Marie Myriam

Biography

Marie Myriam (born Myriam Lopès, May 8, 1957 in Braga, Portugal) is a French singer. Representing France, she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 with " L'oiseau et l'enfant" (The bird and the child) with music by Jean Paul Cara and words by Joe Gracy. In 1981, Marie Myriam also represented France in the Yamaha Music Festival with the song "Sentimentale"; she came in ninth place. In recent years, she has read out the votes of the French Jury at the Eurovision Song Contest. She made an appe...

Marie Myriam (born Myriam Lopès, May 8, 1957 in Braga, Portugal) is a French singer.

Representing France, she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 with " L'oiseau et l'enfant" (The bird and the child) with music by Jean Paul Cara and words by Joe Gracy. In 1981, Marie Myriam also represented France in the Yamaha Music Festival with the song "Sentimentale"; she came in ninth place. In recent years, she has read out the votes of the French Jury at the Eurovision Song Contest.

She made an appearance at the 50th anniversary concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, October 2005 as a guest presenter and performer. The same year, Myriam wrote the introduction to the French edition of The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History by John Kennedy O'Connor.[1]

Myriam has lived in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) and France.

Some of Marie Myriam singles and tracks:

* "L'oiseau et l'enfant"
* "Aime Moi"
* "Sentimentale"
* "Avril au Portugal" ("April in Portugal")
* "Toda a Menina"


Eurovision Song Contest 1977 - London
Entry for France

Performer: Marie Myriam
Song title: L'oiseau Et L'enfant
Song writer(s): Joe Garcy
Song composer(s): Jean-Paul Cara

The Eurovision Song Contest 1977 was the first contest which was troubled by a strike and was only organised five weeks after the planned date.

This year's Eurovision Song Contest took place at the Wembley Conference Centre in London. The event was postponed for five weeks because of the fact that the cameramen and technicians were on strike. The song contest was supposed to take place on the 2nd of April, but it did not take place before the 7th of May. 18 countries took part this year. Sweden returned, and Yugoslavia withdrew from the contest. Tunisia was supposed to take part as well, performing in 4th position, but the country withdrew its entry.

The rule of performing in one's national language was brought back to the song contest as since 1973, countries could sing in a language they wanted. However, Germany and Belgium were allowed to perform in English because their entries had already been chosen before the rule was brought back.

The German group Silver Convention had been hugely popular all over the world in the mid 70s with songs like Fly Robin Fly and Get Up And Boogie. Even if there were high hopes that their 1977 entry Telegram would mark the first victory for Germany, the song only ended up in 8th position. Anita Skorgan sang her first entry Casanova for Norway this year. She would return in 1979 and also try several more times to represent her home country, but always lost out in the Norwegian national heats. Austria gave a innovative performance as Boom Boom Boomerang by the group Schmetterlinge was performed with the artists wearing masks on the back of their heads.

France won its fifth victory - and last to date - with the song L'Oiseau Et L'Enfant performed by Marie Myriam. France's victory was a record in Eurovision Song Contest history. The record was equalled by Luxembourg in 1983, and beaten by Ireland in 1994. The United Kingdom entry Rock Bottom by Lynsey de Paul and Mike Moran came second. It was the 11th consecutive time that a British entry came top 4.
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