Fact #162300
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Bill Martin (co-composer of Congratulations) : At the time of writing this in the 60s, the contest was only twelve years old and it was an incredibly big deal to get your song in the finals, let alone win – which Phil (Coulter) and I had already done the year before with Puppet On A String. We wrote a song specifically for Cliff Richard called My Magic Music Box which we thought was great but our publisher, Jimmy Phillips, said, 'Why don't you try another one?'
We had the first song ready but to keep Jimmy happy, Phil started another song, which went 'I think I love you, I think I love you…" I thought that was awful. You can't say to anybody 'I think I love you'. You've got to say, 'I love you' or 'I don't love you.' Phil said, 'I know it's not right, so help me out.' So I worked around the five syllables of 'I think I love you' and came up with 'congratulations' and 'celebrations' and that was really my only contribution to the song. But having such a catchy title made all the difference.
It's a great thrill, because it's often played at weddings, for the Queen, even when the British troops came back from the Falklands.
(Source : not known)
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We had the first song ready but to keep Jimmy happy, Phil started another song, which went 'I think I love you, I think I love you…" I thought that was awful. You can't say to anybody 'I think I love you'. You've got to say, 'I love you' or 'I don't love you.' Phil said, 'I know it's not right, so help me out.' So I worked around the five syllables of 'I think I love you' and came up with 'congratulations' and 'celebrations' and that was really my only contribution to the song. But having such a catchy title made all the difference.
It's a great thrill, because it's often played at weddings, for the Queen, even when the British troops came back from the Falklands.
(Source : not known)