The Eurovision Song Contest 1983 was the 28th edition held on 23 April 1983 at the Rudi Sedlmayer-Halle in Munich and hosted by Marlene Charell due to Nicole's win the previous year in Harrogate. 20 nations competed in this contest: France was back after its second channel Antenne 2 (now known as France 2) took over broadcasting the competition when TF1 withdrew, and Italy and Greece also returned after a time away. Noticeably absent this time was Ireland, who did not participate due to strike action at their main channel RTE. The 1983 contest was also the first time it was broadcast in Australia and has gained a huge fan following ever since, leading Australia to compete themselves in 2015 onwards.
Several hit songs came out of this contest: Ofra Haza's second-place song was a massive European hit, as was Danijel's song for Yugoslavia and Carola's song for Sweden. For the latter, it was the first of her three Eurovision appearances.
The contest was won by Corinne Hermès for Luxembourg with the song Si la vie est cadeau. It gave Luxembourg an outright fifth win, a feat later matched by the United Kingdom in 1997 and The Netherlands in 2019, and eventually beaten by Ireland in 1994 and Sweden in 2015.
Participants[]
| Draw | Country | Artist | Song | Language | Translation | Place | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 |  France
|
Guy Bonnet | Vivre | French | Living | 8 | 56 |
| 02 |  Norway
|
Jahn Teigen | Do Re Mi | Norwegian | -- | 9 | 53 |
| 03 |  United Kingdom
|
Sweet Dreams | I'm Never Giving Up | English | 6 | 79 | |
| 04 |  Sweden
|
Carola | Främling | Swedish | Stranger | 3 | 126 |
| 05 |  Italy
|
Riccardo Fogli | Per Lucia | Italian | For Lucia | 11 | 41 |
| 06 |  Türkiye
|
Çetin Alp & The Short Waves | Opera | Turkish | -- | 19 | 0 |
| 07 |  Spain
|
Remedios Amaya | ¿Quién maneja mi barca? | Spanish | Who sails my boat? | 19 | 0 |
| 08 |  Switzerland
|
Mariella Farré | Io così non ci sto | Italian | I don't like it this way | 15 | 28 |
| 09 |  Finland
|
Ami Aspelund | Fantasiaa | Finnish | Fantasy | 11 | 41 |
| 10 |  Greece
|
Christie Stasinopoulou | Mou les | Greek | You tell me | 14 | 32 |
| 11 |  The Netherlands
|
Bernadette | Sing Me a Song | Dutch | -- | 7 | 66 |
| 12 |  Yugoslavia
|
Danijel | Džuli | Croatian | Julie | 4 | 125 |
| 13 |  Cyprus
|
Stavros & Constantina | I agapi akoma zi | Greek | Love is still alive | 16 | 25 |
| 14 |  Germany
|
Hoffmann & Hoffmann | Rücksicht | German | Consideration | 5 | 94 |
| 15 |  Denmark
|
Gry Johansen | Kloden drejer | Danish | The planet's spinning | 17 | 16 |
| 16 |  Israel
|
Ofra Haza | Hi | Hebrew | Alive | 2 | 136 |
| 17 |  Portugal
|
Armando Gama | Esta balada que te dou | Portuguese | This ballad that I give to you | 13 | 33 |
| 18 |  Austria
|
Westend | Hurricane | German | -- | 9 | 53 |
| 19 |  Belgium
|
Pas de Deux | Rendez-vous | Dutch | Meeting | 18 | 13 |
| 20 |  Luxembourg
|
Corinne Hermès | Si la vie est cadeau | French | If life is a gift | 1 | 142 |
Trivia[]
- 1983 features some similarities to the 1991 contest eight years later:
- Both editions feature Carola with a microphone/sound failure.
- In both Greek entries, a saxophonist bungled his notes.
- Both had hosts whose command of another language was not up to par, and therefore made the voting go on longer than expected. Because of this, the 1983 contest was the first contest to go over three hours.
- Both top threes featured Carola, Israel with a patriotic song, and a French-language song.
- Both runners-up from the previous year would write a song for someone else this year.
- Baby Doll participated in Jugovizija this year, coming in 6th with the song "Rudi".