What are your favorites? Which ones should have won? Which ones won but didn't deserve to? Also... were there any finalists from individual countries which never made it to the contest, which you feel should have? By researching Eurovision entries, I ahve found SO MANY songs i've never heard before that I truly LOVE. My favorite of all of them is this one, and i'm totally hacked off that I can't seem to find it on CD in any form!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFjTUsYZ_uU

I'm still discovering goodies from National competitions that never made it to the contest. This is one I stumbled across from the 1971 Irish nationals, it came in fourth place... great song:

This is one that lost out to "Long Live Love", I like it WAY better, Tony Macaulay is a writer I just adore, and Keith Potger... well who needs more?

The poor guy got 0 points... but dang it, I LIKE this song. I kind of like his stage presence...cute and offbeat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04TtPfBFWO8

That was Jahn Teigen from Norway.

He tried again a few years later, and he enlisted the help of a self-proclaimed expert who, by using a computer to analyze previous winners, claimed to have found the key to composing the perfect song. Was he right? Well, I'll leave that decision up to you. Let me just say that Norway didn't win this year either.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz6lclkBtlw

The song was quite lovely... but the ending left something to be desired. The chick with him looks like Heather Locklear! LOL Poor Norway gets short changed so often, because they had many songs that I really loved... some I liked much better than this one.

There's no need to feel to bad for Norway. After all, they have won three times, which is more than most other countries.

I do find it a bit fascinating how completely different their three winning songs are.

1985, Bobbysocks - "La de swinge"

1995, Secret Garden - "Nocturne"

2009, Alexander Rybak - "Fairytale"

"La De Swinge" is just one of the catchiest damn songs Eurovision has ever produced. I must say it almost sounds like something Abba would have come up with. I should have said I felt sorry for Norway in the 60's and 70's... as those years were not kind to them.

It reminds me of Sweden's entry three years earlier, co-incidentally also sung by a female duo. And the similarities don't end there... Elisabeth Andreasson is part of both the duos. She has dual citizenship and has represented Norway on two further occasions, with another duet in 1994 and as a solo artist in 1996.

But here she represents Sweden together with Kikki Danielsson in 1982

To make things even more complicated Kikki represented Sweden as a solo artist in 1985, the same year that Elisabeth won for Norway as part of the duo Bobbysocks! It's a small Eurovision-world!

Edited August 23, 201213 yr by I Am A Swede

A few histories from Sweden.

It's not uncommon for non-winners to become big hits, but the history behind this song is something extra. It was rejected during the selection process and didn't even make it to the Swedish final in 1977, but went on to sell more copies than all the eventual finalists combined.

In an otherwise star-studded final in Sweden in 1989 the unknown pair of Haakon Pedersen and Elisabeth Berg sang their way to fifth place. A few months later Elisabeth shot to fame when she landed the lead role of Christine when "The Phantom of the Opera" opened in Stockholm.

Haakon's biggest claim to fame is that he sang the theme song for the Swedish version of "Disney's Adventures of the Gummi bears"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZwB9cgYPZs

This song from 1975 has become a cult classic in Sweden. The lyrics about picking cherries in a garden is obviously full of double-meanings, and you have to wonder if 17-year old Ann-Christine Bärnsten was aware of this when she sang it....

In recent years she has become an author of crime novels. In one of them the story involves the Eurovision Song Contest.

In October 2005 the Eurovision Song Contest celebrated its first 50 years with a television special called "Congratulations". With a name like that it's a bit ironic that the UK was one of the countries that didn't broadcast it.

The UK had their own celebration instead, just before the 2006 contest, when legendary commentator Terry Wogan hosted this television special, called "Boom Bang-a-Bang":