EUROVISION WINNERS - WAS IT WORTH RETURNING? CAROLA

Now what can I say? Carola is one of my favorite artists, an ultimate Eurovision Diva and we go back a long time. Flashback summer 1983: I was spending summer at my aunt's in Sweden. And Sweden was all about Carola after her Melodifestivalen win (full marks from each and every jury - for the first and last time ever) and 3rd place in Eurovision (6,1 million Swedes watched her there!!!) with Främling (fate is I was also in Sweden when the Mello took place and saw it live on tv. However then I was all for runner up Kikki Danielsson's Varför är kärleken röd...) Her album was the best selling album in Sweden ever (over 1.000.000 copies). She was everywhere, including a Folketspark near Fagersta where I saw her live. The tour broke all previous records in 24 out of 25 parks. The year after I saw her live in Finland. And again in the years to come. But then Carola, a controversial figure retired after 3-4 years of success and even an album with the BeeGees in the USA to study bible, so when she was back to Melodifestivalen in 1990 with Mitt i ett äventyr some people were afraid she would start to preaching in live television. Yeah, for real! Strangely the tv-screens went black in parts of Sweden just when she was on.... Sabotage? Coincidence? Edin-Ådahl won only to bomb in Eurovision (for Swedish standards at least) and she ended 2nd.

The year after she was back with "a little ballad" as she described Fångad av en stormvind before anyone heard it and stormed to victory (78 vs runner ups 45). She struggled then in Rome by finishing with a tie with France's Amina. An Eurovision first since 1969 chaos ending but this time EBU was prepaired and there were rules. Both had four times 12 but Carola had five times 10 versus Amina's only two so she was declared the winner.... Her legend blossomed and continued....

She almost returned to contest in 2003 with När löven faller, that she co-wrote but pulled out the last minute as she didn't want to perform the song herself (as in the demo that qualified) and it was disqualified. But she got to perform as interval act, and has done that several times over the years, besides co-hosting the show.

In 2006 she made her comeback with Evighet that became Invincible for Athens Eurovision. Invicible she wasn't as the scary Finnish monsters ate her as breakfast and she finished respectable 5th.

Her last try to date is One love from 2008 with Andreas Johnnson that became a real disaster. First it failed to qualify directly to the final and in the second chance it failed to qualify for the final at all.... But that is forgotten. She's a legend and nothing seems to hurt her career. Not even her controversial ideas of homosexuality and other nonsense she talks time to time, all flavored with strong beliefs based on religion.... Lately she's been helping refugees in the southern shores of Mediterranean, hosting them at home, adopting a daughter from South Africa and doing other charity work....

This said, I wouldn't bee surprised we'd see her in Eurovision again. After all she is Eurovision.

Meanwhile watch her first 25 years here (in Swedish)

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