"A-Ba-Ni-Bi" was composed by Nurit Hirsh with lyrics by Ehud Manor, a duo who had collaborated frequently in writing Israeli Eurovision entries, including the country's debut "Ey Sham". It is an up-tempo disco number, heralding a move towards this style of performance in later years. In addition to the version fully in Hebrew, Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta recorded a version with English and Hebrew lyrics. The Alphabeta was a group of singers composed by two men, Reuven Erez and Itzhak Okev, and three women, Lisa Gold-Rubin, Nehama Shutan, and Esther Tzuberi.[1]
The song deals with the way in which children relate to love. Cohen sings that, growing up, "we loved secretly/Who were we nice to?—Just uncles and aunts" and that love was conducted secretly and "We whispered only in the 'bet language'". He compares this to adulthood, where he realises that "Love is a beautiful word" and that humanity should "speak in a language of love", instead of the language of secrecy. For this reason, the song uses the Bet language—a children's language game where each syllable of the word is repeated with a bet preceding the vowel. Thus, the Hebrew a-ni o-hev o-tach (אני אוהב אותך, "I love you") becomes a-ba-ni-bi o-bo-he-be-v o-bo-ta-ba-ch. Mistakenly, the song title was captioned on screen at the contest as being "Ah-Bah-Nee-Bee" and was further confused in the UK singles market when listed on the official singles chart compiled by Music Week as "A-Bi-Ni-Bi". Musically, the song is somewhat unusual among Contest entries for ending almost immediately after the key change—most entries have either a bridge or a repetition of the chorus after this point.[1]
At the close of voting, the song had received 157 points, placing first in a field of twenty, and winning the contest. The song received points from every other voting country except Sweden, including six sets of maximum 12 points.[4] This was Israel's first Eurovision win, and it was succeeded in 1979 as contest winner and as Israeli entry by "Hallelujah" by Milk and Honey. Israel thus became the third country, after Spain (1968 and 1969) and Luxembourg (1972 and 1973), to win the contest in two successive years.
It was reported that several broadcasters of the non-participating Arab countries who were broadcasting the contest, cut abruptly the broadcast when it was clear Israel was going to win. Jordanian television cut the broadcast and showed pictures of flowers.[5]
Aftermath
Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta[a] performed their song in the Eurovision twenty-fifth anniversary show Songs of Europe held on 22 August 1981 in Mysen.[6] Izhar Cohen returned to Eurovision in the 1985 contest held in Gothenburg with "Olé, Olé", finishing fifth in a field of nineteen.[7]
"A-Ba-Ni-Bi" was covered by Grup Vitamin, Turkish parody music group as "Acaba bu ne baba be?" ("I wonder what is this dad, hey?" in Turkish) in Aşkın gözyaşları ("Tears of Love"), which was their 1994 album.
A parody of the song, with identical Hebrew lyrics in the first two lines and two lines in Mandarin Chinese, was used as the opening song of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB's 2009 game show Boom Boom Ba.