That’s how you write the 1,500th Eurovision song!

Back in 1956, Jetty Paerl's De Vogels Van Holland, sent by the Netherlands, was the very first entry performed at the Eurovision Song Contest. But how many songs have been performed since then? We asked that question to some of this year's participants over the past two weeks:

Last Tuesday, Eleni Foureira’s Fuego marked the 1,499 song performed at the contest.

The first song to be performed in tonight's second Semi-Final will be the 1,500th entry to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest: Norway’s That’s How You Write A Song, performed by 2009 Eurovision Song Contest winner Alexander Rybak.

Since Alexander took part in 2009, 362 songs have been performed on the Eurovision stage. His song Fairytale was the 1,138th entry performed.

Other landmark songs in the history of Eurovision include the Swiss entry in 1963, T’en Va Pas by Ester Ofarim, the contest’s 100th entry. L’amour De Ma Vie, Luxembourg’s entry in 1986 by Sherisse Laurence, was the 500th, and Ireland's Brian Kennedy sang Every Song Is A Cry For Love as the 1,000th song:

Since the introduction of Semi-Finals, we only count songs the first time they are performed, meaning that the countries pre-qualified for the Grand Final are the last ones to be counted. As this year's Italian entry was the only act that drew to perform in the second half of the Grand Final, their song Non Mi Avete Fatto Niente will be the 1,523rd entry in the contest.

...and then we will stop counting.. until next year's Eurovision Song Contest, that is! Hold on tight, song number 2,000 is expected around the year 2030.