Morten Thomassen discussed next 1981 when Germany ended for the second year in a row in second place. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

Today’ we discuss the year 1981. It had one of the most exciting polls in our beloved competition, when there were 2 polls left, 3 countries were on the same score in the lead.

 

Unfortunately for Switzerland, who were one of them, they were one of the two remaining juries and thus they were out. They actually fell to fourth place in the end.

 

France came from behind to take third place, but they were 7 points short of the silver medal.

 

It went to Germany for the second year in a row and this time they were only 4 votes short of taking their first victory and the fact that the Swiss jury did not give them points was probably the main reason why the victory slipped away.

 

It went, as everyone remembers, to our British friends who are best remembered for ripping off their skirts on stage and this “stripping” gave them the extra four points they needed to win.

 

Lena Valaitis sang “Johnny Blue” and she actually got twice as many 12 points as the winning song from Bucks Fizz.

 

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Lena was perfectly OK with coming in second place, but it was obviously not the composer Ralph Siegel who after the 1981 final had achieved 2 second places in a row, well we all know that he got his final revenge the following year.

 

Lena was born in Lithuania during the Second World War in a part of the country that then belonged to Germany.

 

She started her musical career in 1970 and already in 1976 tried to represent Germany in the ESC, when she came in seventh place.

 

She had one more attempt to reach the international final in 1992 and then she came in third place.

 

The artist career actually ended in 1993, but when the new millennium came she couldn’t stay away any longer and she has been releasing music until 2012 as far as I can read.

 

However, the lady is now 79 years old, so the question is whether she is particularly relevant as a participant in our beloved competition several times.