‘I do feel the angels’: How Olivia Newton-John has guided Delta to the Eurovision stage

On the evening of April 6, 1974, Australian legend Olivia Newton-John ascended the steps from the backstage area of the UK’s Brighton Dome in a voluminous light blue silk and taffeta ruffled gown, and walked onto a stage of concentric tiered circular platforms, enclosed in soft curves and a luminous palette of blues, pinks and gold. Hey, it was the 1970s.

Not quite yet an Australian icon, the 25-year-old Cambridge-born, Melbourne-raised singer was representing the United Kingdom, singing Long Live Love. She was second in the final line-up, on stage only a half-hour before ABBA would ascend the same steps, perform Waterloo and transform the destiny of Eurovision, and their careers, in a blinding moment.

In less than two weeks, some 1250 kilometres and 52 years away from Newton-John’s brush with Eurovision – she placed fourth – another Australian singer, Delta Goodrem, will walk onto a substantially modernised stage and attempt to re-create the spark of magic that wrote Newton-John, ABBA, Celine Dion, Dami Im, Julio Iglesias, Katrina and the Waves and Maneskin into the pop-cultural history books.

What connects those two women is a unique and delicate friendship, borne out of a chance meeting, parallel cancer journeys, an unexpected and enduring friendship and Goodrem’s performance as Newton-John in the biopic miniseries Olivia Newton-John: Hopelessly Devoted to You, with Newton-John’s blessing.

The third element in Goodrem’s journey from Australia to the 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, is another alumna Celine Dion, for whom Goodrem wrote (with Kristian Lundin and Savan Kotecha) the song Eyes on Me, which was recorded by Dion for her 2007 album Taking Chances.

When she walks onto the Eurovision stage, the presence of those two women – whom she calls “my friend” (Dion) and “my mentor” (Newton-John) – will be deeply felt, Goodrem says. “Whatever has led my journey into this moment, I feel really honoured and grateful, and I hope that I can bring those, keep them in my heart as I keep going.”

Reflecting on her memories of Newton-John, Goodrem adds: “I definitely have a different sort of presence of thinking about her at this moment, sort of imagining all the different questions I probably would have asked.

“I’ve thought a lot about how I would have loved to have been able to speak to her about this, and this moment. I do feel the angels … and I pray and hope that they’re with us throughout this. I always do anyway, but of course, this is a unique moment to step into and celebrate.”

Not to overestimate the complexities of Eurovision, but it is still fair to say it is more than its decades-long reputation of feathers and sequins would seem to suggest. Australia is just one of 35 countries competing in the world’s toughest music competition. Dancing grannies and heavy metal orcs may come and go, but professional careers have risen (and fallen) off the back of Eurovision.

Australia’s biggest weakness is that we are a competing country without a political voting bloc. Which is to say, many countries tend to fall in line with their European neighbours. That is, the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – tend to score each other well. Some former Balkan countries, too: Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. And Greece and Cyprus.

Australia’s scoring advantages have sometimes come from countries whose diaspora is well represented on our shores: Italy, Malta, the United Kingdom. And the persistence of some Aussie Eurovision entrants – including Goodrem – in attending pre-Eurovision “parties” in Europe, including major events held in Amsterdam and Oslo. “It was really incredible, getting to sort of get a sense of just how much is going on,” Goodrem said, when she returned from her Europe “pre-tour” last month.

The questions of geopolitics, voting and intra-European tensions are not new to Eurovision. In fact, the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest already promises to be, as they say in the corridors of power, a geopolitical doozy. First and foremost, the competition is five countries down, with Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia, and Iceland having withdrawn over the European Broadcasting Union’s decision to allow Israel to participate.

The issue – that the EBU acted quickly to suspend Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but has failed to censure Israel for its push into Gaza – is a thorny one. And the absence of Spain, in particular, will be deeply felt. That country is one of the so-called “Big Five”, which write the largest cheques to the EBU each year.

Those absences will also have an effect on the competition’s complex scoreboard. Ireland and Iceland, for example, are consistent in giving countries such as Poland and Lithuania higher than average scores. And the return to the competition of several recently absent countries – Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova – could be seen as a scoring boost for East European voting blocs.

While some artists have taken strong political stances, Goodrem has kept herself wholly out of the political sphere. Indeed, music is in the realm of soft diplomacy: the silk-gloved art of building bridges in rooms where politicians and government leaders cannot easily, or comfortably, gain access.

When I asked Goodrem about the geopolitical complexities of the event, she said her focus was on the cultural connection, and her performance. “From day one, when I got into music, from my very first single as a teenager, I got into this for love, connection, healing, unity,” Goodrem says. “My shows, when I am in an arena or whether we’re in a theatre, wherever we are, we are there for unity and for a universal language, hope and healing. And that’s really the focus, being on the stage.”

Goodrem comes to the gig well established, as a 12-time ARIA Award-winning singer, songwriter and instrumentalist. The song she will perform – a pop anthem titled Eclipse, co-written by Goodrem, Ferras Alqaisi, Jonas Myrin and Michael Fatkin – is already generating strong buzz among Eurovision fans, an unusually influential group of rusted-on diehards.

Fans are tipping it as a top-five or top-three song – a bold call but a consistent one, and one, based on past form, which will probably translate into something close to reality. That is without having yet seen the planned staging for Goodrem’s performance in Vienna next week.

Typically, the production design of a Eurovision performance isn’t revealed until the first rehearsals this weekend. What is known is that Goodrem’s inclination is for less-ostentatious staging, and that her ace-in-the-hand with the professional juries, who provide half the final score, will be her accomplishments as an instrumentalist.

Historically speaking, the crazier end of the performance spectrum does not do as well as the casual observer might think. Even ABBA, who are remembered for their gaudy costumes, were merely reflecting the disco pop of the era. In truth, groups only win about one in five times. The 1970s was big on groups – ABBA, Bucks Fizz, Brotherhood of Man – but between 2007 and 2020, for example, no groups won.

Similarly, camp and high-concept performances – the curious, loose-boundary category into which you might lump Ireland’s Dustin the Turkiye, monster-rockers Lordi or the stewardess-costumed Scooch – don’t do that well, despite the fact most people think those acts dominate Eurovision. They win less than 10 per cent of the time.

In fact, the news is good for Goodrem: female soloist performers, with minimal staging and vocal or instrument-focused performances win six out of 10 times. Add men to the mix, and the total for soloists nudges close to the 70 per cent mark. And between 2012 and 2020 every winner was a soloist. Why? The juries – broadly speaking – tend to value-add vocal ability, and its best shown off when there is nothing on stage to distract from it.

That she is a singer-instrumentalist multi-hyphenate is central to Goodrem’s identity. “I’d say very central,” she says. “First and foremost, my songwriting has always come from composing. I would count myself as a composer before even a lyricist. I was a composer first and foremost. That’s how I started songwriting. And as a pianist, the instrumental side of me is incredibly important; it is the arc of a story.”

Goodrem acknowledges that those factors will play a role in her staging choices. “I’ve felt just so excited to play and to be able to paint and be the conductor of my own instrumental,” she says. “It’s really important that the show has what I would do in my normal tours and have an arc. The pianist in me is where this all, I would say, stems from. I would say that’s my DNA.”

The Eurovision Song Contest will be televised live and in prime-time from May 13-17 on SBS and SBS On Demand.

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