A Swede who lives in Finland and who is lost in Euroland - the wonderful world of Eurovision
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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Runner-up: Ireland 1984

Sometimes it's a good thing to have a tiny break. Ireland decided to sit out in 1983 - apparently due to RTÉ feeling the need to save some money and cut some budgets - and came back in excellent form indeed.

Linda Martin - former lead singer of the band Chips - had gone solo and was given a dramatic pop song written by Johnny Logan, who had made a splash winning the 1980 ESC but whose career subsequently had gone more or less down the toilet.

Apparently he scribbled down this song in a matter of minutes while killing time at Heathrow, never regarding it as one of his better songs. I couldn't disagree more.

I'm intrigued by the inner monologue of this song. How the response to an old lover's sudden comeback is superficially happy and careless while old memories seem very hard to dismiss. It is easy to say that things are forgiven and forgotten, but are they really?

"I told him nothing's changed and I still feel the same." So she told him. It doesn't mean it's true. It makes me wonder what happens once they are reunited and the song ends. Will they be all smiles or will there be a tense drama à la Bergman? I love not knowing, I love that not everything is said in the open. It's a great little story.

Johnny Logan would famously get a second chance and even if there was no grand international career in store for him, he will always remain Eurovision royalty. In 1992, he and Linda Martin scored Ireland's fourth victory together with "Why Me?" - another really good, but possibly slightly less intriguing, song.

A deserved 2nd place?
Indeed. There were better songs in the running in 1984, but this one is certainly ahead of the Swedish winner in my list.



Linda Martin - Terminal 3 (Ireland 1984)

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