 1980" which charted in Switzerland.[7]
Legacy
The song was also covered in French in 1958, by the 1957 Eurovision winner Corry Brokken, Achille Togliani and Germana Caroli. It is covered in German by Camillo und die Bernd Hansen-Sänger as "Unser Glück, mon amour" and in Swedish by 1958 Eurovision entrant Alice Babs as "Sov min älskling".[6]