Sweden used a national preselction called ''Melodifestivalen 1983'' to select an entry for the 28th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. Winner, being the first participant ever to get maximum points from all of the eleven juries, was the 17-year-old and then unknown

Carola Häggkvist Carola Maria Häggkvist (; born 8 September 1966), commonly known simply as Carola, is a Swedish singer and songwriter. She has been among Sweden's most popular performers since the early 1980s and has released albums ranging from pop and disco ...

, who quickly went on to be one of Sweden's most popular singers. The song she competed with was called " Främling". It was written by

Lasse Holm Lars-Eric Gustav "Lasse" Holm (born 9 December 1943) is a Swedish singer, songwriter and television host. Holm has also hosted and appeared in several television shows. As singer Since childhood, he was interested in music and was a member of ...

and

Monica Forsberg Monica Yvonne Forsberg (born 14 September 1950) is a Swedish singer, songwriter and actress. She was a member in the group Ritz, which competed in Melodifestivalen in 1983 (which finished number 4 with the song "Marionett") and 1985 (with the ...

, who had also written the previous winning song together.

Before Eurovision

Melodifestivalen 1983

Melodifestivalen Melodifestivalen (; literally "the Melody Festival") is an annual song competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR). It determines the country's representative for the Eurovision Song ...

1983 was the selection for the 23rd song to represent

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

at the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

. It was the 22nd time that this system of picking a song had been used. 90 songs were submitted to

Sveriges Television Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksdag (national ...

for the competition. The final was held in the Palladium in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

on 26 February 1983, presented by

Bibi Johns Bibi Johns is a Swedish singer and film actress active in Germany.Koepnick p.64 Filmography * ''Ten on Every Finger'' (1954) * ''How Do I Become a Film Star?'' (1955) * '' Ball at the Savoy'' (1955) * ''A Thousand Melodies'' (1956) * ''Beneath ...

and was broadcast on TV1 but was not broadcast on radio. Carola was the only artist to score full marks from each jury, prompting the presenter to say before the final votes were announced: "Det här är inte alls spännande!" (This isn't at all exciting!).

Voting

At Eurovision

The final, held in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, attracted an estimate of 5,6 million viewers (about 70% of Sweden's population back then). Carola was drawn #4 in a field of 20 and was considered a big favourite for the title. Sweden received 12 points from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and ended up with 126 points and a 3rd place. It was also Sweden's 3rd best placement so far.

Voting

References

External links

TV broadcastings at SVT's open archive
{{Melodifestivalen

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1983

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...