Conception

"Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" was composed by Torgny Söderberg with Swedish lyrics by Britt Lindeborg. It was produced by Anders Engberg and Torgny Söderberg. It is an upbeat 1980s-style dance song. It deals with the lead singer discovering a pair of golden shoes in the street one day. He puts them on and immediately feels like dancing in the street, entering a "magical world". Thus, he wishes for everyone to have a pair. In addition to the Swedish original version, Herreys recorded the song in English with lyrics by Per Herrey.^[1]

Eurovision

On 25 February 1984, "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" performed by Herreys competed in the 23rd edition of the Melodifestivalen. It received 49 points, winning the competition. As the festival was used by Sveriges Television (SVT) to select their song and performer for the 29th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, the song became the Swedish entry, and Herrey's the performers, for Eurovision.^[2]

On 5 May 1984, the Eurovision Song Contest was held at the Théâtre Municipal in Luxembourg hosted by Radio Télévision Luxembourg (RTL), and broadcast live throughout the continent. Herrey's performed "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" first on the evening, preceding Luxembourg's "100% d'amour" by Sophie Carle. Curt-Eric Holmquist conducted the event's orchestra in the performance of the Swedish entry.^[3]

At the close of voting, the song had received 145 points, winning the contest. Herreys sang their winning reprise half in Swedish and half in English.^[4] They became the third winners of the competition to sing from pole position, following Teach-In in 1975 and Brotherhood of Man in 1976. No song sung first or second has won since.^[5] The song was succeeded as winner in 1985 by "La det swinge" by Bobbysocks representing Norway.

Despite the reception the song receives today, in the run-up to the contest it was not an immediate favorite to win: bookmakers Ladbrokes had Ireland's "Terminal 3" and Italy's "I treni di Tozeur" as higher favourites, so the song winning came as a surprise to many. Fellow Swedish Eurovision participant Tommy Körberg famously dubbed the group "the dancing deodorants" in the press, a derogatory nickname that stuck with them for the rest of their career in their home country^[6] – and the nonsensical title harking back to previous entries such as "Boom Bang-a-Bang", "Ding-a-dong" and "La, la, la".

Aftermath

The song has achieved considerable fame among Eurovision Song Contest fans, with a well-known archive of contest lyrics using the domain name diggiloo.net, named after it.

Richard Herrey, the lead singer of the band, performed "Let Me Be the One" (1975 British entry) as part of the interval acts of the fiftieth anniversary competition Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest held on 22 October 2005 in Copenhagen.^[7] All three band members performed the song with a mixture of English and Swedish lyrics in the Eurovision sixtieth anniversary show Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits held on 31 March 2015 in London.^[8][9] On 9 May 2024, they performed the song at the end of the second semi-final of the 2024 contest held in Malmö, Sweden.^[10][11][12]

Weekly charts